IC Spain Champions of the Abdesselam Trophy

Madrid, July 2023

During the 5th and 9th of July, our veteran teams +50 and +60 were crowned champions of the Robert Abdesselam Trophy Tournament held at the facilities of the Club de Tenis Chamartín in Madrid, under excellent hospitality and organization.

The competition, organized this time by IC Spain, pays tribute to the figure of Robert Abdesselam, junior champion of France, vice president of the French Tennis Federation and the International Federation, as well as a member of the Davis Cup team. Additionally, he was a founder of NATO, served as a volunteer during World War II, and created the Robert Abdesselam Foundation to support French tennis and promote competition for retired players from the professional circuit.

The competition format is a "round-robin" in doubles mode: 1 women's doubles, 1 men's doubles, and 2 mixed doubles (50/55 and 55/60). Each match won earns one point, so the winning team is the one with the most points after the three days of competition.

For this edition, the IC Spain team was formed by Rosa Bielsa, Carmen Chillida, Carmen Mendaro, Ángel Arbelo, Juan Avendaño, Javier Linares (Captain-player), and Javier Molina, who competed against the International IC teams of Belgium, France, and the invited IC team for this occasion, Norway. Spain emerged victorious in a hard-fought final against France.

The awards ceremony was attended by Nicolás Ramos (President of Club de Tenis Chamartín), Javier Linares (Sports Vice President of CTCH, Captain, and IC Spain executive), and Chema Iñigo (Sports Director of the club and competition supervisor).

It was a heartfelt tournament where, once again, we enjoyed good tennis among friends and had the additional privilege, through the Higher Sports Council (Consejo Superior de Deportes), of witnessing the presentation of the Gold Medal of the Royal Order of Sporting Merit to Spanish tennis player Garbiñe Muguruza.

6th IC Tennis Golf Challenge VIVA Vanity Hotels

The sixth edition of the IC Tennis Golf Challenge took place recently at Cala Mesquida Mallorca in collaboration with Viva Vanity Hotels.  The competition, which combines the two sports of tennis and golf, saw participation from three International Club teams; defending champion IC Great Britain, IC Germany and IC Spain, plus a local team to complete the draw. 

The first day of competition saw a very competitive team from IC Germany, featuring former ATP World Tour Top 100 player Marcello Craca, defeat the IC Spain team by a score of 5-2. The visiting Germans showed a great level to skill to beat the host team, which featured some strong players. 

The second day was sadly interrupted by poor weather conditions. IC Germany was leading 3-2 over IC Great Britain when organisers were obliged to cancel the remaining matches due to rain. 

The tennis competition was held at the Tennis Club Son Besso and the  golf at The Capdepera and Son Servera clubs. 

The event concluded with a magical evening of dinner and song. The captains expressed their gratitude to the organisers, who in turn acknowledged the spirit of sportsmanship and fairplay that had been in evidence throughout the weekend. As the teams all agreed to reunite for the next edition of the competition, David Culshaw of IC Great Britain delighted those in attendance by performing some of his own material, as well as covers of well-known songs.

IC Tennis Golf Challenge 2018 on Vimeo.