Simona Halep’s team has reached a deal these days with Nike for a four-year period, following the failure to extend the deal at the end of last year with Adidas, with which the Romanian tennis player had partnered since January 2014 , ProSport.ro informs.
Lately, negotiations were carried out with Halep’s former technical sponsor, Lacoste, and with Nike. The negotiator was former tennis player Andrei Pavel, former Nike endorser, the same source reports.
“The contract is sealed 99%. Negotiations take a while for such a partnership, nothing is left to chance. Simona will be presented by Nike during a special event,” an important character in Romanian tennis has told ProSport.
According to the latest information, Simona Halep, 1st WTA, will receive an amount by EUR 700,000 larger than the previous deal. The contract will be concluded for four years.
Halep will thus join a ‘club’ which includes Serena Williams, Maria Sharapova, Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer and Juan Martin del Potro.
Ilie Nastase was the first athlete to join Nike in 1972.
Andrei Pavel (former 17th ATP), Olympic champion Gabriela Szabo and Olympic vice-champion Marian Oprea – were three of the well-known Romanian athletes to partner with Nike.