A total of 250 tennis players, between two and 85 years old, gathered this Sunday in San Francisco de Talavera street to be part of the XXI Racket Day, organized by the ‘Talavera-Ciudad de la Cerámica’ Tennis School, the Talavera Badminton Club and Los Alcores Tennis School. The pandemic and the health measures it implies have prevented the 725 participants who gathered three years ago from meeting.
The president of the ‘Talavera-Ciudad de la Cerámica’ Tennis School, Benedicto Tapetado, has described this round of Racket Day as “successful”. He stressed, in statements made to this newspaper, that “people have had a blast and the children very happy.” He considers important the fact that “we have recovered this initiative, which is unique in Spain.” And it is that in other parts of the national geography it is carried out on courts, while in Talavera tennis is developed in the street and, in this way, «the spectator sees that it is a close, affordable sport to which everyone world can play.
Tapetado is convinced that Racket Day “goes beyond sporting limits and becomes a first-class social event.” And it is that «taking such a beautiful event to the emblematic street of the city implies that people have a good time, enjoy it and I think that Talavera deserves to have this initiative».
Given that the Covid is still present, the objective of this XXI Racket Day was also “to be able to carry it out in a safe, simple and very effective way.” A total of 15 monitors were in charge of the classes for the 250 students; Regarding his coaches, he has highlighted that “they are the best in Spain and they are putting some fantastic wickers so that tennis has its place and Talavera is on the map.”
And, of course, there was no shortage of awards for the smallest racket, for Mario de la Rosa, the largest, for Sergio Álvarez, and the oldest, for César Antón, with a 1930 copy.
In a different vein, future projects include the recovery of the ‘Virgen del Prado’ National Tennis Open, which “is a first-rate national tournament.” And it will come with news since “there will also be a female team.”
The mayor, Tita García Élez, and the councilors of Sports and Tourism, Crafts and Commerce, Sergio Gutiérrez and María Jesús Pérez, respectively, have been present in this activity.
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