Spanish duo Sergio Casal and Emilio Sanchez will receive the Philippe Chatrier Award, ITF’s highest accolade, at the 2017 ITF World Champions Dinner in Paris on Tuesday.
The 2016 singles champions Andy Murray and Angelique Kerber; doubles champions Jamie Murray and Bruno Soares, and Caroline Garcia and Kristina Mladenovic; junior champions Miomir Kecmanovic and Anastasia Potapova; and wheelchair champions Gordon Reid (GBR) and Jiske Griffioen (NED) will be also be honoured at the Champions Dinner. The world champion nations of Davis Cup and Fed Cup by BNP Paribas, Argentina and Czech Republic, will be also be honoured.
Casal and Sanchez will receive the Philippe Chatrier Award for their services to the game as players and coaches. They first teamed up in 1984, when Casal, then 21, formed a doubles pair with the 19-year-old Sanchez at the suggestion of their mutual coach William Alvarez.
Casal and Sanchez were one of the leading doubles teams of their era, winning 44 tournaments together during their 12-year-partnership including two Grand Slam titles, and won the silver medal at Seoul 1988 as tennis made its full return to the Olympics. They finished among the Top 10 doubles teams for 10 out of 11 years from 1985 to 1995, achieving the year-end No. 1 team ranking in 1987.
In 1998, the pair opened the Sanchez-Casal Academy in Barcelona and followed it up with academies in Florida (2012) and Nanjing, China (2016). Their academy has produced many elite players, including world No. 1 Andy Murray, two-time Grand Slam champion Svetlana Kuznetsova, Grigor Dimitrov, Daniel Hantuchova and Juan Monaco.
ITF President David Haggerty said: “We are delighted to present Sergio Casal and Emilio Sanchez with the Philippe Chatrier Award for their contributions to tennis as a successful doubles team and in the field of coaching. Their on-court achievements paved the way for further Spanish success, and in founding a successful coaching academy, they have shaped the careers of several prominent players and the lives of many more.”
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