Copyright © 2016. No duplication is permitted without permission from Bob Larson Tennis.

Nick Kyrgios and Daria Gavrilova have won Australia’s first Hopman Cup title since 1999 defeating Alexandr Dolgopolov and Elina Svitolina of Ukraine 2-0.

After seven days of action packed tennis, 96,146 fans visited Perth Arena for the 28th annual staging of the event which featured eleven top 50 players, including two top ten players.

This is Hopman Cup 2016’s final word.

On-court action

·         World No.30 Nick Kyrgios and world No.36 Daria Gavrilova defeated world No.36 Alexandr Dolopolov and world No.19 Elina Svitolina to win Australia’s first Hopman Cup crown in 17 years.

·         Ukraine made its return to the Hopman Cup for the first time in 21 years.

·         In 2016 13 ties, 39 matches and 89 sets were played during 3 to 9 January 2016.

·         This year, the Hopman Cup saw Australia Green and Australia Gold represented at the event as well as Czech Republic, France, Germany, Great Britain, Ukraine and USA.

·         Three Grand Slam singles champions: Andy Murray, Lleyton Hewitt, Serena Williams with 25 major titles in total were among the field and 11 current top 50 players: Andy Murray,  Nick Kyrgios, Jack Sock, Alexandr Dolgopolov, Jiri Vesely, Serena Williams, Karolina Pliskova, Elina Svitolina, Sabine Lisicki, Caroline Garcia, Daria Gavrilova.

·         Six players returned to the Hopman Cup, including three from last year: Andy Murray – 2010, 2011, 2015; Lleyton Hewitt – 2002, 2003, 2004, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012; Serena Williams – 2003, 2008, 2015; Sabine Lisicki – 2009, 2010; Heather Watson – 2015; Jarmila Wolfe – 2012.

·         Nine players made their Hopman Cup debut: Nick Kyrgios, Jack Sock, Alexandr Dolgopolov, Jiri Vesely, Alexander Zverev, Karolina Pliskova, Elina Svitolina, Caroline Garcia, Daria Gavrilova.

·         Jack Sock (USA) clocked the fastest men’s serve of the tournament at 224km/h.

·         Sabine Lisicki (GER) recorded the fastest women’s serve at 193 km/h.

Off-court action

·         During the first week of January the world’s best have had the chance to experience various parts of Perth, Western Australia:

·   Andy Murray met Sunshine, Perth’s famous koala in Kings Park

·   Nick Kyrgios had a hit of beach tennis at the iconic Cottesloe Beach

·   Sabine Lisicki and Alexander Zverev swapped their racquets for surfboards at Trigg Beach before taking in a feast of WA seafood at Kailis Bros

·   Jack Sock and Vicky Duval of Team USA were spotted visiting Perth Zoo

·   France’s Kenny De Schepper and Ukraine’s Elina Svitolina and Alexandr Dolgopolov visited Caversham Wildlife Park to feed the kangaroos and cuddle the koalas

·   Heather Watson had a backstage tour of the Lion King production

·         The Hopman Cup VIP Player Party at Crown Perth saw all 16 players walk the blue carpet. The event featured a panel with tennis legend Margaret Court and Serena Williams, Andy Murray and Nick Kyrgios discussed their bromance while a tribute was made to Lleyton Hewitt.

Attendance

·         A total of 96,146 attended Hopman Cup 2016, the second largest attendance in the event’s history.

·         Saturday 9 January’s final between Australia Green and Ukraine saw 12,563 attend the session, the highest attendance record for a Hopman Cup final

·         Wednesday 6 January’s night session between Australia Green and Great Britain saw the event’s largest session attendance for 2016 with 13,071 attendees packing into Perth Arena to watch Nick Kyrgios and Daria Gavrilova defeat Andy Murray and Heather Watson. This is the second highest session attendance in the tournament’s history, sitting behind the Australia and Serbia session in 2013.

·         Each session in 2016 saw two team supporter bays where supporters purchased seats with other fellow country supporters to cheer on their favourite team.

·         70,000 country hand waver flags were handed out during the tournament.

·         Famous faces in the crowd included tennis legends Margaret Court, Fred Stolle and Neale Fraser, Australian Fed Cup captain Alicia Molik, 2015 Brownlow medallist Nat Fyfe with fellow Fremantle Dockers Players Matthew Pavlich, Tommy Sheridan, Matt De Boer, West Coast Eagles Eric MacKenzie and Andrew Embley, Wildcats star Matthew Knight, Australian cricketer Mitchell Johnson and Australian actor Lincoln Lewis.

Broadcast and media

·         More than 75 print, radio and broadcast media provided extensive media coverage of the event to media outlets around Australia and worldwide.

·         The Nick Kyrgios v Andy Murray match on Wednesday 6 January night saw audiences peak at over 600,000 viewers on 7mate in Australia, with the average TV audience for the tournament up over 18 per cent from 2015.

·         Hopman Cup 2016 was broadcast to more than 150 countries by over 15 different broadcast partners.

·         In Europe, broadcasters included Arena Sport in the Czech Republic, Ma Chaine Sport in French speaking countries, Polsat in Poland and British Eurosport in the UK. Tennis Channel in the USA and TyC Sports Latin covered it across the Americas.  Dubai Sports Channel in the Middle East and Northern Africa and Star Times in Sub-Sahara Africa are among the list of other broadcast partners whilst in Asia, coverage was provided by Fox Sports, and in India and the sub-continent by Sony Six.

Digital and social media

·         As of 9 January @hopmancup on Twitter grew by almost 20 per cent, to 19.5K followers and generated 4.36 million impressions and 192,000 profile visits during the event period.

·         Hopman Cup – Australian Open Series Facebook page grew by 20 per cent to over 15,700 followers and featured on-court action, colour and exclusive behind the scenes content.

·         The Hopman Cup YouTube channel generated hundreds of thousands of views, with a clip of Jack Sock’s amazing display of sportsmanship going viral, with over 120,000 views alone as of today.

A total of

·         1,128 Wilson tennis balls were used throughout the Hopman Cup while 215 racquets were restrung for players.

·         1,920 towels including 240 personalised embroided player towels were used during the event.

·         66 ballkids aged 12-15 made up the Hopman Cup 2016 squad.

·         Matches were officiated by 32 linespeople, five chair umpires and one referee from around Australia and the world.

·         Players were transported by a fleet of 24 Volkswagen cars during the event, with 28 volunteer drivers completing more than 950 trips between 5:30 am and midnight each day.

·         8,400 Mount Franklin water bottles were consumed by players, tournament staff, volunteers and officials.

·         Fans enjoyed 7,828 ice creams, 23,794 buckets of chips, 6,300 chocolate bars, 16,370 cups of coffee and 12,389 soft drinks while watching the tennis at Perth Arena.

Community tennis and fan engagement

·         60,000 Hawk-Eye paddles were handed out to the fans at Perth Arena who guessed the outcome of challenges with an accuracy of 76 per cent

·         Andy Murray was a special guest at Hopman Cup’s family and friends day on Saturday 2 January which saw a group of children given the exclusive opportunity to watch his practice session on centre court before he answered some questions.

·         A total of 18 lucky fans battled it out throughout the tournament for their chance to win a Volkswagen Polo 66TSI Trendline, with one lucky winner taking home the much coveted prize during the final.

·         Young budding tennis players from Kununurra Tennis Club in the Kimberley region, Western Australia had the chance to meet Great Britain’s Heather Watson.

·         Channel Seven’s Fat Cat headlined Hopman Cup Kids Tennis Day on Sunday 3 January with kids gift bags given out throughout the day.

·         Tennis West’s Speed Serve Challenge saw the fan’s fastest men’s serve at 181km/h and fastest women’s serve at 130km/h.

·         10,800 visited the Tennis West activation on-site and took part in mini tennis, Hit the Target and Speed Serve activities.

·         21 local Tennis Hot Shots participants had the opportunity to toss the coin before the start of matches.

·         10,400 photos were taken at the Tennis West Photobooth.

·         190 Tennis Hot Shots participants took part in the Tennis Hot Shots on court initiative held in between the second singles and doubles matches of every day session.

·         41 West Australian tennis clubs took part in the Have a Hit on Us campaign, giving Hopman Cup ticket holders the chance to redeem their ticket stub for one hour of free court hire at their club.

Copyright © 2016. No duplication is permitted without permission from Bob Larson Tennis.