CHOICE 360 - Key Persons
Henri Laaksonen was born 31 March 1992 and he started playing tennis at the age of 3. He won the European Championships in 2008 in Moscow and in 2009, he moved to Switzerland to train at the Swiss Tennis National Tennis Center in Biel/Bienne. His highest singles ranking is world No. 84, which he achieved on 14 February 2022. Henri won the biggest match of his career at the 2021 French Open against world No. 11 Roberto Bautista Agut in four sets in order to advance to a Grand Slam third round for the first time in his career. Later that year he reached the third round at the 2021 US Open for the second time in his career defeating world No. 19 and sixteenth seed Christian Garin in four sets. After those successes he became the No. 1 Swiss player 20th of June 2022 for the first time.
Sam Volery is a Swiss highliner from Zurich. He has been slacklining since 2007 and made highlining 2011 to his main discipline and, in that, he has managed to set several Guiness World Records. 2017 Sam broke the first of his 5 World Records. His most famous project was a 540m long alpine highline in Switzerland. There he connected two of the Churfirsten as part of the Sommerchallenge on SRF. Beside walking long highlines he has invented countless new tricks on the slackline - he has been the first to do a handstand or a shoulderstand on a highline. Sam is the only person worldwide who can perform a consistent handstand on highlines.