The Robert Abdesselam Trophy returns to France

The 10th edition of the Robert Abdesselam Trophy took place from 21-23 August and brought together four international teams — Spain, Belgium, Great Britain, and France — for a competition featuring one Women’s Doubles, one Men’s Doubles, and two Mixed Doubles per match.

The French team prepared with great professionalism, with some high-altitude training in the Vercors Mountains. There, the players enjoyed scenic hikes through historic forest trails, breathtaking views over Grenoble, and, most importantly, an intensive tennis camp led by their long-time coach, Bruno Delorme, at the Villard-de-Lans Tennis Club. Off the courts, the group took time to share meals and test their culinary skills, further strengthening team spirit and camaraderie.

On arrival in Avignon, the competitors faced stormy weather. The French delegation managed a short training session on the superb courts of TC Montolivet before heavy rain rendered the grounds unplayable. The club’s President, Jean-Pierre Azam, and his wife Gisèle extended a warm welcome to all participants, their passion and dedication keeping the Avignon club thriving.

Due to the weather, the opening matches were held indoors on a single court instead of the planned four outdoor ones. Consequently, the format was shortened to a single set of six games with a tie-break at 6-6. France started the tournament strongly, defeating Great Britain — a new permanent participant in this long-standing competition — by 4–0 in the morning session. Spain then overcame Belgium in the afternoon.

The following day saw the return of sunshine, allowing play to resume outdoors for the France–Belgium encounter. Despite gusty conditions, France prevailed 3–1. In the afternoon, players and guests enjoyed a guided cultural visit to the Chartreuse de Villeneuve-lès-Avignon, a monastic complex renowned for its austere order and beautiful architecture.

The evening’s social programme featured a warm reception hosted by Odile de Roubin in her elegant family residence, where players gathered for an aperitif before the official dinner — a highlight of the event’s convivial atmosphere.

The final day brought the much-anticipated showdown between France and Spain. The French team were eager to reclaim the Robert Abdesselam Trophy, which had been in Spanish hands since the 2023 edition in Madrid.

The opening women’s doubles match proved challenging: Spain’s pair, Pauline Rodriguez (a former French player ranked no. 15) and Noelia Perez Penate (former WTA no. 121), showed their experience, while France’s Isabelle Billard-Delage sustained an early injury. Fortunately, the French men responded with a narrow win, leaving the teams level at one match apiece.

It was therefore down to the two mixed doubles to decide the title (and avoid a super tie-break in the event of two tied teams after all the matches). The French pairs — Chantal Grimal & Alain Moracchini, and MarieDo Larras & Nicolas Fourcade — made an excellent start, taking their first sets 6–1 and 6–0 respectively. Grimal and Moracchini secured their victory swiftly, while Larras and Fourcade were pushed into a deciding tie-break after their Spanish opponents, Noelia Perez Penate and Fernando Gomes de Segura, fought back to win the second set 6–4. The final tie-break was a thrilling affair, keeping spectators — including loyal French supporters Pascale and Christine — on edge. In the end, the French pair held their nerve to win 11–9, sealing overall victory for France.

The Robert Abdesselam Trophy thus returned to France, to the delight of players, organisers, and supporters alike — a fitting conclusion to three days of high-level tennis, sportsmanship, and international friendship.

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Increasing the "value add" of the USIC

Taking Advantage of a Challenging Time - Increasing the Value Add Proposition for USIC Members

The International Tennis Club of the USA (‘USIC") has utilized the downtime created by Covid to strengthen its operations and improve its "value add" proposition, so that when we fully emerge out of the Pandemic, it does so as a stronger organization. With over 500 members and a sprawling geographic reach, the USIC faces challenges maintaining membership engagement and annual dues payments even absent the restrictive conditions we have all been operating under since March 2019. As the Pandemic took hold and disrupted the tennis world, the USIC Board of Directors began to strengthen its operating Committees by increasing their size and changing their focus. For example, the Membership Committee tackled the issues of criteria for membership, candidate assessment, attracting younger members and responding to the internal demographics - age, gender and geographic locations. We also launched a mentoring effort built off of Australia’s "Beyond the Tour" initiative as a way of assisting players at the end of their tour playing days and hopefully attracting them to join the USIC.

The Captains reviewed and restated the criteria for selecting individual match captains, budgeting, team selection and creating more playing opportunities. We formed a Communications/Website Committee to improve the outreach to members by better utilizing our website for content and accessibility of information related to activities of the USIC and broader IC Community. One of our members, Joel Drucker, conducted an interview with Chris Everthttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOXpuuOwEn8 that was accessed through our website and we have plans for future interviews, roundtable discussions etc. to bring novel discussion of tennis topics of interest to our members. Also, improving our communication of what the IC Council and fellow IC Clubs are doing increases the pride and satisfaction of being part of the IC Community as members learn about the Jean Borotra Award, Philanthropy initiatives, and our seat at the table with the ITF and other major tennis governing bodies addressing major issues impacting our sport.

Overriding all our discussions has been the "value add" proposition that would attract new members while retaining active and dues paying members. The overwhelming conclusion was to prioritize increasing the playing opportunities available to all age groups and playing levels within our USIC. By continuing to participate in IC Council Events, adding "USIC Days at Tour Events"- (Delray Beach, Miami Open, Indian Wells to name a few), "Come and Play" at prestigious clubs and tour venues, creating inter/intra regional competition within the USIC, maintaining our existing "Cup" matches with Canada, Mexico, Great Britain and France, and adding international "friendly" matches, our expectations are to provide a minimum of 20-25 playing opportunities in any 12 month calendar period. Also, we are encouraging our members to reach out to fellow members in their area for informal hitting and lunch/dinner engagements. We have already held two "Come and Play " events at the Fitzgerald Tennis Center in Washington DC, home of the Citi Open. Not only did our members get to play on the stadium courts but we were able to raise money at the event and present a sizeable check to the Washington Tennis and Education Foundation.

Other initiatives to enhance the USIC membership experience include increasing the number of tennis facilities to provide reciprocal privileges to our members, Service Awards for recognizing our members impact on the USIC, discounts for tennis equipment and apparel as well as logo offerings, and improving our relationships with the national and regional tennis governing bodies in the US. We are also working on ways to facilitate "match making" for our members here and abroad as well as streamlining a procedure for welcoming travellers to the US from other IC’s.

While we have been working steadily on these and other initiatives to improve the USIC experience for our members, we are actively preparing to host many IC participants at our IC Week scheduled for August 21-26, 2022 to celebrate our USIC’s 90th Anniversary. We are also planning to host the IC Rod Laver Junior Challenge Worldwide Finals at the La Jolla Beach and Tennis Club in California in November, 2023 that had been postponed from November, 2021.

Our Challenge remains to not only grow and strengthen our USIC but to assist in any way to make sure the IC Community through all its member IC’s remains strong and viable. We encourage all IC’s to go through the deliberate restorative process that we have gone through in the US as changing conditions in our sport, the ability to hold international competition and the operational challenges of maintaining a viable IC have made such a re-examination a necessity if the IC Community is going to continue to offer its members the unique and enduring tennis experience it has done for so many decades.

Don Tansey
President
USIC