The most important tournament in Euskadi will be held between 17 and 24 July and has already confirmed the top 99 of the world ranking, Lin Zhu.
The PEÑA VITORIANA TENIS CLUB remains firmly committed to women’s tennis. The club from Alava will organize its third edition of the III Araba World Tennis Tour -Open Grupo Amutio.
It has been presented today at a press conference at the Museum of Fine Arts, with the presence of the Deputy for Culture and Sport, Ana del Val, the Councillor for Sport and Health, Livia Lopez, the executive director of Vital Foundations, Axier Urresti, the representative of the Amutio Group, Ane Ibañez de Garayo, who support the event, as well as the President of the Peña Vitoriana Tennis Club, Iñigo Area and its manager, Alejandro Botella, as organizers of the event.
This is the most important tennis tournament in Euskadi, scoring for the international circuit and supervised by the International Tennis Federation (ITF). In spite of the attempts to aspire to more and turn the event into an ITF 100,000, the difficulty to obtain economic resources has made us reject this option this year and continue betting on a W60,000, which is the amount in prizes. That will not be an impediment to see the best international rackets on the courts of the Peña Vitoriana. The Chinese Lin Zhu, number 99 of the world ranking has confirmed her presence. The oriental tennis player has a great track record, with six singles titles in ITF tournaments and 5 in doubles. For the first time in the history of Basque tennis, a world top 100 player will be in Euskadi. She will be one of the big favorites, along with Cristina Bucsa, the winner of the I edition played in 2019. Sixth in the national ranking and 131st in the world, she will be looking for her second title.
About 120 players from more than 23 countries will attend the event, which will be structured in three parts:
-Preliminary phase: July 17-19
-Final phase tournament: July 19-24.
A total of 18 preliminary phase matches, 31 final phase matches and 15 double matches will be played at the Vitoria club.
The 2021 data confirms the success of this tournament, with 400 people attending the final between Rebeca Masarova and Ane Mintegi, the 2021 Wimbledon junior champion, with victory for the former. The player from Guipuzcoa will be one of the big absences in this edition due to injury. More than 2,000 people watched some of the matches live.
Parallel events
In addition, 500 people attended the activities parallel to the tournament, such as the Tennis Street that will be held on Saturday, July 16 (11:00-14:00 hours) in the Plaza de la Virgen Blanca to bring tennis to all citizens of Vitoria-Gasteiz.
On Saturday July 23 there will be a children’s clinic (10:00 -11:00 hours) open to all interested children. The goal is to gather more than 100 and fill the six courts of the club.
On Sunday 24, before the final, there will be an exhibition of wheelchair tennis, a growing discipline that has great specialists in Spain.
The tournament is part of the VOLEA program.
A firm commitment to tennis in its different sporting and social fields. PEÑA VITORIANA TENIS CLUB has already activated several of its activities to follow the philosophy of the Volea program: to promote the sport of tennis in all its areas, and in all groups, mainly in women’s sports and in the most vulnerable social groups. Two events have already been held, such as the conference entitled “The values of the company applied to sport” by Álvaro Merino, CEO of 3’59, an expert in talent, related to the world of sport and high performance business or the Rafa Nadal Academy clinic that brought together more than 50 boys and girls on the courts of the Peña Vitoriana TC at the end of May.