China Open 2010

After working one-on-one with the players and WTA/ATP officers,  the China Open staff,  and the reporters and studio teams from Associated Press, Reuters, China Daily, U. COM, Tennis Channel, CCTV, etc., I can't imagine a job where I could have learned more about the way a major event works. The internship was amazing,  and even though we worked crazy long hours and sometimes barely had time to sit down (or eat!) I would do it again in a heartbeat.

Here's a video I made of photos from my media relations internship in Beijing at the 2010 China Open:



All of the photos in the video are mine, except for the montage of players at the end. Here are a few of the players I specifically worked with or had a memorable experience with during the tournament:

{in order  from the end of the video:}

• Andrea Petkovic: That's an official press photo from a private clinic she did with a father and son before the tournament. Katie and I brought her to the clinic along with a Player Relations Staff member on a golf cart.  We got to keep the ball she hit around. 
• John Isner: Not just the winner of the world's longest tennis match, or the tallest person I've ever seen, but my favorite tennis player. 
• Caroline Wozniacki: Loved her during the tournament, and she won a match that put her at the #1 WTA world ranking! Got to carry her trophy to the press conference. 
• Ana Ivanovic: She said she liked my hair and we got to talking on the way to press. Love her!
• Novak Djokovic: He won the 2010 China Open, and was hilarious in  press conferences and on the way to his interviews.  He kept a good attitude even when a Reuters reporter tried to twist his words on the amount of smog at the tournament. 
• Francesca Schiavone: My favorite Italian player.  I was able to bring two reporters to meet with her one-on-one by myself in the player's lounge after she stopped me in the hallway worried about her press schedule. 
• Gilles Simon: The French player who lost to Djokovic. Josh Barone was able to land an amazing one-on-one interview with Simon after his match because we pushed it through to the ATP officer!
• Bryan Brothers: They move completely in sync, even just walking around the player's lounge! It's freaky.
• Vera Zvonareva: She is a pro at doing press, so once we brought around a "rookie" player with us to watch the way she answers questions during her press conferences, one-on-one interviews, and CCTV studio interviews. She just has a great attitude and comes off very confident. 
• Ivan Ljubicic: He was one of the first players we watched on the practice courts.
• Svetlana Kuznetsova: She was concerned about her "new haircut" before her first interview with CCTV. She's won the China Open in the past and had a ton of initial press about her expectations. 
• Andy Murray: Poor guy kept having to do take after take trying to get the lines right for a commercial raising money for children after playing a tough match. 
• Li Na: China's sweetheart. She was the favorite of all the fans and was so sweet in press, even though her conferences were the longest.
• Maria Sharapova: She was one of the players I knew the best, and it was so surreal to watch her warming up in the hallways with her coach before a match. 

There were a ton of other players, obviously, but those were one's I specifically had a lot of time with! I still can't believe what an amazing experience I had-- I learned so much about doing media from the players, the WTA and ATP officers, and the press,  from how hectic it can be when things go wrong (when they don't speak the same language!) to how smoothly it goes when all sides understand each other and have a comfort level that allows clear communication.

So much goes on behind the scene to make a tournament like this successful!The ATP staff kept asking us if we were going to be in Shanghai for the next ATP tournament.  Let's just say I would still be traveling around the world if that were possible!