The European Community Championship was a professional

tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball c ...

tournament held from 1982 until 1998 in Antwerp, Belgium. The tournament was held as a special invitational/exhibition event run outside the

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series and did not distribute any

ATP ATP may refer to: Companies and organizations * Association of Tennis Professionals, men's professional tennis governing body * American Technical Publishers, employee-owned publishing company * ', a Danish pension * Armenia Tree Project, non ...

ranking points until 1992, when the tournament became part of the

ATP Tour The ATP Tour is a worldwide top-tier tennis tour for men organized by the Association of Tennis Professionals. The second-tier tour is the ATP Challenger Tour and the third-tier is the ITF Men's World Tennis Tour. The equivalent women's organisa ...

. While an exhibition tournament, invitations were extended to players who won a tournament title in Europe during that year. The surface of the tournament was indoor carpet. The inaugural event was held in December 1982, with a $700,000 purse on offer for 24 players. At that time, the high level (Super Series) European Grand Prix events like the

Italian Open Italian Open may refer to: *Italian Open (tennis), a Masters 1000 level tennis tournament played in Rome each year. *Italian Open (golf), a European Tour golf tournament. *Italian Open (darts) The Italian Grand Masters is a darts tournament held i ...

or indoor tournament in

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, London offered only $300,000 and $200,000 respectively. It was called the European Champions' Championship and from 1986 was renamed the European Community Championship (ECC). Its nickname was the "Gold Racquet" tournament because if a player won the tournament thrice within a 5-year span, he would also receive a special trophy, a life-size, 13.2-

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gold racquet studded with 1,420 diamonds valued at $1,000,000, created by the artist Varozza. This inspired the

Proximus Diamond Games The Diamond Games (due to sponsorship known for the last time as BNP Paribas Fortis Diamond Games and before that Proximus Diamond Games, GDF-Suez Diamond Games and Thomas Cook Diamond Games) was a professional women's tennis tournament organis ...

, a

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event held in Antwerp since 2002, to have a similar trophy system. In 1985,

Ivan Lendl Ivan Lendl (; born March 7, 1960) is a Czech–American former professional tennis player. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest tennis players of all time. Lendl was ranked world No. 1 in singles for 270 weeks and won 94 singles titles. ...

won his third title within 4 years and received the $200,000 winners prize together with the Gold Racquet. In 1991,

Boris Becker Boris Franz Becker (, ; born 22 November 1967) is a German former world No. 1 tennis player. Becker was successful from the start of his career, winning the Wimbledon Championships at the age of 17. He ultimately won six Grand Slam singles tit ...

spoiled Lendl's quest for a $1,250,000 million prize ($250,000 prize money plus the $1,000,000 racquet) at the ECC in Antwerp by beating him 6–4, 7–5 in the semifinals. Had Lendl won, he would have kept the gold-and-diamond racquet trophy valued at about $1,000,000, adding to his from 1985. He was in the running for a second after victories in 1987 and 1989, but wound up with only $100,000 that year.

Past finals

Singles

Doubles

References

World of Tennis ''World of Tennis'' was the International Tennis Federation's (ITF) official tennis annual until it was replaced by The ITF Year. It was published annually beginning in 1969 and became an official ITF publication in 1981. ''World of Tennis'' was e ...

annuals {{Tennis exhibition tournaments Tennis tournaments in Belgium Exhibition tennis tournaments Indoor tennis tournaments Defunct tennis tournaments in Europe Defunct sports competitions in Belgium Carpet court tennis tournaments Hard court tennis tournaments

Past finals

Singles

Doubles

See also

References