The 6th City of Alessandria “Eugenio Taverna Memorial” National Wheelchair Tennis Tournament will be taking place 24-28 August, supported by Riccoboni Group for the second year in a row.
The competition will host athletes with disabilities from all over Italy, divided by categories: open, quad, women and junior. The match schedule includes both singles and doubles matches for each category, to be held at the Orti sports complex. Endorsed by the City of Alessandria and the Region of Piedmont, the tournament is promoted by the “Saves” community centre and the “Volare A.R.L.” amateur athletic association.
During the press conference for the presentation of the sporting event, President of Riccoboni Holding Marco Riccoboni left this message: “Contributing to this tournament for the second year in a row is a clear sign of our closeness to the Alessandria community. Our group has been supporting other sports organisations in this area of Italy for years; in fact, we’ve been operating here for some time. I’m referring to the Tortona and Casale basketball clubs. The choice expresses our group's willingness to help in the development of important projects such as these, at any level. I wish the event greater and greater success and for it to improve the excellent results achieved in past years even more.”
Tournament organisers Gianluca Cosentino and Giuseppe Bianchi of the “Volare” amateur sports association commented: “Reaching the event’s sixth year is a significant result for us managers of the ‘Volare’ amateur sports association and is the culmination of the work we’ve been doing over the last few years while carrying on with our project ‘Sport per tutti’ (‘Sport for Everyone’). Today we are the most active wheelchair tennis sports association in the Piedmont region, with Italian Tennis Federation events organised this year in the provincial area and, most importantly, in other provinces. These past two years were hard due to the pandemic and other issues, but they motivated us to give our all even more because we strongly believe in wheelchair tennis; the difficulties didn’t take the wind out of our sails. Every year, at our home tournament, we try to raise the bar on quality higher because being close to the needs of participating athletes is important to us. Based on the fact that we were able to successfully present the event again and after the success of past years, we’re proud to pick up where we left off with the same level of excitement and participation, and we hope this project keeps on growing, replicating the results obtained this year. The tournament is named after ‘Eugenio Taverna’ and this is very important to us, to show our gratitude and sympathy to the family. Eugenio, who was a sports and tennis lover, died of a sudden illness after a game of tennis with friends. His family has never stopped helping and supporting our sports association ever since. Remembering Eugenio through this tournament is for us an honour and an obligation. We take this opportunity to give a special thanks to our President Paolo Bonino, to our many sponsors and, last but by no means least, to the Saves’ sports community centre and its President, Gianpiero Lavezzari, for the friendly support.”
Speaking at the presentation, Alessandria mayor Giorgio Abonante said: “What emerges through sports and culture are fundamental values such as inclusion and sharing, but also the astounding results of overcoming physical limits: this is what we find at the City of Alessandria National Wheelchair Tennis Tournament. In this highly popular space – not only for sports but for social gatherings and dining as well – the tournament named after ‘Eugenio Taverna’ keeps the memory of our unforgettable athlete alive and continues to deeply move us.”
