Raising the bar in women’s tennis
What inter-nation competitiveness can do to a sport is phenomenal. In terms of setting higher standards, raising the skill levels and attracting wider audience participation is key for the future of any sport as against the value of individual performancs to individuals.
The origin of the ‘Federation-Cup’ is Americas Hazel Wightman’s idea. In 1919 she wanted an inter-nation team event for women, like the ‘Davis-Cup’ which was initiated in 1900. Wightman’s idea did not get the support but she succeeded in creating a tie between USA and England in 1923. She presented a sterling Silver cup which is the ‘Wightman-Cup’ and the United States Tennis Association conducted the Wightman-Cup until 1989.
In 1963 the International Tennis Federation, the controlling body of affiliated nations, turned fifty. To commemorate the occasion a Women’s team event was inaugurated by the Federation which was called the ‘Federation-Cup’. Sixteen nations participated at the Queen’s club courts in London with big names of the time Margret Smith, Lesley Turner and Billie Jean King. Their presence made the event attractive.
Saranga Sangakkara represented Sri Lanka at Fed Cup
Over the years, many nations including Sri Lanka joined the competition. In 1995 the competition took the brand name ‘FED-CUP’. Sri Lanka has hosted this event many times. The current format of the FED-CUP has the capacity to accommodate well over 100 countries.
What is FED-CUP for Sri Lanka?
Sri Lanka joined the competition again this year after skipping it for a while. Competition Sport on the whole is not a local event of any country anymore.
Tennis is a dominant individual sport with ‘Open’ international events and the recognition of personalities in the game is also through global ranking system. Local competitions and ranking are not attractive enough to spectators or the sponsors. Not respecting this could eventually lead to Tennis being not played in a country.
Unfortunately we are in the threshold of this situation. This could happen to any of our sport if we begin to create, promote and participate in ‘closed’ local situation. In Kazakhstan, where this year’s FED-CUP for our group was played, Sri Lankan players won some and lost some matches. Important occurrence is our participation in FED-CUP breaking the isolation and that is a winning situation for our women’s Tennis. In our group that is Asia Oceania Group-4 we were placed in the 9 to 12 category beating Iraq. As I mentioned earlier participation is our priority now. If Sri Lanka can keep up the annual participation, team making mechanics will fall into place and performance will surface within few years. In successful nations this has been their road to success.
In the light of this FED-CUP, DAVIS-CUP and the ITF events are very vital for the survival of Tennis in Sri Lanka. Participation in these leads to preparation, competition and commitment to the game from the nation and more specifically from the individuals who play Tennis. Some of the players who went to Kazakhstan may have faced international players for the first time. This would serve as an eye opener to their development approach. The change would result in better development to withstand the challenges of the global Tennis. The responsibility to develop must be the pursuit of the player and no one else, not father, mother or promoters. If this commitment could be made by our players then our FED-CUP participation will result in champions being made in the future. Lihini Weerasuriya, Saranga Sangakkara, Vajira Premaratne, Sobini de Silva and Shalini Pereira were in our team when we played in higher group.
World Group of FED-CUP 2014
Multiple winners of the FED-CUP went down in the very first round in the world group. Italy beat 17 time winners and 11 times runners up USA in the very first round. Seven times winner Australia beat five times winner Russia and Czech Republic beat five times winners Spain.
The trend of not having the top world rankers in the national team was noticeable in the FED-CUP like in the Davis Cup. Dates of the first round were in the middle of the European Winter, still big names failed to appear. New nations are showing more interest than previous winner. Nations in the lower group use FED-CUP to popularise the game in their countries. The world group teams play for prestige and that is to win the cup or remain in the group of the top 8 nations of the world. During this time of the year the southern hemisphere, Arabia, Asia and European Indoor events are played. These too distract players from giving their time to be in the national team.
Player development
FED-CUP team development brings women’s Tennis into focus in participating countries. Canadian and English development programme is going through lot of structural changes. Some of the best names in development management and coaches have been recruited by these countries. Along with it they have also enhanced training facilities to cope with their climate. Eugenie Bouchard of Canada is a result of their initiative. Last year her efforts took Canada to group 2. This year Canada beat Serbia in the first round with Eugenie conceding only 4 games in two matches. She also reached the semi-finals of the 2014 Australian Open. Eastern European countries are also propping up their development to match world group FED-CUP standard. In the mean while it would be very interesting to know why multiple winners USA, Spain and Australia are fighting to survive and why their big names are not playing for their country.
–George Paldano,
former international player; Accredited Coach of Germany, ITF and USPTR; National, Davis Cup and Federation Cup Coach–gptennis.
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