CEO of BNP Paribas reflects on fall edition of the tournament

The first-ever Fall Edition of the BNP Paribas Open is coming to end this weekend. Fans from all over have come to experience the tournament.

“I got box seats for that for today and tomorrow because it's very exciting," said tennis fan Sam Tomaine who traveled from Arizona for the tournament.

He said he couldn’t let himself miss the tournament this year, even if the roster didn’t include some of tennis's biggest stars like Roger Federer or Serena Williams.

“I do think that anybody can beat anybody on any given day," said Tomaine. "It gives the up-and-coming players an extremely good chance to show what they have because they're going to be our future.”

The CEO of the BNP Paribas, USA, Jean-Yves Fillion, said he agrees.

“The newer generation is playing and kind of you know pushing forward and making their own statement here and I think it's even more exciting for tennis," Fillion said.

He predicts this year’s tournament brought in more than 200,000 fans. In comparison, he said the spring tournament usually brings in more than 500,000 fans. He said the pandemic forced the BNP to give a much shorter notice to fans about this year's tournament than usual.

Regardless, he said the Fall Edition of the tournament has been a success.

“We just felt we could not skip two years in a row and in the meantime, it's a great launching pad to go back to normalcy next year," said Fillion.

There are five months left until the next tournament in March 2022. Tennis fans at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden rally by making the most of their time left in tennis paradise.

“So it's up for grabs here and I think that makes the younger players much more enthusiastic to play here and I'm very excited about being here again," said Tomaine.