The Ferrero Academy will host the first tournament in Spain

The professional tennis competition will return to Spain earlier than planned. The MAPFRE League, a tour created by the Spanish Federation (RFET) with four stops, was going to kick off on July 10 in Lleida, but finally It will be on the tracks of the JC Ferrero Equelite Academy, in Villena (Alicante), where the first high-level matches will be seen after the long period of confinement due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The 25th Anniversary Tournament, which commemorates the establishment in 1995 of the school of former world number one Juan Carlos Ferrero and his inseparable coach, Antonio Martínez Cascales, It will be held from July 1 to 5.

Pablo Carreño will be the first seed of an event, in group format (two of three tennis players and the first of each, in the final), for which Alejandro Davidovich, Carlos Alcaraz, the Australian Alex de Miñaur, who lives and exercises in Alicante, and the Portuguese Joao Sousa, resident in Barcelona, ​​are also confirmed. There will be a social tournament and Roberto Bautista will be measured in an exhibition with Ferrero, who explains the charity fund: “The best thing is that the prize money 100% will be donated to different associations. Each player will decide which foundation to allocate what they get. Everyone agreed to participate willingly. ”

Villena was to be the second headquarters of the MAPFRE League, from July 24 to 26, but Equelite, who had to suspend five weeks of tournaments that she planned to organize between April and May (including a major junior and a Challenger), he got off the project because he wanted his great pearl, Alcaraz (318th in the world), to be among those registered, but the RFET had already promised to form a team with eight Spaniards from the top-100 ATP (Bautista, Carreño, Ramos, Verdasco, Andújar, Feliciano, Davidovich and Carballés). Valencia, waiting to close the club where it will be played, will replace Villena as a base after Lleida (from July 10 to 12) and Madrid (from 17 to 19), and before Avilés (from July 31 to August 2). Equelite will host another event on the Federation's IBP circuit open to tennis players with a lower ranking (from 90 to 500).