Local events and Australian Open 2023
View(s):The 2023 Australian Open began on Monday, January 16. All are eager to see what the new names are going to be. In women’s Iga Swiatek of Poland is the top seed. In men, current number one is Carlos Acaraz of Spain.
Names reappearing in the media makes us memorise them. Today is Rod Laver, Grand Slam winner will be ignored easily at the street corner. To start with, they do not look like the champion we saw 60 years ago.
Shooting Stars?
Shooting stars are like a firework display, appears and disappears. I wonder how many will remember recent past US Open champions Raducanu now ranked 77, Kenin ranked 203, Osaka ranked 50 and Andreescu ranked 43? If they lose, there would be no report in press. Yet they won the US Open and Australian Open in the past five years.
Many players cannot bear this loss of status and go haywire. Boris Becker just came out of the prison, is been studied to help him and to make sure there will be no more of such cases. Three other tennis players’ names come to my mind with similar experience as unfortunate Becker.
Melbourne 2023
At start, it looked like it is going to be a memory lane event after the corona years. An incident sparked over Russian and Belarus flags. There are very good players from these two countries in both genders. The only salvation is they play in 2023 Australian Open.
The global TV audience is most attractive to sponsors. Unfortunately, it is altering the tournament atmosphere at the venue in Melbourne. In fact, much of the seats were empty when Casper Ruud played Czech Republic’s Machac, match going to the early hours of the next day. For players, day and night is no more the reality to play.
The ‘young uns’
This is the peak of the transition time in global tennis in women and men. Barty’s surprising retirement left Iga Swiatek without much of the serious challenge. Swiatek is an all-round player showing signs of here to stay and make of best of being number one. She amassed well over 11,000 points last year to claim the top spot in the WTA ranking. She is just 21 years of age and burst into lime light at 19.
The Top 10 has unique Tunisian Jabeur, USA’s Pegula and Gauff, France’s Garcia in her second spurt, Sabaenka of Belarus, Kudermetova and Kasatskina of Russia, Sakkari of Greece and Bencic of Switzerland.
Men’s Tennis
Carlos Alcaraz, the Spanish successor to giant Nadal, secured the top spot of men’s tennis at 19 years, the youngest top seed so far. Other Top 10 are Nadal, Ruud of Norway, Tsitsipas of Greece, Djokovic, Rublev and Medvedev of Russia, Fritz of USA, Aliassime of Canada and Rune of Denmark. Nordic presence in the ranking is appearing for the first time after the Swedish line of Borg, Wilander and Edberg in the 80s.
Sri Lanka events
Last two weeks saw the SSC Open event with excessive age group events incorporated. This is an issue to tennis loving audience. Separating the age group events form Open events must return. When-is-what-is concerning information for spectator presence. If this denied, only the parents appear as spectators.
Often I hear there are not enough events for valid ranking and match play experience.
Local events do not attract fresh challenge of the overseas players. In that sense, more events in Sri Lanka without overseas challenge will not provide the need to our players to mature. Global ITF junior events offer better experience and world junior ranking points. The situation is nothing new. Even 60 ago, we as juniors, went to the Indian circuit to experience good tennis. To date, I can say, it served the purpose best in transition from junior standard to the needs of local senior Open tennis.
Our sports body personals visited and corresponded with Indian and Pakistan counterparts to set the arrangements to our junior players. Often we stayed with families. To this I recall the services of Lionel Fonseka, D.L. Fonseka, who played Wimbledon, Mahinda Dunuwila, Cedric de Silva, Mr. Seneviratne of SSC, D.L. Seneviratne and Cedric Illesinghe.
–George Paldano, European and Asian competition player; Coach German Tennis Federation; National coach Brunei and Sri Lanka; Davis Cup, Federation Cup coach, coached ATP, WTA and ITF ranked players in Europe and Asia; WhatsApp +94775448880–