At heart a local lad from Basel, in spirit an innovator

Roger Brennwald is a flourishing demonstration of the truth of the maxim: remaining active throughout your life pays off in old age. This man who, at the end of the 1960’s, while still in his early twenties, founded what is now the world’s third largest indoor tennis tournament, is unbowed and dynamic as he walks into his office at the headquarters of the Swiss Indoors in Allschwil. He is 79 years old but has no problem keeping up with members of generation X and Y. He wastes no time thinking about his age. “Otherwise, my brain would end up believing me.” he grins. His work keeps him young and healthy. With his acumen and analytical vision, it would be a real waste of resources if he ceased to bring his wealth of experience, accumulated over 50 years, to the Swiss Indoors.

What kind of man is this Brennwald, who came up with the crazy idea of buying an indoor tennis centre when he was still such a youngster? And how did he then manage to transform a friendly tournament into a well-endowed Formula 500 event, part of the global ATP Tour, which has been attracting the world’s number-one tennis players for half a century now? What does the Swiss Indoors mean to him personally? This is what we want to find out in this interview: to track down his trail; but Roger Brennwald does not always make it easy for us. He has thousands of anecdotes in store, as well as a whole list of guiding principles that have formed him and his career. But to get a sense of the man behind it all, you have to listen out for the subtle nuances while he talks. Brennwald is sceptical. He has been misquoted too often in his life, felt misunderstood, and been treated too superficially. Next to no one has ever put their finger on the values that are truly important to him, he says. “Loyalty and integrity; working in a united team, its goals not limited to just performance and effort. The motto is working with each other and not against each other.” says Brennwald. But for him, leadership also means taking responsibility, not just letting things take their course. He is not someone who bends over backwards to tell other people what they want to hear. Swiss Indoors is Roger Brennwald. And he cherishes his legacy with devotion. Rightly so.

The perfect sports life

Roger Brennwald is a sportsman through and through, and always had been. “I was born with a bit of a talent for sport;” he says modestly. “As a 12-year-old boy, I spent more time hanging out at the football field than doing my homework.” Karli Odermatt, who was four years older than him, wanted him to come and join the FC Concordia team, but Brennwald’s father put his foot down. “That was the 1950’s. Playing football was not considered respectable in those days.” Roger Brennwald explains, so he immediately turned his attention to track and field athletics and handball. Shot put; javelin; long jump; track athletics – he was successful at all of them. At 16 he was already competing with Basel’s National A-League handball team, the RTV Basel, and a little later he was recruited to the Swiss national handball team. Tennis was something he played on the side. “I was never a serious contender in tennis.” In terms of his career, Brennwald graduated from the Cantonal Business School and trained as a foreign exchange trader. For 19 years he worked at the BIS, the Bank for International Settlements. “So, at that time, I was experiencing the best schooling in real life imaginable, parallel to organising the Swiss Indoors.”

From the absurd idea through to the business model

One day, Roger Brennwald was confronted with the absolutely desolate state of the only indoor tennis court in the entire region, in the exhibition halls in Basel. “We were playing in the gloom, wearing gloves, the temperature minus two degrees Celsius, the floor of concrete, and in the middle of the court there were manhole covers which made the ball shoot off in every direction if it landed on them; the conditions were completely inacceptable.” But then, as happens in life sometimes: while serving his stint at the military training school in Thun, Brennwald became acquainted with an ardent tennis player, who was also of the opinion that the miserable state of the indoor tennis facilities had to come to an end and that they should acquire an indoor tennis hall. This was to be a critical moment that determined the rest of his life, as later became clear.

“When my father heard about this plan, he just shook his head.” Roger Brennwald laughs. Brennwald’s father considered renting out indoor courts to tennis players a dubious business model. “He advised me to abandon such a risky venture. But my gut feeling was telling me otherwise.” Roger Brennwald found an airdrome manufacturer in Sweden. Because the money he had saved up did not cover the entire cost, he took out a loan of 40,000 Swiss francs from a bank. In 1969 he set up the first airdrome hall in Switzerland, in the grounds of the Co-op Tennis Club in Muttenz. He had already paid the loan back within two months. Roger Brennwald is not just good at ballgames, he’s handy with numbers too.

At the end of the first winter-tennis season, the 23-year-old Brennwald decided to launch his tournament idea and send it skyrocketing into orbit. He organised a tournament for everyone who had trained at his tennis hall. This included some of the best tennis players in Switzerland, all of them from Basel, including Matthias Werren, Martin Froesch, Ernst Schori and Heinz Grimm. The 50 or so spectators who were scattered around the edge of the airdrome hall and who had to avoid being hit by one of the tennis balls flying around the courts, were treated to tennis played by the national elite at Brennwald’s first ever tournament. The budget at the time: 1,000 Swiss francs. The prize for the winner came in the form of a wristwatch donated by his uncle who owned the Zodiac watch factory in Le Locle.

A pioneering spirit, wise decisions, and a bit of luck

Looking back, it has to be admitted that some lucky coincidences also contributed to the fact that the Swiss Indoors is still thrilling crowds of onlookers today. But the key to his success is Roger Brennwald himself. He is a pioneer and a visionary with an unwavering fervour, a fine instinct for opportunities and developments in Swiss sport, and an uncanny knack of being in the right place at the right moment. How else to explain the fact that, in 1974, he boldly wandered into Björn Borg’s dressing room at the Roland Garros French Open tournament in Paris, when Borg had already won Wimbledon several times, and chatted to him about the tournament in Basel. Borg was tying his shoe laces and dryly asked: “And where is Basel?” This encounter stuck in both their memories – and it was another turning point in the history of the Swiss Indoors. In 1975, Borg, the rock star of the sports world, came to Basel for the first time, for an exhibition match. The number of spectators exploded.

His eyes glowing, Roger Brennwald recounts the legendary 1980 final between Borg and Lendl, during which the complete unknown, Lendl, just 19-years-old, beat the five-time Wimbledon champion Borg … “So many crazy things have happened at the Swiss Indoors over the years, that you can hardly finish talking about one of them, without immediately launching into the next anecdote.” There should really be a book written about Roger Brennwald and all his experiences in the world of tennis, which has transformed so spectacularly over the years due to commercialisation. A book in which he could explain the guiding principles that flare up like beacons in the conversation: “A deal is a deal! Everything is difficult, till it suddenly becomes easier! You should always be ready to discuss things, because the other person mightbe right! If you don’t enjoy people’s company, people won’t enjoy your company either!”

More than just a tennis tournament

It is impossible to capture the man, Roger Brennwald, in a few hundred words. When he starts recounting, wondrous tales of days gone by simply bubble out of him. He is such a perfectionist that he can’t help but despair that not all these many special happenings will find space in this article – but how could they? There are simply too many of them. He has had dealings with more than 2,000 tennis players, including all the great names such as Jimmy Connors, John McEnroe, Andre Agassi, Ivan Lendl, Pete Sampras, Boris Becker, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and Novak Djokovic. His memories connect him to each and every one of them. But the amount of space we have is limited and calls for highlights. One issue especially close to Brennwald’s heart is the promotion of young talent – the Paradies sport centre he constructed on the grounds of the Swiss Indoors headquarters is home to the academy where up to 400 children and young people are trained every week – the young Swiss talent at the moment, Henry Bernet, also began his career here and it is general knowledge that the young Roger Federer was once a ball boy at the Swiss Indoors.

Roger Brennwald dedicates the end of the interview to the city of Basel, his home town. “It was here that I was born, grew up, went to school; I am deeply rooted here.” he explains. And with him, the Swiss Indoors, which has been taking place at the St. Jakobshalle since 1975. Brennwald vehemently emphasizes, more than once, that the Swiss Indoors is more than just a tennis tournament. “The Swiss Indoors is a happening, where the focus is on bringing people together.” Young and old reach fever pitch here, they celebrate, laugh and cry together. And it is not uncommon for friendships and even lifelong partnerships to develop in the process. Roger Brennwald, the pioneer, initiated this tournament out of an indefatigable urge to create something new, to push the boundaries, and to allow great things to develop from small beginnings. He has been the man behind the Swiss Indoors for 55 years now, he has arranged unforgettable sporting events with structure, perseverance, intuition, and patience. “Nothing better could have happened to me in this life! And I am infinitely grateful to all the people who have supported and accompanied me on this long stretch of the road.” is how he concludes the fiery, two-hour-long talk in his office and then grins mischievously. “I hope I haven’t exhausted you with all my stories.”