Rivalry in sports; an engineered propellant
View(s):Organised leagues, rankings and events are engineered platforms to boost sporting performances. They create and sustain ongoing rivalry to uplift player performances and increase popularity.
Every sport has benefited from sports rivalry. Excellence a player requires to win depends on opponent’s challenge. Leagues and events continuous opportunity to innovative challenges. These make sports appealing. Engineered rivalry raises performances; this is the primary appeal of sport.
Ranking in Tennis
Model of the British Premier League (PL) in football known globally. Even in remotest part of Borneo ‘ManU’ means Manchester United football club of Briton. Such is the popularity of British Football League. This league made football rivalry into global culture. Arguably, the model was ‘county cricket’. Congregations for sports has made rivalry honourable.
In tennis, current global popularity is through ATP and WTA ranking rivalry. The origin of national ranking in tennis started with Davis Cup. Competing nations had to rank their players to enable a tie. Locally a nation’s ranking creates rivalry propelling stroke development, innovative tactics and competitive perfections.
Development strategy
In competitions when a ranked player beats an unranked, it is termed as ‘upset’. Such occurrences push the ranked player to improve skills and encourages the unknown to pursue further. This, a useful player development strategy for a nation. Rivalry mechanics has always improved national standard of tennis in every country.
Known global rivalries
To the present generation of tennis enthusiasts, rivalry between Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer must be fresh memory. Federer openly says Nadal was instrumental in improving his game. True, his playing standard was a product of good rivalry. Into this rivalry, Novac Djokovic appearing a little later and made it a trio. The three dominated and thrilled the world nearly for a decade.
Federer came at the tail end of Pete Sampras’ career. Sampras, was a man without weakness. Most known rival to him was Andre Agassi, both from USA. A decade before that another set of Americans John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors along with Sweden’s Bjorn Borg and Romania’s Ille Nastase as the third and fourth players produced sensational tennis with their rivalry.
From WTA list, many will remember Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova encounters. They played some remarkable matches in which umpiring also withstood testing. Henin, Seles, Devonport and Graf had their rivalry going for a good decade. The main rival of Seles was Steffi Graff. Graf won the grand slam twice.
Hopman, Alvarez, Bolliteri, Tiriac
These great past players turned coaches and promoters after their career. World forgets fast but a few will recall these names. The man who developed the Davis Cup team for Australia in the 50s and 60s was Hopman. He created fierce internal player rivalry within Australia. With them Australia dominated the post war era global events. These players with wooden rackets on grass and clay courts were skill oriented than speed. The last man to win the Grand Slam is Rod Laver, 52 years ago. Hopman found him and groomed him along with Roy Emerson, Fred Stole. Good many domineering Australians appeared after that. John Newcombe and Tony Roche did blaze the trail in Singles and Doubles.
Chilean Alvarez, as a player was a canny tactician. He worked first with South American players and later instrumental for the string of Spanish players. Subsequently worked back stage in the Spanish development. His development model of using junior rivalry was effective. The prominent Nick Bolliteri of USA had his setup in Florida USA and was the man behind many American and Russian players. Sharapova and Williams were with him. Rivalry is a critical ingredient in tennis player development. It forces players to think outside the box to win.
Tiriac of Romania is about the best player/coach/promoter of tennis. (Tiriac is a former Romanian ice hockey player. I had the privilege to play against him in India). He really activated the eastern European tennis player development and Western Europe with events. Even today, he owns and promotes Madrid event, the Mutua Open on clay court. With 5-million US dollar prize, will commence on April 28 in Madrid, Spain. His belief in creating good rivalry to improve tennis was from his business acumen. He made rivalry attractive and honorable, spectators poured in their thousands paying top dollars. (According to Forbes magazine Tiriac is a billionaire).
Tiriac’s efforts made tennis attractive to the dormant talent of Eastern Europe. His initiative produced sustainable rivalry among the East European country players. Tiriac managed Boris Becker of Germany and Guillermo Vilas of Argentina. Both achieved the top spot in ranking.
American Spring time
Virus for the last two years and now a European war is raging. Spring and summer are European tennis season. European season must survive or else tennis will suffer. Some disturbances are bound to happen in spring. The Indian Wells and Miami Open are two big North American events with whopping 10-million US dollars each. Money has come back.
Tennis has not placed any ban on players from warring nations. Current world’s number one in Men is Medvedev; a Russian at present is the top seed in Indian Wells. Meanwhile Zevrev confessed his bad behavior to be the biggest mistake of his life. He will play with a huge suspended tab hanging over him. He lost very early in Indian Wells event.
--George Paldano, European and Asian competition player; Coach for German Tennis Federation; National coach Brunei and Sri Lanka; Davis Cup, Federation Cup; coached top 200 ATP,WTA and ITF top 50. WhatsApp – 0775448880