Remembering A National Hero And Collegiate Star - Rafael Osuna

Rafael Osuna still represents everything we want tennis to be. Fifty years after his tragic death, we remember Mexico’s greatest player, and his place on the greatest college tennis team of all time

- Stephen​ Tignor

The annual event, which was started in 1972 and is named after the most accomplished tennis player in Mexican history, Rafael Osuna, pits former college standouts, national champions and Davis Cup players from the United States and Mexico against each other in a friendly competition. The two countries take turns hosting; the 47th edition will be held this year at the Las Brisas Resort, in Huatulco. At a time when the United States is talking about building a wall between the nations, the Osuna Cup offers a bridge.

Since 2002, Mexico’s captain has been Rafael Belmar Osuna, a nephew of the event’s namesake. He says the Cup has fostered an enduring sense of cross-border camaraderie.

“Besides being a tournament where teams from the USA and Mexico face off athletically,” Osuna says, “it has become a link of friendship between families of both nations.”

The Cup is a fitting legacy for his uncle, who spent his career bridging that same border.

Rafael Osuna was born in Mexico City, but he became a serious tennis player in Los Angeles. He won his first Wimbledon doubles title with an American partner, Dennis Ralston, and his second with a Mexican partner, Antonio Palafox. He led Mexico to its only Davis Cup final, in 1962, but he won his biggest singles title in the States, at the 1963 U.S. Nationals.

Osuna was a member of one of the greatest college teams of all time, the 1963 USC Trojans. At the same time, he was a link in a chain of Latin players who earned All-American honors at USC, from Alex Olmedo in the 1950s, to Joaquin Loyo-Mayo in the late-’60s, to Raul Ramirez in the ’70s.

“Osuna was one of the great guys; friendly to everyone, he didn’t care who you were,” says Tom Edlefsen, a teammate of his on that 1963 USC team and an Osuna Cup regular. “He never walked by anyone and looked the other way.”