National service, Carla Suarez, Tokito Oda, South America: ITFWorld
The winter 2021 edition of ITFWorld has been published and can be read here.
The latest issue follows a jampacked and hectic end to the 2021 season and is once again loaded with exclusive content and interviews, including a celebration of this year’s ITF World Champions.
Elsewhere, the key moments from the Davis Cup by Rakuten Finals 2021 and inaugural Billie Jean King Cup by BNP Paribas Finals are relived and remembered.
In the case of the Davis Cup Finals, ITFWorld dispatched a roving reporter across Europe to uncover some of the most compelling stories from a gripping global event which spanned three host cities.
At the Billie Jean King Cup Finals in Prague, Spain’s Carla Suarez Navarro waved an emotional goodbye to the sport she loves and, following a heroic recovery from a harrowing cancer diagnosis, she tells ITFWorld why it was such a special swansong.
In the latest in the Get to Know series, ITFWorld learns more about two highly rated players. In a quick-fire question round, Sweden’s Leo Borg and Robin Montgomery of the United States are put under the spotlight.
Continuing the junior theme, there was a huge amount of talent on show at the Junior Davis Cup and Junior Billie Jean King Cup by BNP Paribas Finals and ITFWorld was ideally placed to celebrate a host of players who significantly enhanced burgeoning reputations.
In addition, Japan’s Tokito Oda is the talk of the wheelchair tennis world after a stunning year which has seen the 15-year-old boost his silverware collection and surge into the world’s top 10.
The guitar-playing teenager speaks to ITFWorld about his breakthrough campaign, the pain of his bone cancer diagnosis and a desire to make youngsters with the same disease as him dream.
ITFWorld also joins ITF Development Officer Cesar Kist and takes a trek around South America, looking at development and participation throughout the region and providing a snapshot from each of the 10 ITF member nations there.
Elsewhere in the 44-page magazine, ITF President David Haggerty uses his welcome address to review the final quarter of 2021, look ahead to 2022 and reveal how much he is looking forward to meeting his granddaughter for the first time.
