The allowance to perform freely
View(s):Prominence and Publicity — a ‘Waterloo’?
The Women’s year-ending Tennis finals will be staged in Singapore starting October 23 but, there is still some movement in the lower end ranking to select the top 8 players. It is widely known that Serena Williams, Ranked 2 in the world, with a sure slot for the event, will not be there. In fact, she has not played since the US Open semi-final loss to Czech Republic’s Karolina Pliskova this year too, like the year before. Serena has had high profile prominence and publicity in recent years, and now it seems to stand against her. She seems to have lost her space to play freely.
Sport is all about participation and performance, and the personality develops towards it, while in professionalism its reward is money. This is the good side of it. What sounds to be good has always shown its bad side repeatedly at every level of competitive Sport.
Prominence and publicity, however small it may be, has an effect on the ‘allowance a player has, to perform freely’. It forces a ‘have to win’ condition on players. Croatian Marin Cilic never won a major title after his heroic title win of 2014 US Open. He has completely lost the ‘allowance’ he had, to play, with the prominence he got in the media. He seems to choke in critical situations. Such has been the effect of publicity and the prominence on him, and his ranking has slipped to the second 10 of the world.
Chicken to Dinosaur?
Serena Williams unexpectedly lost to Italian, Roberta Vinci in the 2015 US Open, and missed her annual Grand Slam achievement. Serena’s popularity and prominence at that time was impeccable. Vinci, at the beginning of that match, was nothing more than a ‘chicken living its fate’, but Serena lost to her. Even today, I do not know how it happened. Even Vinci was short of words when told to explain her win over Serena. The only certainty was that Serena’s performance did not reach winning proportions. In that match, Serena lost her allowance to perform freely and, however much she tried, she could not reverse it. Did Vinci, a ‘chicken’ at the beginning of the match, become a Dinosaur? Certainly not! It is Serena who lost the allowance to perform through pre-match expectations and drama that placed an enormous weight on her.
This episode of Serena’s will echo through time. This year too, she stopped playing after her loss to Pliskova and, as in 2015, she is supposed to have withdrawn from the WTA Finals in Singapore.
‘Out of control’ factor
Most of the prominence and publicity, if not all of it, is generated by the media. It is a sensation when a little-known player does well, and the media does its job in giving the best shot in every medium to tell the world. The event-organisers also want it in full force, to satisfy their sponsors and to attract spectators to the venue. This is not going to go away and how the players handle it will remain a challenge to all involved in sport.
Drastic effects on Juniors
Prominence and publicity has a drastic effect on player development, as most Juniors simply cannot handle this pressure. The people around a Junior, starting with parents, coaches, schools and local officials, ‘stand on roof tops and blow their horns’, even after a minor achievement. Most of it is for the glory of others than for the player. What they do not realise is that, they have placed heavy ballast on the player. Often, this results in players giving up the sport prematurely. Beyond all doubt, this is the reason for the large player dropout rate Tennis experiences in developing countries, especially among talented prospects at around ages 17 to 20.
Maestros enjoy the ride
Few maestros have enjoyed publicity and prominence. Players such as Pete Sampras, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal among men; and Martina Navratilova, Steffi Graff, the William sisters have had great runs. They must have faced this issue when young, but survived. I know how Steffi Graf, when she was very young, was treated in Germany when she lost a match in the US Open, but she was able to get over it.
The truth is that, every performance of a player feeds an unknown number of beneficiaries financially. When big names lose, TV loses viewers, and the print and electronic media lose readership. It is difficult to gauge how deep the effects of sports go into the global economy. It has become a very serious ‘ball game’ creating a ‘Waterloo’ for players.
WTA Finals- Singapore line-up
The qualification for the WTA Finals is called the ‘Road to Singapore’. This year it is overwhelmed with European domination. Only performances of the 2016 calendar year are counted for qualification. Leading the list for Singapore is Angelique Kerber and new faces may appear eventually. Karolina Pliskova is a certainty, while the other is Slovenia’s Dominika Cibulkova. Last year, unexpectedly, Poland’s Radwanska pulled out a ‘hat trick’, winning the title. She is there this year too.
There will be a noticeable pre-match media carnival with publicity and high profile prominence. It would be interesting to see how many will keep their allowance to play freely. The prize money is a staggering US$ 7 million!
George Paldano, Former intl. player;
Accredited Coach of Germany; National,
Davis-Cup, Federation Cup captain/
coach– georgepaldano@yahoo.com