The condition of the only two usable tennis courts here for Cuba’s national team of six women and 12 men had fallen into disrepair after years of neglect.
But four months ago, in the kind of bridge that looser restrictions on trade between the United States and Cuba aspires to, an American non-profit group swooped in and rehabilitated the Cuban National Tennis Center, believed to be the only full-fledged courts on the island not part of a hotel or resort.
Now there are 10 courts, and the optimism of Cuba’s tennis players are likely to develop and expand as well.
“We have new hope here,” Yusleydis Smith Díaz (20), who is considered the top women’s player in Cuba, said as she finished a practice this week. “But tennis here is very difficult.”
Cuba all but shut down golf after the 1959 revolution brought to power Fidel Castro, who seized courses and denounced the game. Although tennis, another sport of elite clubs, did not endure that level of derision, money for it dried up in favour of the government’s priorities: baseball, boxing, volleyball and other sports Cuba went on to excel at on the international stage. President Raúl Castro, however, who assumed full power in 2008, has been seen as less doctrinaire. And with the restoration of diplomatic relations with the United States in 2015 and President Barack Obama visiting the island in 2016, both countries have explored opportunities to reconnect across a variety of endeavours, including sports.
While other efforts, including allowing Cuban baseball players to enter the Major League Baseball draft directly, remain mired in on-again, off-again talks, the revival of tennis accelerated over the course of a year of negotiations. “It was a start-and-stop process of threading the needle until the bill of lading was signed,” said Jake Agna, director of Kids on the Ball, the American non-profit group that refurbished the courts.
The organisation emphasised the humanitarian aspect of overhauling the courts and propping up the sport, although “I do believe the less restrictive embargo opened the way for us,” Mr. Agna said, adding, “There was never a conversation about politics or politicians.”
Kids on the Ball agreed to do the work on the courts and provide tennis gear, a whole shipping container’s worth, at an estimated cost of $7,50,000. “The courts are a dream made reality,” said Alexander Ferrales Gonzalez, president of the Cuban tennis federation, a division of the Ministry of Sports. “We can make a stage for tennis.”
Mr. Ferrales said he saw the courts as a springboard for the small elite training programme and a catalyst to increasing tennis participation across Cuba. The federation estimates there are 2,000 players across Cuba with competitive aspirations.
Still, the Ministry, known as Inder, controls decisions on resources, funding and athletic travel.
One of Mr. Ferrales’s plans is to pursue sponsorship for his national team programme. Puma and Adidas have long sponsored other Cuban sports like boxing, baseball and track and field. Tennis has never been sponsored.
Still, it has been challenging for players to get a foothold in international tournaments.
Yoryana Delgado Herrera, the No. 2 women’s player, voiced frustration.
“We don’t get to play more than two tournaments a year, so we can’t get points to play other tournaments,” she said. The next competition for her and Smith will be the Federations Cup in Panama in June.
