1929: Lacoste, the most famous of the « musketeers », wins the French Open. 2019: Rafael Nadal wins the same tournament...for the 12th time! Both tennis players have one thing in common: they have triumphed with equipment supplied by the same company: #Babolat

Pierre Babolat starts his eponymous company in the second half of the 19th century in Lyon. He initially manufactures sausage casings as well as strings for musical instruments and surgical purposes out of natural animal gut / intestines. Until that day in 1875...

Tennis rules have just been formalized the previous year (1874) and Pierre receives an order from an English client to manufacture tennis racket strings. This starts Babolat’s ongoing love story with tennis.

In 1925, Pierre’s son, Albert, will launch the famous VS natural gut racket string. Lacoste will win four French Opens with it. The VS will be further enhanced in 1955 with the launch of Elascord, a synthetic string.

Lenglen, Borg, Ashe, Sampras, Noah...The list of legends during those decades who will win with the Babolat VS, easily recognizable from 1980 by the « double line » logo on players’ rackets, is very long.

Albert’s son, Paul, will turn Babolat into a global leader for tennis racket strings by setting up an efficient international distribution network and putting together a « competition department » of expert stringers to support all the Babolat-sponsored players.

But his son, Pierre, sees beyond racket strings. He wants to turn the company into a « total tennis » equipment supplier. In 1994, he launches the first Babolat tennis racket. Carlos Moya will be the first player to win a grand slam in Paris with a Babolat racket in 1998.

But Pierre dies that same year in the crash of a Swissair flight and Eric, his son, must take over the family firm in this tragic context at the age of 28. This is now the 5th generation at the helm and Eric doesn’t know it yet but Babolat’s best days are still ahead.

Relying on the pillars which have made Babolat successful so far (innovation, internationalization, smart sponsorship and long-term vision), Eric transforms Babolat into the leading global pure-player for tennis equipment. Signing a Spanish rising star in ‘01 will also help!

Besides strings and rackets, Babolat diversifies in 2003 into clothing, footwear and accessories that its “Babolat pro team” and amateurs now wear and use on courts all over the world.

Under Eric’s leadership, revenues have skyrocketed from €23m in ‘98 to more than €140m today. It employs 350 employees and now sponsors 200 professional tennis players. It has also ventured into padel and badminton but tennis still represents 80% of its revenues.

Babolat’s headquarters are still in Lyon and the future looks quite bright for the family-owned company (60% of the shares are with the Babolat’s family). On a personal note, I own 3 Babolat rackets and I’m pretty happy with them!