The sports Chapultepec recovers shine and greatness

April of the River

Newspaper La Jornada
Thursday February 16, 2023, p. a12

Returning to the Chapultepec Sports Center some of the greatness it has had in more than 120 years of history, with a stadium that was born with a wooden structure at the beginning of the then Club Reforma at the end of the 19th century, is the purpose of the third edition of the Mexico City Open (March 27-April 1), Challenger 125 tournament classified by the Association of Professional Tennis Players as a flagship eventdue to the quality of its organization.

Jorge Nicolín, sports director, stressed that the objectives are to improve the tournament more and more in order to move up to the next category (250) in the future, but, above all, to insist on the production of tennis players on the courts of Chapultepec, whose main stadium , the Raphael Hairless Osuna, is identified as The Cathedral of Tennis Mexican.

The history of the venue is undoubtedly the oldest of the sport in Mexico City. The memoirs of the Reforma Athletic Club record its foundation in March 1894, in the property located on the current Mariano Escobedo street (665).

It was at the initiative of a group of English investors, headed by Thomas Phillips, who called a meeting to discuss the issue of the new sports club where lawn tennis and cricket would be played, among other sports, while the soccer team was being developed. Reform Club.

They then created a civil association that it would encourage sports, social and cultural activity among British subjects and would strengthen ties between English and Mexicanthe Reforma Athletic Club testifies.

Various disciplines were developed for decades, and in 1937 it was acquired by the Bank of Mexico and named the Chapultepec Sports Center, by means of a presidential decree under the mandate of Lázaro Cárdenas, which obliged all credit institutions to give facilities to their employees for the sport encouragement. The facility was formally inaugurated in 1950, and to date most memberships are tied to bank employees.

Alternately, the courts and pools of Chapultepec have been a hotbed of great Mexican athletes and witnesses of their exploits, with Leonardo Lavalle, Esperanza Belmar, Rosa María the bow tie Reyes, and especially the considered best Mexican tennis player Rafael Hairless Osuna, in brilliant Davis Cup series, as well as divers Joaquín Capilla, Juan Botella, Álvaro Gaxiola and Tatiana Ortiz, and Mexican swimming institutions headed by Professor Mario Tovar, Maximiliano Aguilar, Rafael Cal and Walter Ocampo.

Also prominent badminton players such as the brothers Fernando and Ernesto de la Torre, the fronton players Jorge Garibay, José Núñez and Oscar Urías, or the bodybuilders Jaime Bravo and Fernando Solís.

After 120 years, the organization of the Mexico City Open celebrates that the revamped Tennis Cathedral recovers its brilliance, and for the third edition, high-level players are expected, ranked in the world between positions 75 and 220, that is, a draw comparable to the level of a 250 class tournament, in which at least one Mexican player will have invitation.