Danny MacAskill Hits The Net | HSBC & Wimbledon

End Client: HSBC

Production Company: CSM Live

Each year HSBC is one of the sponsors of the Wimbledon Tennis Championship. They have a VIP area which they call Court 20, which is situated on the pedestrian walk between the car park and the main gate.

Court 20 is an artificial tennis court together with a VIP area for food and drinks. In 2017 the concept of getting a stunt cyclist to perform some tricks on the tennis court was devised. 

He was to start from the top of an oversized umpire’s chair, jump down onto the tennis net, ride across it and jump off the other side. Then he was to jump up some oversized, filled strawberry boxes, get to the top and then leap over the head of Tim Henman (who would take the part of a linesman) onto the court and then return a ball over the net with his rear wheel.

So our job was to work out how to do it! We built an oversized umpires chair with a take off platform, then we hung a tennis net from a hidden 50mm wide aluminium channel with a non slip tape top. Then we built some very large flatpack strawberry boxes for the rider to jump his bike up and down on.

Remarkably the rider managed to jump down onto the net and ride across on his second attempt at rehearsals. The event went in on a Saturday, rehearsed on the Sunday, performed on the Monday and we removed it all on the Monday night!

Stunt cyclist Danny MacAskill not only showed off his amazing bike balancing skills to the crowds at Wimbledon. The Scottish trials rider also showed he could return the serve of tournament legends Tim Henman and Goran Ivanisevic.