Melbourne, Australia – With the Australian Open due to begin on January 17, adidas launched a new promotion featuring Ana Ivanovic, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Fernando Verdasco, who had their ultra-light Adizero shoes “stolen.â€
Fans were given clues on Melbourne’s local radio as to the whereabouts of the shoes. Three lucky listeners who found the three pairs of shoes had the chance of personally delivering them back to the players at a special launch of the Adizero tennis range ahead of the 2011 Australian Open.
Wild weather conditions disrupted Kooyong scheduling and prevented Tsonga and Verdasco from attending, but Ana Ivanovic, as well as coaches from the adidas Player Development Program, Darren Cahill, Sven Groeneveld and Mats Merkel, were on-site to provide advice and hit with budding Australian tennis juniors.
Article and photos by Julie Zhou. She was covering the adidas Adizero launch in Melbourne for Tennis Panorama News. She is the author of All I Need is a Picket Fence.