This is a milestone for professional women’s tennis in Hamburg! The ECE Group has taken over the title sponsorship of the WTA125 tournament, which will be held at Hamburg’s Rothenbaum from 4 to 10 August. The tournament will now be known as the ECE Ladies Hamburg Open. In addition, the players’ organisation WTA has now published the entry list. It is headed by defending champion Arantxa Rus.

The ECE Group has already provided intensive support to tournament director Sandra Reichel and MatchMaker Sports GmbH in recent years. For example, it was responsible for project management and design planning for the modernisation of the Rothenbaum Stadium, which was largely financed by the Alexander Otto Sports Foundation. The ECE Group has also been one of the main sponsors of the Hamburg European Open for the past five years. The ECE Group would now like to make its contribution to establishing women’s tennis in Hamburg in the long term.

‘It is an important signal for women’s tennis that world-class players will also be playing alongside local heroes at the Rothenbaum in this Olympic year. I am therefore delighted that Sandra Reichel has managed to organise a women’s tournament here in Hamburg after all and would like to thank her for her determination in the difficult search for a solution. She deserves support for this, which we are happy to provide with ECE. ECE’s commitment is linked to the goal of securing Hamburg as a location for women’s tennis and generally promoting women’s sport in all its diversity,’ says Alexander Otto, CEO of the ECE Group.

In addition to supporting the tournament as title sponsor, many other activities are planned with the ECE Group. For example, the Alexander Otto Sports Foundation and the ECE Ladies Hamburg Open will invite teams from Hamburg clubs involved in disabled sports as well as the applicants for the Werner Otto Prize to visit the course. After all, the topic of inclusion has been at the top of the tournament’s agenda for years. The ECE Kids Cup for children in the U8 to U10 age groups will also be held again at Rothenbaum.

‘We are delighted that we have been able to further expand our cooperation with the ECE Group. The support at this time in particular is an important sign that Alexander Otto and his ECE Group want to help us provide a home for women’s tennis in Hamburg. The fact that we still managed to get a women’s tournament to Hamburg this year was a stroke of luck. The even more intensive co-operation with the ECE Group is even more so. I’m really looking forward to the first serve at the ECE Ladies Hamburg Open,’ says Tournament Director Sandra Reichel.

About the ECE Group:
The ECE Group is an owner-managed family business from Hamburg that operates internationally in the real estate and investment business, offering asset management, project development expertise, investment management and other full-service real estate services under one roof and a comprehensive range of services – from the professional management of shopping centres to the planning and realisation of residential projects, office buildings, logistics centres, hotels and the development of entire city districts to the management of specialised real estate funds. The ECE Group manages property assets with a total value of around 31 billion euros and handles an ongoing construction and planning volume of over 3.9 billion euros. Founded in 1965 by mail order pioneer Professor Werner Otto (1909-2011), the company is still owned by the Otto family and is managed by Alexander Otto as CEO of the ECE Group. Further information can be found at: www.ece.com