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.

Italy and Spain defend Potter Cup titles

The 46^th edition of the Potter Cup was successfully held in Barcelona last weekend, despite some challenging weather conditions.  The 2018 event saw fifteen international teams in action together with a Spanish ‘B’- team to complete the ladies’ draw.

As is tradition, the event kick-started with a fun clinic in which participants were joined on court by players from the Acell Federation, which provides opportunities for local players with intellectual disabilities.

The opening day’s ladies’ tournament action was played at the Real Club de Tennis Barcelona-1899 and saw the British team score an impressive win over IC France, who subsequently also lost to Germany, while Italy beat Ireland. The defending champions, Spain, enjoyed a friendly match against the second Spanish team.

Over at the Real Club de Polo, the men were playing the quarterfinals, which saw hosts IC Spain triumph over IC Denmark, IC France beat IC Great Britain, IC USA beat IC Germany, while defending champions IC Italy defeated IC Belgium.

Saturday’s semi-finals were again played across both clubs. The ladies’ competition saw clear victories for the hosts over Germany, and for Italy over Great Britain to set up a repeat of last year’s final. The national teams from Italy and Spain went on to reach the finals of both events, beating France and United States respectively to set up title showdowns in the men’s and ladies’ competitions.

With a dismal weather forecast for Sunday afternoon, some creative scheduling saw the men’s final moved to Saturday afternoon on the agreement of both teams. Spain took an early lead in the final, with singles wins for Alex López Moron over Morco Filippeschi and Carlos Costa Bou over Antonio Altobeli. However, the hosts were not able to press home the advantage as Italy recovered to see Marco Charpentier defeat Jordi Burillo, Davide Scala beat David Valeriano, and Alberto Pertosa outlast Francisco Garcia. The Italians went on to clinch the title by claiming both doubles matches, and duly celebrated their fourth win in the last five editions of the IC’s flagship senior team event.

The ladies decided to brave the challenge of the weather and were able to play their finals on Sunday morning. The result went to the wire, with the teams splitting the opening singles matches, which saw a clear win for Spain’s Eva Bes over Gloria Pizzichini while Valeria Madaro levelled up by beating Gisela Riera. Just as at the inaugural edition of the ladies’ event last year, the Spanish team then saw Bes team up with regular partner Paula Cabezas to clinch victory – and defend the title - with a doubles win.

The President of the Potter Cup and President of the IC Italy presented IC Spain with a trophy to be offered to the winners of the ladies’ competition.

The weekend’s tennis was played in great spirit, with all players expressing their gratitude and their hopes to return to the competition next year.

The tournament was also attended by the representatives of the various organisations that support the competition, the Diputación de Barcelona, the Spanish Tennis Federation, and the Catalan Tennis Federation.