Barcelona has been a pioneer city in the introduction of numerous sports, including tennis. It is no coincidence: the industrial revolution that took place in Catalan lands allowed the arrival of people from other European countries, who contributed their knowledge to ensure that Catalonia became the factory of Spain.
But it also allowed an enterprising civil society to emerge, which laid the foundations for a cultural renaissance that allowed it to show itself to the world during the Universal Exposition of 1888, promoted by the mayor Rius i Taulet.
By the way, the newspaper La Vanguardia was already there to report it, founded by Carlos and Bartolomé Godó, who opened the pages of the newspaper to a whole generation of artists and writers who made it a reference for the Catalan bourgeoisie. Ramon Casas, Isidre Nonell, Narcís Oller or Santiago Rusiñol were some of the illustrious firms that brought the newspaper closer to the society of their time.
It was the English residents in the Catalan capital who imported the sport. These had their great cheerleader in Frederic Witty, a sporting goods merchant. To them we owe the foundation in 1899 of the RCT Barcelona, which was initially called Barcelona Lawn Tenis and which did not have a Catalan president until twelve years later.
Also among these pioneers was Hans Gamper, who was the founder and first president of FC Barcelona. By the way, the first chronicle of a Football Club Barcelona match – that was the original name – was published in the Godó newspaper, with a text full of Anglicisms.
The first headquarters of the Barcelona Tennis Lawn was on Pau Claris street, between Valencia and Mallorca, and it only had two courts to practice on. True to tradition, the matches stopped at five in the afternoon for tea, with cakes baked by the wives of the tennis players.
Some of these ladies timidly began to practice the sport of the racket in the following years. Thirty years later, La Vanguardia featured a tennis player on its cover for the first time, Lilí Alvárez. She was a versatile, intellectual and feminist champion, who reached the Wimbledon final three times.
The editor Carlos Godó, being president of the RCT Barcelona, decided at the beginning of the fifties that Barcelona would host a great tennis tournament, like those held in the main capitals of the world. Today, on the seventieth anniversary of that initiative, it is the venue for one of the most emblematic tournaments on the circuit.
The second Count of Godó spared no expense for a tournament that bore his name, committing to cover the deficit that was generated out of pocket. It is no coincidence that its first winner, Vic Seixas, won Wimbledon three months later and Forest Hill a year later.
1953 is far away: in this year Edmund Hillary conquered the top of the Earth on Everest, the United States carried out the first atomic tests in the Nevada desert, Joseph Stalin died, Elizabeth II was crowned Queen of England and Winston Churchill obtained the prize Nobel for Literature. In Spain, filming began on the first Biscuter, the train tracks on Aragó street were covered and the Economics faculty was inaugurated in Pedralbes.
Andrés Gimeno from Barcelona was the first Spaniard to win the tournament in 1960. In the final against Giuseppe Merlo, he received a command from his father: "Don't go up to the net if it's not to shake hands at the end of the game." The match was broadcast on TVE and the facilities had to be expanded to accommodate 3,000 spectators.
The 1960s boosted tennis in the country and the tournament took a qualitative leap: the winners of the Godó include, among others, the Australian Roy Emerson, Manuel Santana, Juan Gisbert and Manuel Orantes. In the following years, the Romanian Ilie Nastase, the Swede Björn Borg, Ivan Lendl, Mats Wilander and Martín Jaite, who already presented the Javier Godó Cup in 1987, lifted the trophy.
In the nineties, Godó took a qualitative leap in what the professionalization of the tournament represented. The public, the prizes, the sponsors increased. The Village gained space and became the most precious private space in the city, where Catalan society came together with the guests of the big brands that contributed to the financing of a trophy that has had the good sense to continue in the club where it started, which makes it special, also for the gamers.
Tennis, in these seventy years of life of the tournament, which today is the Godó-Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell Trophy, has gone from being a sport for good people to a popular sport. Just as in its beginnings it was a men's competition but that the pioneers of feminism claimed, despite the fact that they played the matches with long skirts that complicated the speed of their movements.
In this century, the tournament has been lucky to have a champion like Rafael Nadal, who has won 12 times, two less than at Roland Garros. Barcelona experiences Godó as something of its own. Like a visiting card of the city's pleasant spring. As a close and interclass competition. Like a tournament that unites modernity and tradition. As an appointment marked in red on the calendar.
