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Babolat

French tennis, badminton, and padel equipment company

Field	Value
name	Babolat
logo	Babolat logo.svg
logo_size	250
foundation
founder	Pierre Babolat
location	Lyon, France
key_people	Éric Babolat (CEO)
industry	Sports equipment
products	Racquets, strings, accessories and shoes
revenue	€141.2 million (2014)
num_employees	369
homepage

Babolat () is a French tennis, badminton, pickleball, and padel equipment company, headquartered in Lyon, best known for its strings and tennis racquets which are used by professional and recreational players worldwide. 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, also producing racquet frames and selling them in Europe. It then expanded sales to Japan, and later to the United States in 2000. Sales of Babolat racquets increased rapidly in North America and Europe. Babolat is also a pioneer in connected sport technology and launched a connected tennis racket in 2014 and a connected wrist-worn tennis wearable with PIQ in 2015. The Babolat Pop is one of the leaders in tennis sensors worldwide.

Notable products

Strings

Some of the strings produced by Babolat include RPM Blast, one of the most popular polyester strings known for its spin potential, and VS Gut, a leading and original natural gut string.

Racquets

Babolat's current tennis racquet line-up includes Pure Drive, a power-oriented racquet used by players such as Carlos Moyá, Kim Clijsters, Andy Roddick and Li Na, Pure Aero (formerly AeroPro Drive), known for its spin potential and usage by Rafael Nadal, Caroline Wozniacki and Carlos Alcaraz, and Pure Strike, a control-oriented racquet used by players such as Dominic Thiem and Cameron Norrie.

Sponsorships

Some of Babolat's sponsored players include:

Tennis

Men

any red link names should be deleted immediately --

ARG Federico Delbonis
AUS Jordan Thompson
CAN Félix Auger-Aliassime
CHN Shang Juncheng
DEN Holger Rune
ESP Carlos Alcaraz
ESP Albert Ramos Viñolas
FRA Arthur Cazaux
FRA Arthur Fils
FRA Stéphane Houdet
FRA Benoît Paire
FRA Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard
GBR Cameron Norrie
GBR Luke Watson
ITA Fabio Fognini
JPN Taro Daniel
JPN Yosuke Watanuki
KAZ Alexander Shevchenko
RUS Evgeny Donskoy
SWE Elias Ymer
SWE Mikael Ymer
USA Maxime Cressy
USA Ryan Harrison
USA Sam Querrey

Women

BEL Yanina Wickmayer
CAN Leylah Fernandez
CHN Wang Xinyu
CHN Zheng Saisai
COL Camila Osorio
CRO Ana Konjuh
CZE Karolína Plíšková
DEN Caroline Wozniacki
FRA Clara Burel
GBR Heather Watson
ITA Lucia Bronzetti
ITA Sara Errani
KAZ Yulia Putintseva
PHI Alexandra Eala
USA Jennifer Brady
USA Sofia Kenin
BRA Laura Pigossi

Retired players

ARG Mariano Puerta
AUS Samuel Groth
AUT Dominic Thiem
BEL Kim Clijsters
BEL Kirsten Flipkens
CHI Fernando González
CHN Li Na
CHN Peng Shuai
CRO Mirjana Lučić-Baroni
CZE Kristýna Plíšková
ESP Carlos Moyá
ESP Garbiñe Muguruza
ESP Rafael Nadal
EST Anett Kontaveit
FRA Alizé Cornet
FRA Pauline Parmentier
FRA Jo-Wilfried Tsonga
GBR Johanna Konta
GER Julia Görges
ITA Francesca Schiavone
JPN Yūichi Sugita
POL Agnieszka Radwańska
RUS Nadia Petrova
RUS Dinara Safina
RUS Elena Vesnina
SRB Viktor Troicki
SUI Timea Bacsinszky
SVK Dominika Cibulková
USA CiCi Bellis
USA Jack Sock

Badminton

Men

ALG Koceila Mammeri
FRA Lucas Corvée
FRA Ronan Labar

Women

ALG Tanina Mammeri
ENG Chloe Birch
FRA Qi Xuefei
FRA Anne Tran

Controversy

Despite initial statements indicating a cessation of business with Russia following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Babolat products remain available in the country. According to research from the Yale School of Management, Babolat’s operations in Russia are conducted through an independent distributor, with whom Babolat has reportedly ceased direct transactions. However, this distributor continues to sell Babolat products and identifies as a Babolat-affiliated distributor.

References

Kiss, Jemima. (2015-05-04). "Tennis just got smarter with the Babolat Play connected racket - review".
Palermo, Philip. (2015-08-28). "Babolat and PIQ team up for a pair of wrist-worn tennis wearables".
"Babolat Players Sponsored". Babolat.
Shehadi, Sebastian. (2023-07-25). "WeWork, Nestle and Babolat among the Western companies who reneged on promises to leave Russia".
Tian, Jeffrey Sonnenfeld,Steven. "'The Feckless 400': These companies are still doing business in Russia–and funding Putin’s war".

Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

tennis-equipment-manufacturers badminton-equipment-manufacturers sporting-goods-manufacturers-of-france companies-established-in-1875 sport-in-lyon manufacturing-companies-based-in-lyon french-companies-established-in-1875 french-brands sportswear-brands

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