ITF

222 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My Life, My Medal is the third in a series of books published by the ITF to celebrate tennis and the Olympics. The first, Journey to Beijing, demonstrated the respect and admiration that our athletes have for other Olympic sports while the second, Aspire, Inspire, allowed tennis's greatest players to talk about – and hear back from – their own Olympic heroes. This book, published to mark Rio 2016, looks back at medallists from the Olympics starting with the return of tennis to the Games at Seoul 1988 and the first Paralympics for tennis in 1992. The response from the medallists has been overwhelming and the comments from them so positive that it is clear that the campaign of tennis to return to the Games, started by former ITF President Philippe Chatrier and General Secretary David Gray, was not only well placed but essential to the position tennis holds in sport today. Thank you to all the players who took part in this project, and to the agents and media managers who facilitated their involvement. For this project, we were fortunate to have the support of two ITF Presidents: current president David Haggerty and former president Francesco Ricci Bitti. Thanks also to Juan Margets, Secretary General of the ITF, and to the rest of the ITF team in London who encouraged us along the way. This project took over 18 months from start to finish and was led by two dedicated members of the ITF Communications team, Joanne Burnham, who led the design team and meticulously edited the book, and Emily Bevan, who worked tirelessly to track down every player to ensure that we told a complete story. Supporting them every step of the way were their colleagues from the Communications department: Monica Escolar Rojo, Diego Gomez, Samantha Haydock, Nick Imison, Ed Pearson, Jamie Renton and Max Woodward. All three ITF Olympic books have been produced by Clarus Design under the careful eye of Maryam Meddin who has contributed so much to these projects and so much else over the years. One of the strengths of the ITF Communications department is the relationships that we have with tennis journalists and photographers around the world and you will see examples of their fine work throughout this book. The names of all our contributors are listed on the page opposite, but I would like to say special thanks to Corinne Dubreuil, Sandra Harwitt and Paul Zimmer, who helped us to contact players and organise interviews and photographs. We were fortunate to have a network of contacts at our national associations, and the help of the ATP and WTA communications teams when locating players and facilitating photographs and interviews for this book. I would also like to thank the following people, and apologise in advance if we have forgotten anyone: ASAP Sports; Bruce Davidson; Ellen de Lange; Emily Forder-White; Victoria Gracia; Tami Kinney, Agassi Graf Holdings; Neda Miletic, Serbian Tennis Federation; Ricky Nie, Red Lantern; Benito Perez-Barbadillo; Igor Rajkovic, Croatian Tennis Federation; Harriet Rendle, Tennis Australia; Dinara Safina, Russian Tennis Federation; Richard van Poortvliet. It has been a pleasure to be part of this project and we look forward to Rio 2016 and another great Olympic Tennis Event. Tennis is proud to be an Olympic sport and we hope to honour our athletes and our association with the Olympic Movement itself through this book. Barbara Travers HEAD OF COMMUNICATIONS INTERNATIONAL TENNIS FEDERATION

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