Men’s ‘Futures’ Tennis at Gymkhana
While the dust settles on Australian-Open with Serena Williams and Novak Djokovic wearing the laurels wreath, we do the analysis as to why losers lost and the strength of winners. With Internet access to facts and lots of opinions, events do not stop to e the topic of interest when the curtain comes down. The only thing that relieves the losers from further grill from fans and ‘pundits’, is the next event. In Colombo, we are a little happy that an event like the Futures that is linked to the world ranking is right at our door step. The ‘ITF-Futures’ are conducted worldwide and they too offer points for the ATP rankings. Three weeks of this ITF-Futures Tennis, are schedule until the 22nd of February in Colombo.
Gymkhana-Queen’s ‘Futures’
The first leg of the Futures in Colombo was at Queen’s Gymkhana last week. In the draw by a thin margin, Portugal’s clay court specialist Rui Machado ranked 278 in ATP was the top seed and Taipei’s Liang Chi Huang is the bottom seed with a 280 ATP ranking.
For direct entry into the event, a player must have a world ranking of around 800. If not, they will have to play the qualifying events. Qualifying too has a cutoff point of around 2000 ranking. [A Grand-Slam event like the Australian-Open has a cutoff point of 160 ATP ranking]. All these means even the entry into the qualifying rounds of the ITF-Futures is more difficult than winning our national championships.
Talking about that, our few players got into the qualifying draw mostly with wild card [free entry] system but did not survive. One player Chamal Dissanaike had a wild card direct entry into the main draw but was knocked out in the first round. I felt that it was a match that he could have won. This was a US$10,000 professional event and the final round would have been concluded yesterday at the Gymkhana-Queen’s courts. The next two events are scheduled at the SLTA courts starting Monday, tomorrow.
ITF-Futures are designed to be the entry point to the professional world of Tennis. ITF-Futures draw is a reflection of the countries which are conducting the business of development well. The European, Central Asian and Far Eastern countries were very well represented because of their development programs’ strength. In many of the developing countries targeting to improve their standard is not the priority. Those are the countries missing from the main draw of the ITF-Futures from our region.
Pumpkin, peanut and invisible mustard seed
For a country to have a strong representation in the ITF-Futures main draw which is an Open-Tennis event, the design of player development must be understood. Failure here is the root cause of the downfall of Tennis in most under-developed countries. Many countries do not seem to get this picture right in our region.
They have large ‘pumpkin’ size under 14 development programs which are followed by ‘peanut’ size under 21 programs and an invisible ‘mustard seed’ size Open-Tennis program. The strength of the program matches the output accordingly.
Open-Tennis is the final frontier of international Tennis. Open-Tennis is neglected at every level of its existence in countries like ours. For all in the system, it is almost a taboo to talk about it. These countries’ representation is missing in the Colombo ITF-Futures draw. Having these events at our door step is an opportunity to realize this daunting fact and do something about it. It would have been great to see one of our own players reaching the final rounds.Pace, reaction and tactics
The first thing that hits a person when seeing ITF-Futures matches is the reaction speed of players to accommodate the pace at which the ball travels. By the time matches reach the quarters they can all handle the pace of the game and the outcome of matches will be on the strength of personality and physical build. Our players not having a system to develop into these areas get to the sideline before the event. Talking about the sideline, I am surprised and amazed at how few current players come to watch good Tennis at such an event. Is it due to inadequate publicity or is it that this culture of not coming to watch good Tennis, also a factor of our inadequate Tennis development. The only ones I saw attending these matches were past players.
Even from the first round of the ITF Futures, the first service speed was faster than the 100 mph mark, and most of the time these services were returned. This means surviving the first three shots of the rally is almost a ‘Formula-One’ speed affair. Formerly, the Queen’s courts were of international measurements but now, not all of them have the specifications for this class of matches.
Club Tennis does not need large running areas. Some foreign players and accompanying coaches mentioned that the sizes of the outer court areas are restrictive to play. This made it difficult for players to accommodate speed. If we could have good events regularly, necessary court requirements will come to being. In this aspect it seems that club administrations are faced with challenges too big to handle economically and administratively.
German upsets bottom seed
The seeds 1, 3 and 4 have reached the semi-finals as I write this. German qualifier, Jonas Luetjen who had a high ranking of 600 some time ago upset the bottom seed Taipei’s Huang. The top seed Rui Machado looked solid in every mach he played. This class of Tennis played in the ITF-Futures does not exist in the local tournaments. These matches are a treat and worth watching and the opportunity to see this in the next two weeks should be considered a rare for fans and will be educational for junior players. I hope everyone interested in Tennis will use this opportunity to enjoy some great Tennis in Colombo.
-George Paldano, former international player; Accredited Coach of Germany, ITF and USPTR; National, Davis Cup and Federation Cup Coach–gptennis.ceylon@gmail.com-