Tennis Tourney Features Battle of Brands
P A R I S, May 24, 2004 -- To a tennis fan, the 2004 French Open looks like a prestigious international championship — one of the four tournaments that constitute the Grand Slam — where more than 300 men and women athletes compete for six singles and doubles titles and $16 million in prizes and expenses.
But there is a parallel reality: Dozens of corporations compete for supremacy and hundreds of millions of dollars in sports apparel revenue.
Adidas, the German-based international company, positioned itself last week to reach tens of thousands of tennis fans arriving by subway near the front gates of Stade Roland Garros.
Workers plastered dozens of giant photos of Justine Henin-Hardenne, the world's top women's player, along the tracks and passages inside the Porte d'Auteil station. Each photo carried a discreet three-line Adidas pyramid logo.
The diminutive Belgian, top-seeded at this year's Open, appears transfixed, her mouth open in a shout, her trademark blond ponytail flying a yard behind her. Above her six-foot-tall head, Adidas inscribed the words: "Impossible Is Nothing."
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Accepting its challenge, Nike officials took up positions in a house just outside a back gate of the 19.5-acre Roland Garros complex.
Tucked discreetly onto Rue Gambetta, its address is known to about 170 key visitors. Each is under contract to Nike or on a list of favored tennis players from across the world. Each arrives with a printed invitation.
On Friday, dark-haired Anastasia Myskina of Russia, the world's fifth-ranked women's player, sat in a well-appointed parlor on the second floor as Nike workers presented her with choices of free clothing.
Carrying six boxes of tennis shoes, Monica Kolstad of Nike's Portland office entered the room and knelt at a coffee table.
"What was your size?" she asked.
"Did you get what you needed?" Nike consultant Richard Roundtree of Honolulu asked a young man.
In each case, the player was allowed to choose the size, color, and type of garment he or she preferred.
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