The heart of tennis: nations gather for ITF AGM
Among the items on the agenda at the ITF’s AGM last week was voting to approve four awards for services to tennis.
Miriam Oremans, Salma Mouelhi Guizani, Evgeniy Zukin and Paulina Sepulveda were all approved to receive their accolades and will be presented with them over the coming months.
While the public might be most familiar with Oremans – a Dutch former player who represented her country 39 times in Billie Jean King Cup and won an Olympic doubles silver medal in Sydney – the other three individuals are all well-known and respected figures in the world tennis community.
Mouelhi Guizani was President of the Tunisian Tennis Federation for 12 years, under whose watch Ons Jabeur shot to global fame. She is also an ITF Board Member. Zukin is a longtime secretary of the Ukrainian Tennis Federation who has remained with them throughout their current period of wartime turmoil. And Sepulveda, as well as being captain of Chile’s Billie Jean King Cup team, leads coach education at the Chilean Tennis Federation.
All four award winners have contributed in a range of ways to the sport of tennis in their home countries, and individuals like them are celebrated every year at the ITF AGM as part of the essential fabric of the game. They are the beating heart of tennis.
The 2025 ITF Conference and AGM chose ‘The Beating Heart of Tennis’ as its overall theme. The assembly shone a light on the essential role the ITF and its 213 member nations play in laying the foundations for tennis around the world, and the many ways that this global alliance is vital to the sport’s ongoing existence at the elite level.
One hundred and forty-three nations joined online for this year’s assembly, held virtually on 15 and 16 October. The Conference on day one included presentations on the ITF’s Development and Junior strategies for the next four years, and the organisation’s plans to build a thriving global digital community.
The goal remains, as part of the ITF2024+4 roadmap, to ensure that tennis is available for everyone to access and play all over the world, and that wherever talent exists, it has the chance to fly. Efforts are focused on having a record 120 million people playing tennis by 2030.
“Without the ITF’s member national associations sharing their love of the game and investing in and developing players in their countries, tennis would not be one of the top three followed sports in the world,” said ITF President David Haggerty.
“We support them to do this, and our Conference and AGM is vital for sharing progress and plans. It serves as a source of inspiration and solidarity as we work together to ensure the growth and sustainability of tennis around the world.”
The headline from the formal AGM on day two was the nations’ emphatic vote in favour of the ITF becoming World Tennis from 2026, a move designed to better reflect the organisation’s role as the sport’s global governing body and guardian.
Among other AGM resolutions, the Services to the Game Awards were passed, and increases in voting shares were approved for the Kazakhstan Tennis Federation (moving from seven votes to nine) and the Romanian Tennis Federation (moving from three votes to five).
The Faroe Islands Tennis Association was also welcomed as a Class C (non-voting) member of the ITF, with the North Atlantic archipelago joining the world tennis community from 2026.
The final business of the day saw New Zealander David Howman approved as the new independent Chair of the ITF Commission from 2026. He will succeed inaugural Chair Sandra Osborne, who retires at the end of 2025 after six years in the role.