September 2008

Royal Spanish
Tennis Federation

The logo of the Real Federación Española de Tenis (Royal Spanish Tennis Federation) with the inscription 100 years on court, has been specially designed to celebrate, throughout 2008-2009, the hundredth anniversary of this sports institution. The logo features in this stamp issued to commemorate this event.

The Royal Spanish Tennis Federation is a public service non-profit entity aiming at the promotion, organisation and regulation of tennis. It is the institution representing Spain in international tennis competitions and it is a member of the European Tennis Association and the Spanish Olympic Committee.

The current federation has its origins in the “Royal Association of Spanish Lawn-Tennis”, which in turn comes from the “Barcelona Lawn-tennis Association”, which was the first national organisation member of the London tennis association which at the beginning of the XX century ruled world tennis. In this early stage Spanish clubs lacked a national institution to channel the rules and it wasn’t until September 1909, during the celebration of the Concurso Internacional de San Sebatián which gathered delegates from different clubs and companies that it was agreed that a national federation was to be created. In 1975, and after many changes in its denomination, it came to be called Real Federación Española de Tenis – RFET (Royal Spanish Tennis Federation).

The RFET begins the commemoration of its hundredth anniversary in September 2008 – coinciding with the final tournament of the Fed Cup, which will play off Spain against Russia and the semi-final of the Davis Cup between Spain and United States. The celebration will go on throughout 2009 with exhibitions, congresses and assemblies aiming to promote the so called “white sport” and its future projects.

The oldest international tennis tournament is the Davis Cup which began to take place in 1900. From then on there are many others taking placing around the world the most famous being Wimbledon, Roland Garros and the open matches in the United States in which Spanish tennis players are amongst the best.