±±¾©Èü³µpk10

The stand-alone website, 30love.net, will be ad-funded and free to use and will launch in time for the start of The Lawn Tennis Championships at Wimbledon on 25 June. The ATP will use the sites to broadcast behind-the-scenes footage of the tour, as well as highlights of tournaments and features on individual players.

Users will be able to create their own profile pages, upload photos and videos as well as interacting with one another.

The project will also include a made-for-mobile offering, giving users similar functionality through their handsets as on the internet. Social network specialist 10Duke is behind the service, having recently completed a project for BBC Magazines.

30love.net is due to launch next week to much fanfare. Tennis stars Mardy Fish and Jonas Bjorkman have been recruited to promote the site. Launch footage includes interviews with the tour's stars and a behind-the-scenes look at what goes on in the players' lounge. Following the launch, the ATP will embark on a drive to get every tennis club in Britain to sign up to the site and create their own areas where members can interact.

Wimbledon is not on the ATP tour, but the organisation will launch a profile for the event as well as the other major tournaments, the Australian Open, French Open and US Open. All 63 ATP tournaments on the tour will also have their own dedicated areas that will launch in the weeks preceding the individual events, leading to September roll-outs in China and India, before tournaments in Beijing and Mumbai.

The ATP's decision to rely on advertising rather than subscription revenue is a change from its previous strategy. The organisation's current model charges fans an annual subscription fee of around £35 to watch tournaments online. It also offers users a day rate and a tournament rate. The ATP's main website, ATPtennis.com, claims to attract up to 1.6 million unique users a month.