‘Sunny’ southern season!
The cold of the north has taken Tennis to the sunny southern hemisphere. Rio de Janeiro is where the best of the men’s Tennis is played.
South America is reputed to have produced some prominent world beaters in the 50’s through to the 90’s. Even now Argentina, Brazil and Mexico have periodically come up with ‘top ten’ players. As for the women, Dubai is currently where the action is.
South American players
At present, South America does not have any players in the likes of Brazil’s Maria Estella Bueno and Gustavo Kuerton, Argentina’s Gabriella Sabatini, Guillermo Vilas and Juan Martin del Potro.
Bueno dominated women’s Tennis in the 50’s and 60’s. Her graceful style gave her the name ‘the butterfly’ and she appeared in no more than 35 Grand-Slam finals.
The most famous of the female South American players is undoubtedly Gabriela Sabatini who also became the first glamour icon in women’s Tennis.
Even today, she is considered as one of the 50 glamour athletes of the world. Her Tennis in the 80’s and 90’s exceeded her glamour icon image by a good margin. She was not just a pretty face but a powerfully built player who delivered immense power and court craft.
As a player she definitely was one of the world’s smartest. She withstood punishments and beat reputed players such as Steffi Graf, Monica Seles and Martina Navratilova. Sabatini is in her mid-forties and very active cyclist.
Men from South America
In the men’s side the Brazilian of repute in recent times is Gustavo Kurten; the man who won French Open. In the sixties two players took Brazil to the finals of the challenge round of Davis-Cup. They are Thomas Koch and Edison Mandarino and lost to India in Calcutta.
Koch was also the world’s number one junior. Good many men came from South America in the post war era and of them, the ones that left an unforgettable mark are Alvarez of Chile, Puncho Segura, Argentina’s Guillermo Vilas, Jose Luis Clerc, Juan Martin del Potro.
Rio de Janiero
With the summer Olympics coming to Rio, the city has become the ‘hot spot’ of sports in South America this year. A sporting nation best known for Football made famous by ‘immortal’ Pele. The ATP is hosting its Rio Championships on the clay surface right now.
Its ATP 500 draw is small and is filled with clay court specialists from Rafael Nadal to the lower end of the Spanish ranking. Brazil also has its share of challenges in hosting the Olympics dealing with its social issues.
Gustavo Kuerten in action
Dubai
Dubai is hosting the WTA event and is been done with usual flair. It is seen to be a very attractive line-up with the best of the women’s players. Dubai is still Asia and was not known for good Tennis players however their venues with great facilities have a good reputation. Dubai attracts the best players and a high end patronizing audience.
They have done the calculation correctly to sell their venue which is their advantage. It is a good event and as we go to print, the latest result was, Bencic the Swiss protégée going down to former world’s number one, Serbia’s Jelena Jankovic.
Recognition for SAF
The South Asian Federation Games SAF just came to conclusion. The two countries which were strong in Tennis are India and Pakistan. Sri Lanka is the third best winning the bronzes.
A few good matches were played by Sri Lankan players but were not good enough to win silver. All gold and silver were won by India. Out of the 8 countries which participated, only three were able to get medals.
The cue for Sri Lanka from this is to travel in India and Pakistan and play their local circuit. The Indian circuit was always our training ground for high performance development in the past and not playing hours and hours in a squad in Colombo. One good match played is worth 200 hours of training for any player.
India has players in the ATP and WTA which showed in the outcome of the SAF Games. This regional game is promoted and supported by International Olympic Committee to give ‘grass roots’ experience to countries not up in sports. The follow up from here is not a clear cut path.
No one seems to know this. The world of sports being professional, a player who is successful in the SAF games has no path available to go beyond. T
he professional bodies which control Tennis should give more consideration to the SAF games. To start with, if a mechanism can be worked out to give ATP and WTA points even in a small way, winners of SAF games will get a chance to get closer to experience open Tennis. Right now we seem to be ‘in our little room and all by ourselves’.
DAVIS CUP – 2016
This is our next event and will be played from 4th to 6th March. This is a group two event and will be against Thailand in Bangkok. Our three main players from last yearHarshana Godamanne, Dineshkanthan Thangaraja and Sharmal Dissanayake will make our team to represent Sri Lanka.
George Paldano, Former int. player; Accredited Coach of Germany; National, Davis-Cup, Federation Cup coach–. georgepaldano@yahoo.com