NEC Sponsors 2012 Roland Garros Wheelchair Tennis- Part of the NEC Wheelchair Tennis Tour -

*** *** For immediate use June 1, 2012


Tokyo, June 1, 2012 - NEC Corporation (NEC; TSE: 6701) announced today that 16 of the world's top wheelchair tennis players will participate in the Roland Garros wheelchair tennis event in Paris on 6-8 June, 2012. The event is one of the four Grand Slam tournaments on the NEC Wheelchair Tennis Tour.

<<Fact sheet>>
Event Name: Roland Garros, one of four Grand Slams on the NEC Wheelchair Tennis Tour
Period:         6-8 June, 2012
Venue:          Stade Roland-Garros 2, avenue Gordon-Bennett, Paris, France
Organizer:    FFT (Fédération Française de Tennis)

Participants include defending champions and world No. 1 ranked players Maikel Scheffers and Esther Vergeer of the Netherlands. Scheffers won his first Grand Slam title here in 2011 after beating Japan's defending Roland Garros champion and four-time ITF World Champion Shingo Kunieda in the semifinals.

Kunieda is among the participants again this year, while world No. 7 Yui Kamiji of Japan, also currently the world No. 1 junior female, will be among the challengers to Vergeer in the women's singles.

Scheffers was named ITF Wheelchair Tennis World Champion for the first time in 2011, while Vergeer was named ITF World Champion for the 12th time. Both players will receive their trophies at the 2012 ITF World Champions Dinner, held in Paris on 5 June.

The NEC Wheelchair Tennis Tour, organized by the ITF and sponsored by NEC, has one of the most advanced and far-reaching tournament calendars and ranking systems in international disability sport. The Tour includes wheelchair tennis events at all four Grand Slams, with total prize money of more than one million US dollars.

The 2012 NEC Wheelchair Tennis Tour started on January 5, 2012, with the Queensland Open in Australia. This year, the NEC Tour consists of 173 tournaments in 45 countries.

The NEC Wheelchair Tennis Rankings are updated weekly by the ITF, with over 600 men, 200 women and 75 quadriplegic players from over 50 countries featured on the current wheelchair world rankings.

The NEC Wheelchair Tennis Tour has events at a variety of levels, from the ITF Futures Series through to the four Grand Slam events.
 
Following October's USTA Wheelchair Tennis Championships, the last of six ITF Super Series tournaments played during the year, the top eight men's and women's players and top four quadriplegic players on the rankings qualify for the NEC Wheelchair Tennis Masters(*1) in Belgium in November.

The NEC Wheelchair Tennis Tour is part of the NEC Make-a-Difference Drive (*2) of volunteer opportunities for NEC employees. NEC members volunteer for the Tour in such positions as linespeople, ballpeople and interpreters.

Looking forward, NEC will continue to develop its role in the Wheelchair Tennis Tour as part of becoming a leading global company that leverages the power of innovation to realize an information society friendly to people and the earth.

Notes

(*1) NEC Wheelchair Tennis Masters
http://beta.itftennis.com/wheelchair/tournaments/singles-masters/overview.aspx
The NEC Masters is the year-end wheelchair tennis world championship, held in Belgium in November. NEC has sponsored the event since 1994.

(*2) NEC-Make-a-Difference Drive
http://www.nec.co.jp/community/necmd/index.html
The "NEC Make-a-Difference Drive (NEC MDD)" is a volunteer program where NEC group employees participate in a wide variety of social contribution activities throughout the world. In the fiscal year 2011, 729 NEC locations in 18 countries took part in MDD.

About NEC Corporation
NEC Corporation is a leader in the integration of IT and network technologies that benefit businesses and people around the world. By providing a combination of products and solutions that cross utilise the company's experience and global resources, NEC's advanced technologies meet the complex and ever-changing needs of its customers. NEC brings more than 100 years of expertise in technological innovation to empower people, businesses and society. For more information, visit NEC at
http://www.nec.com.

Customer contact

Remmy Takeuchi, Social Contributions Office, CSR and Environmental Management Promotion Division, NEC Tokyo
E-Mail: r-takeuchi@bu.jp.nec.com

Press contact

Joseph Jasper, Corporate Communications Division, NEC Tokyo
E-Mail: j-jasper@ax.jp.nec.com