David Haggerty of the US was elected the president of the International Tennis Federation (ITF) as he beat the president of the All India Tennis Association (AITA), Anil Khanna, 200 votes to 192 in the Annual General Meeting of the ITF in Santiago, Chile, on Friday. The 58-year-old Haggerty, who has served as the president and CEO of the United States Tennis Association (USTA) among many positions, takes over from the Francesco Ricci Bitti who served as the ITF president for 16 years.
Two other candidates from Europe, Rene Stammbach of Switzerland and Juan Margets of Spain were beaten in the first phase of the election. Anil Khanna, who is also the president of the Asian Tennis Federation (ATF) was, however, re-elected into the ITF Board of Directors for a further four-year term till 2019.
Katrina Adams (US), Martin Corrie (GBR), Stergio Elias (Chi), Ismai El Shafei (Egy), Bernard Giudicelli (Fra), Jack Graham (Can), Thomas Koenigsfeldt (Den), Cella Patrick (NZ), Aleksei SSelivanenko (Rus), Rene Stammbach (Sui), Stefan Tzvetkov (Bul) and Bulat Uternuratov (Kaz) were the others to be elected into the ITF Board of Directors.
The AGM also approved an increase in size of the Board of Directors from 13 to 15, so as to accommodate the athlete representatives. The two athlete members will be appointed by the elected members of the Board and it would be ratified in the next AGM to be held in Zagreb, Croatia, in June. Among the many regulation changes, it was decided to introduce fifth set tie-breaks in Davis Cup from next year.
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