ITF

34 PRESIDENTIAL & COMMUNICATIONS: COMMUNICATIONS 35 The ITF Centenary in 2013 added new activities to the list of responsibilities supported by the ITF Communications department. Under the direction of a full-time consultant, projects for the ITF Centenary included the publication of a history of the ITF, called "A Century of Contribution to Tennis". The centenary was launched at the 2012 Davis Cup Final in Prague, the 100th Final of the competition, with special branding, a travelling history wall and the introduction of the Davis Cup Commitment Award, honouring players who have played in 20 or more home and away ties or 50 at any level of the competition. The ITF World Champions Dinner, held annually since 1978 on the second Tuesday of Roland Garros, is managed by the Communications department and was centenary-themed in 2013. The ITF World Champions led by Novak Djokovic and Serena Williams were all in attendance and saw the 13th and final appearance as a World Champion by wheelchair star Esther Vergeer who has retired as a full-time player. The ITF's highest honour, the Philippe Chatrier Award, was presented to the All England Club for the contributions that they have made to tennis. This award was accepted by Philip Brook, Chairman of the AELTC, and former chairmen Tim Phillips and John Curry. The other main functions of the centenary were the Gala Dinner at Versailles at the Annual General Meeting in Paris, co-hosted with the French Tennis Federation, and the Fed Cup Final, held in Cagliari, Italy, which celebrated the 50th year of the competition. The department has shifted its focus towards the web and social media, with fewer publications printed during the year. The two exceptions are ITF World, the ITF's flagship magazine, and The ITF Year, an annual compendium of tennis information. The media guides for Davis Cup and Fed Cup were digitalised in 2013 and housed on the relevant website. The gratifying growth of our web properties and social network accounts in 2013 reflects the extra resourcing that has been dedicated to these projects. Overall the ITF attracted almost 30 million visits from over 9 million unique visitors. Traffic on the English and Spanish Davis Cup websites was up by just over 11 per cent while Fed Cup was up 2.6 per cent. Facebook and Twitter both showed significant growth in 2013 with Davis Cup English Facebook nearly doubling its number of followers in a year. The department also negotiated with Facebook to have the Davis Cup Final publicised on the Tennis on Facebook page which has over 11 million followers, a significant step forward for the competition. Other new online initiatives included Live Blog coverage over Davis Cup and Fed Cup tie weekends and the launch of the social media hub. The department, working with the Television department, also hired dedicated television crews to work at ties to improve what is available for our websites, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube properties and this has generated a substantial amount of traffic. As part of its remit to provide services for international media, the department has a team on site at all four Grand Slams and at selected Davis Cup, Fed Cup, Junior and Beach Tennis events during the year. The department also liaises with the press officers from World Group Davis Cup and Fed Cup nations, offering advice and creating a resource in order to improve working conditions for journalists at our key events and encourage extra promotion of the competitions. The ITF is also responsible for the formulation and distribution of the ITF's position on a wide range of topics including anti-doping, player participation and other ad hoc topics that arise during the year. New online initiatives included Live Blog coverage over Davis Cup and Fed Cup tie weekends and the launch of the social media hub. 11% 30 million Increase in traffic to Davis Cup English and Spanish websites Visits to ITF website COMMUNICATIONS

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