Rolex
Rolex and the Australian Open
Rolex is Associate Sponsor and Official Timekeeper of the Australian Open 2013 and is particularly proud to be affiliated with the first Grand Slam tournament of the year.
The Australian Open follows close on the heels of the end-of-year holiday season and benefits from a jovial atmosphere. Players and fans alike are in a festive mood, which led Roger Federer to coin the term “happy slam” to describe the tournament.
Sponsorship of the Australian Open is part of Rolex's long and close relationship with tennis, which includes a 30-year association with The Wimbledon Championships. This commitment to tennis is further confirmed by partnerships with other major tournaments, such as:
- Davis Cup
- WTA Championships, Istanbul
- Barclays ATP World Tour Finals, London
- Monte-Carlo Rolex Masters
- Mutua Madrileña Masters Madrid
- Internazionali BNL d'Italia, Rome
- Rogers Cup (held alternately in Montreal and Toronto)
- Shanghai Rolex Masters
- BNP Paribas Masters, Paris
Rolex also supports the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, Rhode Island (USA), into which great players who have marked the history of tennis are inducted each year at a ceremony during the Hall of Fame Tennis Championships.
Rolex is proud to have three high-ranking players among its Testimonees:
- Switzerland's Roger Federer, living tennis legend and winner of an unsurpassed 17 Grand Slam victories on four different surfaces. He holds the record for more than 300 weeks at No. 1, won the men's silver medal at the 2012 Olympic Games in London and has four Australian Open titles to his credit: 2004, 2006, 2007 and 2010.
- After defeating defending champion Francesca Schiavone of Italy in the 2011 Roland Garros finals, China’s Li Na made history by becoming the first player from an Asian nation to win a Grand Slam title. Her momentum started earlier that year when she reached a major singles final at the 2011 Australian Open – yet another first for an Asian player.
- Denmark's Caroline Wozniacki was ranked No. 1 in the WTA from October 2010 to January 2012. She caught the public eye in 2006 when she won the prestigious Wimbledon Junior Championships and has taken but a few years to scale the ranks of world tennis.
Rolex is also associated with three other tennis champions: Serbia's Ana Ivanovic, France's Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Argentina's Juan Martin del Potro.
Precision, skill, elegance and the pursuit of excellence have made Rolex and tennis perfect partners.