ITF

DEVELOPMENT URUGUAY A great achievement this year was the opening of the National Training Centre in Montevideo, which allows Asociacion Uruguaya de Tenis (AUT) to organise tournaments and festivals and deliver participation and performance programmes from its headquarters. Like most other South American nations, tennis in Uruguay is most prevalent in private clubs, with most of those centralised in Montevideo. AUT has recognised this and there is a strategy in place to strengthen and develop tennis in all regions of the country, with many activities now organised outside of the capital city. 'Gurises ao Tenis' is the name of AUT's main participation programme, which aims to promote tennis in schools, at festivals and through interscholastic tournaments. ITF World Winter 2021 35 BOLIVIA In 2021, elections were held for the presidency of Federacion Boliviana de Tenis (FBT). Hiber Villafane Guardia was elected president, replacing Ricardo Aguirre, and I look forward to working with him in the coming years. There are three main tennis areas in Bolivia: La Paz, Cochabamba and Santa Cruz de la Sierra. It is in these cities where most of the private clubs are located – Bolivia has an excellent structure of private clubs – and where most tournaments take place. Bolivia is a nation which traditionally hosts many events and, fortunately, the staging of tournaments was not overly impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, outside of its peak. One of the main events hosted by FBT – with the full support of the ITF Development programme – is Copa COSAT, a competition for teams in the 12-and-under age category which sees the top five nations from South America compete with Canada, Mexico and a representative of COTECC (Central American & " One of the main challenges for the national association, however, is that although many children participate in the initial activities of the programme, there is a rapid decrease in the number of participants from the age of 12. AUT is looking at ways to improve this and a new programme has been launched which sees festivals organised simultaneously throughout the nation's different regions, with a follow- up undertaken to understand which pathway participants wish to take. In terms of coaching, Uruguay has strengthened its coaching base by organising many Play Tennis courses in recent years, with the priority being to find and train new coaches. " " Caribbean Tennis Confederation). It was a competition staged for three years pre-pandemic and organised with distinction by the FBT. In terms of coaches' education, earlier this year Bolivia received bronze level recognition from the ITF through the Recognition of Coach Education Systems programme, while in 2019 Bolivia hosted its first National Coaches Congress. The improving quality of coaches goes hand in hand with development, which is a priority in Bolivia and FBT has placed huge emphasis on the Junior Tennis Initiative and will continue to do so. The big success story of Bolivian tennis is Hugo Dellien, whose progression and development was supported by an ITF-administered Grand Slam Development Fund player grant in 2018, while two years later he reached a career-high ranking of No. 72. Hugo has brought hope to a vast number of players within the country, who now believe they can follow in his footsteps.. " Sebas an Baez is one of seven Argen nian male players inside the top 100 Bolivia's Hugo Dellien

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