Dubai Duty Free Senior Vice President Corporate Communications (and Tournament Director, Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships) Salah Tahlak receives the award from Sheikh Mansoor bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Chairman of the Dubai International Marine Club along with Dubai Duty Free Vice President Finance Bernard Creed (second left) |
UAE. The Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships has been awarded a five-star ranking by Dubai Sports Council. The Council’s newly introduced “˜Sports Events Ranking System’ rates the leading sporting events that take place in Dubai.
The announcement was made at a ceremony held at the Armani Hotel in Burj Khalifa on 16 November.
Owned and organised by Dubai Duty Free, the tennis tournament, which attracts top male and female players and a global TV audience of some 400 million, was selected from 87 sporting events in Dubai to receive the five-star rating. Out of the 87 entries, only four received this ranking, including the Dubai World Cup (horse racing), the DP World Tour Championship (golf) and Dubai Tour (cycling). A further 29 sporting events received four stars, while 53 events received three stars, with one event receiving the two-star category.
Dubai Duty Free Executive Vice Chairman Colm McLoughlin said: “We are delighted with this new initiative by the Dubai Sports Council and delighted that we have received the top honour for the tennis. We have spent the past 23 years building up this tournament to a world class event which the players and fans love, and which provides a great deal of media exposure for Dubai as a sports and leisure destination. Receiving this ranking is a major vote of confidence and my thanks to DSC and the committee for their support.”
Accepting the award, Salah Tahlak, who is Senior Vice President – Corporate Communications of Dubai Duty Free and Tournament Director of the Tennis Championships, said: “It means a lot. I’m very thrilled and it gives me lot of pride. We have been there for the last 23 years and we are really happy that we got it. The five-star ranking will give us more responsibility to look at things in a different angle. Maybe there are lot of things we don’t see. That will give us some benchmark to give us some guidelines.” Tahlak is the first person from the UAE, GCC and the Arab world to be a member of both the WTA and ATP Tournament Councils.
Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and Chairman of Dubai Sports Council ratified the results of the “˜Sports Events Ranking System’, an initiative launched by the DSC to rank sports events according to 13 criteria and 29 key performance indicators (KPIs), and classify them under specific categories.
The system also classifies the events under five categories: event development, economic development, sports development, social development and brand development. The new Sports Events Ranking System is part of the UAE’s efforts to set new global benchmarks for excellence in every sphere of life including the sports sector.
Next year’s Tennis Championships will be held from 15-27 February at Dubai Duty Free Tennis Stadium, with Simona Halep and Roger Federer likely to defend their titles.
