Sasson Khakshouri

Sasson Khakshouri
Born	1942 Tabriz, Iran

Sasson Khakshouri is a tennis promoter. He was born in Tabriz, Iran in 1942 where he completed his schooling before starting out on a business career.

For three generations the Khakshouri family have worked in the Soviet Union. Sasson started operating a business in 1964 from Hamburg, Germany with the Soviet Union.

In 1964 Sasson married Gollar and she has supported him throughout his business career. He is the father of three children. Allon, his youngest son has followed in his father's footsteps and after graduating from law school is involved in tennis acting as both Tournament Director of the Association of Tennis Professionals Tour Thailand Open, as well as running a management team for tennis players, Promotions Limited.

Sasson enjoys sport and he was a tennis player for many years. Today he jogs on a regular basis as well as being a fan of Maccabi Tel Aviv basketball team.

Sasson Khakshouri is the Founder of the ATP Kremlin Cup international tennis tournament in Moscow and for many years was involved in in Russia. Today the ATP Kremlin Cup is one of the largest and most prestigious tennis tournaments played on the men's Tour.

For nine years Sasson was involved in developing tennis throughout the Republic of Uzbekistan and the ATP Tour President's Cup and WTA Tour Tashkent Open events developed into most successful and popular tournaments in the men's and women's tours. The President's Cup, on two occasions won esteemed prizes from the ATP for their high standard of organization.

In the Republic of Uzbekistan he developed a grass roots program for increasing the interest and awareness of tennis throughout and country and organized, men's challengers, satellite circuits, and Futures tournaments.

His involvement in Uzbekistan ended in 2002 years ago and the Tournament has now moved to Thailand in Asia.

Top world players have participated in the event and Sasson can pride himself that players such as Roger Federer, Marat Safin, Andy Roddick, James Blake, Ivan Ljubičić and many others have all participated in the tournament in Bangkok.

• tennisnet.co.il