Thousand player claims and Nations acquiring foreigners
View(s):At present, global tennis is in recess. Thinking back, I cannot recollect tennis being on this cross roads ever. It is testing tennis. Professionalism is here to stay. Development plan of most nations are ineffective for this platform. A change in course has to appear.
Ever since the professional bodies WTA and ATP appeared, global tennis changed. Now without any trace of doubt, they are dominating the competition framework.
Professional platform is to address the popularity of tennis. Today, the impact of WTA and ATP is felt in every nation, even in their local tennis scene. Who is their local champion? This is of no interest to the people anymore. What the public want to know from a player is, what is their WTA/ATP ranking? We are in a global village, where only the global scale matters. It is the world of Roger Federer and Serena Williams.
Professional ranking is a very effective player classification by the standard of tennis. Some countries extract their national ranking from the professional world rankings, this make sense.
Current role of local Association
The amateur world body ITF [International Tennis Federation] with National Associations as their agent are ineffective now. Their tennis is not spectator-attractive and exciting to follow round the year as the other sports are. ITF had that, when Davis Cup was a premier sporting event. What they offer now is unattractive. Their agents, the national associations feature too much of junior development. Regardless, in wrapping it is presented, it is tennis without lustre of adult aura.
Often following ITF advise and targets, developing nations flash news, stating that they are have three to ten thousand players tennis players. Which ten thousand players are they referring to? The very same nations are finding it to difficult field a national team even for a regional championship or to an entry level Davis Cup competition. In reality these nations do not have ten ‘good player’ over 21 years of age! It is a serious issue when they say that they have ten thousand players. In these countries their facilities cannot even accommodate few good players to have a good practice session in one afternoon.
Certainly a need,
why the disrespect
Mini tennis and pressure-less red, green, yellow coloured ball games are Para-Tennis. An ITF innovation, is an entry level ‘activity’ to accommodate slower reaction speed and sighting ability for early development on altered court sizes. They deal with the basic need of every sport and not be labelled of tennis. Four mini tennis courts can be put into one regular size tennis court.
At an entry level tennis, para tennis ‘activities’ are very good, but not to be labelled as full-fledged tennis is also extremely important. Labelling early development participants as tennis players is an insult to a well accomplished tennis player. A good tennis player achieves that status after ten years of dedicated work. They are versatile sportsmen, evolved with hard work ethics, we need to respect them, or better said, do not disrespect them?
Acquiring a player, the new road?
Development strategy over the last forty years has appeared in all forms and shapes in every part of the globe. None of them has delivered as the designs promised. Many countries have bought the curtain down on their development program and have started on acquiring an accomplished player and enable them into their teams. It is not a new trend in sport.
Football in many ways is the forerunner of modern sports formula. They have continuously remained popular since the sixties with innovative methods. European nations Football league championships have players from more than twenty non-European countries. Result is, the exhibition of the game is at its best for spectators. Athletics has been doing this for some time too.
Canada and a few other developed nations have taken in more tennis players into their countries than what they ever produced. With this formula Canada appeared in the Davis Cup final this year. Denis Shapovalov and Bianca Andreescu are sports immigrant into Canada.
What is the secret of winning?
The answer to this is as difficult as defining creation. Tennis players at the top end can play any shot from anywhere. It is proving not enough to win. This is amazingly true. Then, what wins?
A veteran successful coach from Australia once told me, if a player knows which shot to play next, he or she will win. Another came from Sweden during Bjorn Borg era, if player can hold a tactical plan and execute the next three shots as planned, any match can be won. Issue here is, we can never be sure opponent will hold the same game pattern. Unsaid, all these statements have ‘experience’ incorporated into them as the underlying need to win. Conclusion is. He who matures fast tactically will win.
Matured players restrict opponents’ shot selection. If this situation can be created, winning is always possible. It cannot be placed into a player by coaching or by talking it into them. This is a fact. For development to be effective, player maturity must be addressed.
Absence of maturity acquiring methods is the missing link of development plans and is the reason why even the developed nations are shutting their programme. Maturity experience design is far more important in player development than training methodologies in sports. This is true to every sport.
-George Paldano, Int. competition player; Accredited Coach of German Tennis Federation; National coach Brunei, Sri Lanka; Davis-Cup, Federation-Cup, captain/coach. geodano2015@gmail.com