Cincinnati bounce back winners — Garcia and Coric
View(s):Just a few years back Caroline Garcia of France was four in the WTA ranking. Last week she won the Women’s Singles and Croatians Borna Coric the Men’s title in the Cincinnati Open, of the US Open series leading to the US Open of 2022.
In the last couple of years, Garcia and Coric were nursing series of injuries. Surprisingly Caroline Garcia one time fourth in the world ranking in Singles and Doubles had to play in the qualifying rounds to enter the Cincinnati main draw. Of recent, in major events it is normal to see, one time highly ranked player mingling with novices to qualify.
Garcia this year has performed well. In the past three years, she had her thighs strapped and performance dropped drastically. So far this year she has beaten good many top ten players, which include WTA number one Iga Swiatek of Poland and bagged three WTA titles in Europe. These did not suffice to enter the main draw of the Cincinnati Open.
Garcia achieved many firsts in Cincinnati. First French player, first qualifier and the first unseeded player to win this title in its history of over 100 years. She is 28 years old. There is a good four years ahead of her. An excellent Doubles player, it has made her an able all court stroke maker with canny anticipation, quick eyed, agile, and tactical improviser. Until last year, her father was the coach and he is still in her team. Her new coach from 2021 Bertrand Perret. This combination has clicked giving her the second spring. We are bound to hear about her in months to come.
Coric – Remember ATP Next Gen
We have to go back to Pete Sampras, Ivan Lendl era to understand why ATP came up with Next Gen. big names Federer, Nadal and Djokovic have dominated men’s tennis for over two decades. Tennis rivalry has spectatorship appeal. Unfortunately, with same players it became stale. It made ATP lose its rating in the media.
This forced ATP to bring in new platform, new blood through a novel idea. Fresh good tennis with lasting appeal will not appear from old set of players. I have argued with this and concluded this to be correct. No player has lasted 100 years. Tennis is over 150 years old. One of the oldest international sport. ATP found a good answer to stem the interest in tennis. The Next Gen, the next generation. This extended the junior platform of development tennis and reduced talented player dropouts in nations. A vital breakthrough.
ATP started Next Gen in 2017. The venue for this event was Milan, Italy and cut off is being under 22 years of age with a top 100 plus in the ATP ranking. Zevrev, Tsitsipas, AliAssime, Alcaraz, Sinner, Musetti, Medvedev, Korda, Coric, Shapolov and a few more known today, were Next Gen players. Right now, they are knocking on the door to be in the top five. This was ATP’s goal.
Croatian Borna Coric is certainly one of the potential future number one. Winning Cincinnati is a confirmation. He beat Tsitsipas in the final. Next Gen game is more of an all court open tennis and not baseline play oriented. They move and play a faster game. Their tennis is exciting to watch.
WTA King’s Cup in Dushanbe
ITF Davis Cup and WTA King’s Cup are about nations. At lower levels, it is about patriotic emotion than tennis. The most effective propellant American diplomat Dwight Davis used to make tennis popular globally from 1900 onwards and it is ITF flagship.
Women’s equivalent of Davis Cup is Kings Cup. Our team is playing it in Tajikistan, central Asia. Our women’s tennis is currently ‘globally ranked in the 70s’. While many countries in Asia have issues to find four players to constitute a team, we do not have that now. Our issue is good playing standard. Tennis needs minimum of five years of international open tennis experience to compete and win in high-end team games. Here we have a problem. We have numbers not the standard. One player operating in a national team for 10 years is a strong sign of player development defect in the country.
In the group stage King’s Cup, our team is with Guam, Brunei, Uzbekistan. The other group has Mongolia as the strongest team. For Sri Lanka participation and staying exposed to international tennis is vital for our women’s tennis development. The ITF individual events for girls does not give ranking points to WTA ranking.
Sri Lanka, like many Asian countries, had to shelve development from 2019. We had civil issues and health lock downs. A good four years we lost. All who were fifteen years of age in 2019 lost the final phase of junior development possibilities, in travel and as well as in skill and physical development. This a gap we will take time to overcome. Ours issues are not over yet.
Any outcome from Dushanbe will be subjected to the disadvantages we experienced in the past four years. Today’s player development, unlike 30 years ago, shows no player initiative to train by themselves. The expectation to be in an organised squad is much emphasised in development. In reports and in press coach’s name comes out prominently. However in failures their names do not appear. We need to see a change to this culture very soon.
–George Paldano, European and Asian competition player; Coach German Tennis Federation; National coach Brunei and Sri Lanka; Davis Cup, Federation Cup coach; coached players into 200 ATP, WTA and ITF in Europe and Asia; WhatsApp +94775448880–