The Famous deVillafranca Court In Mexico
by Rob Dinerman
July 6,
2004 -When
the deVillafranca brothers, Juan and his twin siblings Luis and Raul,
sold the family estate in the Mexico City suburb of Pedregal this past
spring following the death several months earlier of their last
surviving parent, their mother, Carmen, one of the truly historic sites
in the annals of Mexican squash likely passed into oblivion.
For it was on this property that the first ever squash court in Mexico
was constructed nearly 40 years ago, thereby launching what would
become a truly remarkable and memorable phenomenon in the evolution of
the sport on this continent.
MEXICAN DISCOVERY MADE BY RAUL
Their father, Raul Sr., was a highly successful and prominent lawyer
who in fact served for several years as the personal lawyer to one of
Mexico's Presidents during the early 1960's. On one of the senior
deVillafranca's business trips to Europe in 1963, he discovered and was
immediately entranced by the game of squash, which had been
non-existent in Mexico, where the dominant "wall" racquet sports were
jai alai and especially frontenis, which is played on a 30 meter by 10
meter three-wall court with tennis racquets and a hard rubber ball
similar to a squash ball though slightly larger.
Returning excitedly home upon the conclusion of his business
obligations overseas, Mr. DeVillafranca contacted the USSRA to learn
the dimensions of a North American (i.e. hardball) court and to procure
the necessary equipment; by 1965 a fully serviceable court was ready
for action on the back lawn behind the family home, and plenty of
action is exactly what the open-air, concrete-floored plaster-walled
structure would receive!
From the very beginning, the game was a tremendous hit with the friends
and business colleagues that visited the deVillafrancas, with the court
in constant use at all hours of the day and night, especially on
weekends, when every afternoon the property metamorphosed into a
crowded and continuous celebration of the game, to the point where the
family actually installed a swimming pool just yards from the court so
that their guests could cool off while awaiting their turn on court!
Because of the senior deVillafranca's status in the political and
business communities, the playing group at this juncture was decidedly
upper-crust: one noted USSRA officer in for a visit during that period
vividly recalls his host gesturing to the several dozen guests
thronging the grounds late one afternoon and commenting that "80% of
all the wealth in Mexico is right here on this lawn."
SANCHEZ CLAN GETS IN THE ACT
During the 1968 Olympic Games, which were held in Mexico City, Mr.
DeVillafranca approached Carlos and Raul Sanchez, who were members of
the Mexican team in frontenis, which was a demonstration sport in those
Games, and invited them to visit his home and give squash a try. Both
became instant converts, and the latter would eventually attain a level
of stardom (including a number of USSRA age-group championships) that
was, however, eclipsed by the achievements of his nephew, Mario, who in
1979 would become the first Mexican to win the U. S. Nationals,
jump-starting a WPSA pro career that saw him become a perennial
top-five-ranked superstar, a finalist in the '82 Boston Open and the
'89 North American Open and the '86 WPSA Championships winner via a 3-0
final-round victory over Michael Desaulniers in Toledo.
During the late 1960's the wealthy friends and colleagues of Mr.
DeVillafranca began building squash courts in their own backyards and
eventually one of their number, Tomas Pacheco, decided to build a few
courts that would be accessible to the public. In 1969 Luis Suinaga
constructed a four-court complex named The Palace, which became the
best known of its genre and the forerunner of facilities at Villa Coapa
and other villages just outside Mexico City.
A VERITABLE SQUASH BOOM
By the early 1970's the game was booming and in 1972 for the first time
a Mexican team, which included Mr. DeVillafranca and his oldest son,
Juan, then in his mid-teens, was entered in the USSRA Five-Man Team
event. They lost 5-0 in the first round, but the push of Mexican squash
was inexorable, as Mexican players began entering the USSRA junior
age-group events and making their mark. In December '73, Juan
deVillafranca stormed back from a two games to one deficit against
three-time U. S. junior champion Ian Shaw, a heavy favorite, in the
final of the prestigious Intercollegiate Invitational at the University
Club of New York, winning the last two games going away and launching a
run that brought him to the semis of the '74 U. S. Nationals and to the
winner's circle of the '74 and '75 Intercollegiate Individual
tournaments.
That '75 title, in which in the final deVillafranca avenged his
final-round Intercollegiate Invitational loss three months earlier to
Bill Andruss, had been preceded by a milestone moment in the evolution
of squash in Mexico, namely the hosting of the '75 version of the most
prestigious tournament in all of squash on this continent, the North
American Open. Earlier in the decade, the Federacion Mexicana de Squash
had been formally established to oversee the sport's rapid growth, and
after several years of attending USSRA Board meetings in his capacity
as President of his country's new squash association, Mr. DeVillafranca
was able to convince the USSRA to allow Mexico to host this prize
tourney, which had always previously been held in either the United
States or Canada.
Although by this time a roof had been added to the deVillafranca family
court to allow for play even when it was raining, and although that
court had been one of several on which the Mexican Nationals, which
began in the early 1970's, was contested, it was nevertheless decided
to play the Open at the Palace, which had far greater gallery capacity,
and which provided the venue for a truly memorable weekend.
The highlights of that championship were Juan deVillafranca's highly
acclaimed run to the semi-finals and Victor Niederhoffer's even more
noteworthy four-game final-round upset win over six-time defending
champion Sharif Khan, the taut last few points of which were played to
the wild applause of the Mexican fans, who by that time had forgiven
Niederhoffer for eliminating their hero in the prior round.
But even this enormously important event had to take a back seat to
what occurred the following year, when a Mexican squad consisting of
Mario and Raul Sanchez at Nos. 1 and 2, Luis deVillafranca at No. 3,
Pepe Musi and No. 4 and Raul deVillafranca Jr. at No. 5 posted a pair
of exciting 3-2 victories over the Pacific Northwest and Ontario team
entries respectively in the semi-final and final rounds of the '76
USSRA Five-Man Team Nationals, held in Philadelphia, the birthplace of
American squash. The two Sanchezes both won their matches, but Musi
lost and, after saving a match-point in the fourth game, Luis
deVillafranca finally fell in five to Jerry Shugar.
SPRINTING TO THE TITLE
This left the entire team outcome in the hands of the youngster Raul
deVillafranca and his far more experienced Canadian opponent, Andy
Pastor, who led two games to one at the break, but lost a close 15-12
fourth game and faded in the decisive 15-7 fifth. The returning heroes
were met at the airport by government and Olympic officials and a
Mexican squash movement that began inauspiciously just 11 years before
when that lone court was quietly constructed in the back yard of the
deVillafranca home had captivated an entire nation.
There would be a successful retention of this crown in '77 in Chicago
by the same quintet and a number of other winning teams in the years
that followed. Rodolfo Rodriguez in '89 and Hector Barragan ('90-'94)
would succeed Mario Sanchez as U. S. Nationals titlists, with the
latter also attaining the WPSA top-five, as did Marcos Mendez, the '94
North American Open champion and one of three Mendez siblings (Juan and
Jose-Luis being the others) to earn a top-10 WPSA ranking.
At one stage in the late 1980's, nearly 40% of the WPSA tour was
composed of Mexican players, with the aforementioned group joined by
Tomas Fortson, the current Bowdoin men's and women's coach, Alberto
Nunez, Gustavo Garcia, Alejandro Moreya, Edgar Morales, Manuel Loza,
Edgardo Alvarez and the Montero brothers, Miguel Jr. and Octavio as
tour members who had a significant impact.
The Loews Cup, a WPSA tour event established in 1983 to match teams from the U.
S. and Canada Davis Cup-style, added a Mexican team in recognition of this phenomenon.
In the late 1980's a summer tour of pro events in Mexico even
developed, with the Mexican WPSA players entering to demonstrate their
prowess to their admiring fans; these events also often drew American
players eager to keep their games sharp during the WPSA off-season
months and to challenge the Mexicans on their home turf. The 15th
anniversary tournament at Villa Coapa, won by Juan Mendez, drew an
enormous turn-out of players at all levels wishing to pay tribute to
this highly popular club and its owners, the brothers Paco and Miguel
Montero.
SHORT-LIVED GLORY
Sadly, this glorious period would be short-lived. The takeover of the
international game in the mid-1990's and the consequent demise of the
WPSA hardball tour would have profound consequences for the
thousand-plus hardball courts that had sprouted throughout Mexico
during the previous two decades.
Court conversion in Mexico was an especially daunting undertaking,
given the prohibitive expense involved and the distance from the sites
of the overwhelmingly American-based court construction companies that
have accomplished this specialized mission in the U. S. during the past
15 years.
A number of Mexican clubs have successfully converted their courts, and
the Mexican men's and women's teams won the gold and silver medals
respectively at the Pan American Federation Cup held in Tepic, Nayarit
a few weeks ago. But a Mexican player has yet to make a major impact on
either the PSA or WISPA pro softball circuits (a situation that shows
signs of possibly changing soon in light of the impact Mexican
teenagers have been having in recent years in the major junior
tournaments) and the buzz that fueled the fervor with which that
country embraced the hardball game 30 years ago has not entirely been
replicated. However, current PSA pro Eric Galvez, a still young
contender who shows electrifying flashes of the flair and brilliance on
court last seen from that country from the likes of Mario Sanchez, has
the potential of making some signficant waves.
By the mid-1990's, Luis deVillafranca (whose last tournament appearance
came in the U. S. 35-and-over event in '99 in Boston) was the only
player still actively using the deVillafranca home court that not long
before had been the site of so many spirited practice and tournament
matches. The worn structure had by any standard thoroughly out-lived
its usefulness by the time the family property was recently sold, and
inexorably fallen victim to the relentless passage of time. But this
preordained fact in no way detracts from the court's standing as
hallowed ground to anyone familiar with its absolutely central role in
the swift and sure expansion (explosion is probably a more accurate
term) of squash in Mexico during a truly magical time in the history of
the sport.