About Sponsor:

Babolat is a French tennis, badminton and squash equipment company, best known for its strings and tennis racquets which are used by several top players such as Rafael Nadal, Kim Clijsters, Andy Roddick, Leander Paes, Fernando González, Igor Andreev, Fabio Fognini, Nicolás Lapentti, Samantha Stosur, Robby Ginepri, Li Na, Dinara Safina, Agnieszka Radwa?ska, Santiago Giraldo, Carlos Moyà, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Francesca Schiavone. The company has made strings since 1875, when Pierre Babolat created the first strings made of natural gut. Babolat continued to focus on strings until 1994, when it became a "total tennis" company. That is, Babolat began producing racquet frames and selling them in Europe. It then moved on to Japan, and later to the USA in 2000. The popularity of Babolat racquets picked up quickly in North America and Europe, trademarked by the easily identifiable double lines across the strings of the racquet face, and along the racquet frame itself.