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Wimbledon boosts interest in Tennis and Rackets

July 06, 2007

We issued a news release this week comparing interest in Wimbledon and the Tour de France. In preparing the release, we noticed that searches for Tennis are up year on year, indicating that the tournament (despite being dogged by bad weather) is driving up interest in the sport.

Share of UK internet searches for "tennis" are up 62% year on year and have nearly tripled in the past week, up 177%. Searches for "tennis rackets" are also up, doubling year on year. If you think the data might look different if we looked at the UK spelling (racquet), think again. UK consumers appear to have adopted the North American spelling with UK searches for “tennis rackets” shooting up last week whilst the term “tennis racquets” remained at 0% of all UK internet searches.

The most searched for racket brands were Babolat and Wilson, with both brands enjoying a boost in Internet searches in recent weeks. Second seed Rafael Nadal who is sporting a Babolat, seems to have fuelled demand for the brand. The most searched for Babolat racket last week was the Aeropro Drive, the model sported by Nadal. Roger Federer, the top ranked male player and Wimbledon winner for the past three years, has likely contributed to popularity of Wilson rackets along with Serena Williams, whose recent tirade saw her smash her 22 carat gold leaf inlayed Wilson racket.
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