The “supremo” of the Asian Tennis Federation (ATF) is arriving next week and Philippine Tennis Association (Philta) president Atty. Antonio Cablitas is hopeful the leadership row that hounded the once popular sport will soon be settled.
Cablitas intends to invite all major stakeholders, including longtime patron John Henri Lhuillier, Buddy Andrada and Parañaque Mayor Edwin Olivarez when ATP president Annil Khanna arrives on Jan. 26.
“I’m trying to reach out to all stakeholders so we can talk in front of Khanna. It’s better to thresh out all our differences with him around,” said Cablitas who is now President Duterte’s adviser on foreign investments.
Cablitas said the popularity of the sport has dropped dramatically due to leadership infighting the past seven months that even discovering new talents is hard to come by.
“We lost a precious time because of the leadership row,” said the 70-year-old corporate lawyer who has been in the tennis circle since the great era of Felix Barrientos, Manny Tolentino, Rod Rafael, Danny Pila and Ringo Navarrosa.
Despite the intrigues, Cablitas has been silently working and helping homegrown talents whenever they need financial support.
“Unlike others, he’s not fond of advertising his support to our local players,” said a parent of one of the country’s top players. “While others have hidden agenda, his support for our players is genuine.”
While he likes to see a Philippine team composed of local players, Cablitas is not closing the door on Fil-foreign players.
“They (Fil-foreign players) are still welcome under my program but my priority is to assemble a brigade of top local players,” he said.
Once the leadership row is settled, Cablitas intends to stage major tournaments in three major islands of the country that will be capped by a Master event.
He is actually in talks with well-known sports and government personalities all over the country so that he can also organize age-group tournaments which he stressed is vital to the association’s bid to revive the sport’s popularity.
He also intends to help homegrown talents financially so that they can play in tough tournaments abroad aside from inviting top coaches and officials.
“We need to improve the officiating and invite the best available coaches so that our young players will be further motivated,” he added.