Novak Djokovic and Naomi Osaka are the reigning champions at again-to-returned Grand Slam occasions after titles on the U.S. Open in September and Australian Open in January. It’s been almost 1 / 4 century considering that a man and a woman repeated at the same Slam event; Pete Sampras and Steffi Graf had been the last to pull it off in 1995.
Djokovic, 31, and Osaka, 21, are at different points of their careers, with 15 Grand Slam titles and, respectively, however the two have come to be advertising stars under the banner of sports activities corporation large IMG, including to a legacy that makes IMG Tennis one of the most dominant players in the game.
IMG has been racking up wins off the court docket in latest months with the advertising explosion of Osaka; the addition of the top-ranked American Sloane Stephens as a customer; and operating a transformed Miami Open event, which kicks off the subsequent week at the Hard Rock Stadium, and 19 different events around the sector. The organization also counts fellow tennis endorsement stars Kei Nishikori and Maria Sharapova as customers.
IMG isn’t always resting on its laurels because it seems to make further inroads into the fertile Asian market. “You may have 10 Chinese ladies in the top a hundred inside the subsequent 5 or six years,” says Max Eisenbud, who runs the purchaser division of IMG Tennis and has overseen the careers of Sharapova and Li Na. The seeds of IMG in Asia hint returned 50 years, and its recent experience in Asia with Li and Nishikori helped paved the way for Osaka’s advertising surge.
Li became the first participant from China, person, to win a Grand Slam singles title with her 2011 French Open identify. The Roland Garros very last turned into watched by 116 million human beings in China, consistent with CCTV. Similar to what IMG and Eisenbud did for Sharapova and her 2004 Wimbledon name, they spun gold out of a surprising Grand Slam win. IMG signed seven new multimillion-greenback offers for Li rapidly after the French Open, pushing her annual off-court docket earnings from $2 million to nearly $20 million.
