Feliciano López and Fernando Verdasco, together with the Brazilian Thiago Monteiro, lead the poster of the first edition of the Madrid Community Open, an 80 challenger that breaks into the competitive calendar of the ATP circuit, presented this Friday at the Club de Campo, venue of the event. The tournament, which will be played from April 11 to 17, aims to recover the spirit of the old Madrid Tournament, known as the Grand Prix, who in his time was a benchmark for professional tennis in the Community of Madrid.
On this occasion, the Madrid Federation, with its president Juan Luis Rascón at the helm, has launched this sporting event that occupies a different space, lower in level, than the Mutua Madrid Open, the Masters 1000 Madrid, one of the competitions most relevant on the international circuit.
The Open Community of Madrid ATP Challenger 80, it is something else. With a prize distribution of more than 45,000 euros. “A challenger tournament was missing in Madrid, which is a very important step in the circuit. It is that intermediate band to occupy by great players who aspire to be among the top one hundred. In fact, many of those who we now have among the best have used these tournaments to get to where they are now, to grow up to be professionals”, recalled the president of the Spanish Federation Miguel Díaz in the presentation.
With an image as a tribute and claim of the mythical Manuel Santana, the Community of Madrid Open was unveiled this Friday at the facilities of the Club de Campo Villa de Madrid, which was the scene of the Madrid Grand Prix that monopolized the Madrid tennis show since 1971 until 1995: first the Chamartín Tennis Club was the stage; then on the clay of the Club de Campo where the best rackets in the world such as Bjorn Borg, Guillermo Vilas, Ivan Lendl and John McEnroe triumphed, as did the Spaniards Manuel Orantes, Emilio Sánchez Vicario and Sergi Bruguera.
Feliciano Lopez, who became the twelfth player in the world and who starts as the first seed, and FerdinandVerdasco, who was the seventh in the ranking in 2009 and who is the third favorite, are the great claims of the event that includes in its poster players located beyond the first hundred places of the ATP circuit. In addition, the Brazilian Thiago Monteiro, the German Mats Moraing, the Serbian Nikola Milojevic, the Australian Christophe rO’Connell or the promising Swiss Dominic Stricker are part of the event’s poster.