January 17, 2011 marked the first day of the 2011 Australian Open. Those who were watching the games on that day must have heard of what happened in the match between World #14 Agnieszka Radwanska and veteran Kimiko Date-Krumm. During the match in the last set 6-5, Radwanska stepped in for a backhand shot, only to be shocked by the snap of her racquet head. Caught in a daze, she could only walk back to her chair to grab another racquet.
What interested me the most was, how would Babolat, the tennis racquet brand who sponsors Radwanska, be looked upon after this incident. In my eight years of playing tennis and watching the professional games, this has never happened before. Babolat competes with many other sporting brands in the tennis community including Wilson, Prince, and Head. Competition between these companies are pretty cut-throat. They all excel in their own tennis racquet technology and there is a mix of loyal fans for each brand within the tennis community. With this incident, Babolat may lose competitive advantage, because Babolat racquet owners may think, “will my racquet break just like Radwanska’s?”
I believe two issues that are of concern are Babolat’s strategy in customer excellence and product excellence. Customer excellence refers to the retaining of loyal customers. There is a possibility that Babolat owners may switch for racquets of another brand, though I believe that chance is slim as this incident only happened once and is abnormal in today’s tennis. However, it might affect future customers who are shopping for racquets, as they may rank Babolat lower than others. And in product excellence, there will be some impact on the “durability” category when customers shop for racquets. Whether or not this incident will hurt Babolat’s reputation will depend on the responses of the tennis community.
Reference:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cxSNpoeQf0
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