Sergio Tacchini

Sergio Tacchini [ ˈsɛrdʒo takˈkiːni ] (born May 30, 1938 ) is a former Italian tennis player .

Tacchini has been known since the 1960s for the sports fashion brand he created and named after his full name , which has been owned by a Chinese retail group since 2008 .

Athletic career

Tacchini began playing tennis professionally in the late 1950s. In 1960 he won the Italian championship title against Nicola Pietrangeli in singles, with Pietrangeli as a partner he later won two Italian championship titles in doubles. After he had participated for the first time for the Italian team in the Davis Cup in 1959 , he appeared for the selection up to the end of his career in 1968 in a total of seven finals.

Sergio Tacchini International SpA

During his active career, Tacchini founded a fashion company under the name Sandys in 1966 , whose clothing was soon sold under the name of the founder. In the years that followed, Sergio Tacchini SpA developed into a major tennis supplier, including sponsorship agreements with personalities such as Ilie Năstase , John McEnroe , Jimmy Connors , Martina Navrátilová , Martina Hingis (the company sued for damages in 2001 for allegedly defective shoes), Gabriela Sabatini , Pete Sampras or Novak Đoković (contract terminated prematurely in 2012) fathered. The company attracted attention with its colored sportswear, as until the 1970s, plain white clothing was the standard in tennis.

In the 1980s, the company expanded its range of tennis equipment for the entire family (for example, to include shoes, bags, accessories), also ventured into other sports and equipped athletes such as Formula 1 driver Ayrton Senna and skier Marc Girardelli or the golfer Ian Woosnam . From 1987 various fragrances (from 1998 also for women) and aftershave from Sergio Tacchini were offered. The North American market was opened up through licensees. In 1991 the first Sergio Tacchini store opened its doors in Turin ; By the end of the 1990s there were around 200 Sergio Tacchini boutiques in Europe. In 1996 Sergio Tacchini became the official supplier for the Italian team at the Summer Olympics in Atlanta . From 2009 to 2013 Sergio Tacchini was the official supplier of the ball boys and girls as well as the technical staff of the Monte Carlo Masters .

After increasing competitive pressure from global players such as Nike , Puma or Adidas , an extensive restriction of the Sergio Tacchini brand to the European market and high debt from the beginning of the 2000s, Sergio Tacchini SpA filed for bankruptcy in early 2007 . Annual sales in the mid-2000s were around 100 million euros. However, this was offset by debts of 70 to 80 million euros, with a temporary return on sales of less than 5%. Sales in the 2007 financial year amounted to 60 million euros. In 2008, then CEO Alessandro Tacchini, son of Sergio Tacchini, sold the company his father had founded for 27 million euros (or 42 million US dollars ) to Billy Ngok, the owner of the Hong Kong textile trading company Hembly International Holdings Limited. The development of the Chinese market is planned under Ngok's leadership. A planned takeover of Sergio Tacchini by the Italian branch of Munich-based subsidiary Orlando Management failed in 2007.

In 2008 there were still 120 Sergio Tacchini shops in Europe, 80 of them in Italy alone. Italy and France were considered to be the sales markets with the highest sales. As of the beginning of 2013, Sergio Tacchini still had stores in Italy, Albania, the People's Republic of China, Greece, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Croatia. By autumn 2013, however, all European Sergio Tacchini stores were closed by Hembly International.

In 2010, Alessandro Tacchini restarted the fashion brand Sandys.Ht based on the original company name of Sergio Tacchini SpA in Florence. However, the brand's website was no longer online in the early 2010s.