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2021 Annual General Meeting in Luxembourg

2021 Annual General Meeting in Luxembourg

Tennis Europe’s 48th Annual General Meeting was held in Luxembourg last weekend, culminating in the elections of a new President and Board of Management to serve the organisation until 2024.

Hosted by the Luxembourg Tennis Federation on the occasion of its 75th anniversary, the meeting attracted entries from 113 delegates from a record 49 of the European Federation’s 50 member nations.  

Elections

Ivo Kaderka of the Czech Republic was elected as President. Mr. Kaderka defeated Henrik Thorsøe Pedersen of Denmark in the second round of voting by 52 votes to 33. His 61.5% share of the votes was the largest election success since 2008. A third candidate, François Knaff of Luxembourg, was eliminated in the opening round.

Mr. Kaderka will serve alongside a new Board of Management elected from a record 21 original applicants. The resulting eight successful candidates - Florence Alix-Gravellier (France), Nikolina Babić (Croatia), Roger Davids (Netherlands), Giorgio Di Palermo (Italy), Razvan Itu (Romania), Jordi Tamayo De Winne (Spain), Cem Tinaz (Turkey) and Dietloff Von Arnim (Germany) – reflect the values of diversity, unity and the geographical reach of the European tennis family.

Development

ITF President David Haggerty updated European nations on the ITF’s key strategic concerns, while Executive Director of Tennis Development Luca Santilli gave an overview of current development matters. The meeting was preceded by a special Development Workshop for delegates from Tier 1 nations, which was attended by Mr. Santilli and ITF Development Officer for Europe Vitor Cabral.

The Hellenic Tennis Federation successfully petitioned the assembly to increase Greece’s membership status from ‘C’ to ‘B’ nation, with effect from January 2022. On the Monday following the meeting, Maria Sakkari entered the WTA Top 10, joining Stefanos Tsitsipas to give the nation multiple Top 10 players for the first time.

Awards

The official dinner, held at the Neumunster Abbey, saw Tennis Europe Awards presented to eight recipients in recognition of their outstanding contributions to the sport: Martin Petrosyan (Armenia), Jean Claude and Claudine Knaebel (France), Tamas Hamori (Hungary), Shlomo Glickstein (Israel), Karlis Lejnieks (Lativa), Michiel Schapers (Netherlands), Vladimir Gusev (Russia) and Orest Tereshchuk (Ukraine).

In his acceptance speech, Mr. Kaderka thanked FLT President Claude Lamberty for a flawlessly organised meeting and expressed his optimism for the term ahead: “There is no east or west, we are one single European tennis family with a bright future. This new Board is full of strong, knowledgeable and experienced members and I am absolutely sure that they will help me to achieve our goals for tennis in Europe.” 

The meeting concluded with the news that the 2022 event will be hosted by the Portuguese Tennis Federation in Cascais from 24-26 March. 

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