Local tennis facilitation and 2023 European season
View(s):European sport has lead sporting interest of the world in the past 50 years. Right now, it the clay court season of Europe in tennis which leads to the second Grand Slam of the year, the French Open in Paris.
USA wanting events prior to French Open for their players to compete in Europe found Indian Wells and Miami Open to be good. They are staged in March and April and known as sunshine double. Their surface is not the European burnt clay, but one that evolved to suit USA. WTA and ATP have successfully placed them in their calendar. The US players develop on concrete asphalt surfaces. The slower pace of the European red clay throws them off track tactically.
Monte Carlo
Monte Carlo event is the first of the string of red clay European event. Monte Carlo concluded last Sunday with all known big names of men’s tennis not getting to the semi-finals – a disappointment. The title went to Russia’s Rublev. A Top 10 player often wins with his grit of personality. At present, he is one of the Top 10 in the ATP ranking. His opponent was Rune from Finland in the final. Rune beat Medvedev and Sinner to reach the final. The final turned out be a good tennis encounter, tide changed many times. Rublev was down 4-1 in the final set, broke Rune’s service twice and held his under very trying situations. Rune produced good tennis to make the match worthy of a Master’s event.
New young faces
In the last week of May, second grand slam event of the year, the French Open will begin in Paris. Currently Madrid Open is on. With Europe not in total peace, Russian players are getting the chance to play with altered status quo, an improvement to the stand Wimbledon took last year.
Sinner, Musetti, Sonega and Berrettini are Italians. For a good while, Italy did not have this number of players in the top end. Alcaraz of Spain has replaced Nadal as their top player. With so many years ahead, Alcaraz is bound to better Nadal’s record. When Sampras dominated the world, general opinion was his record would hold good for a long time. It did not. Right now, a good effective group of about five players are holding fort and the Scandinavian region is awakening. Rude is the new name from north of Europe. The four semi-finalist in Monte Carlo were unexpected players.
Local Development [struggle?]
In a tennis club, groundkeeper has risen to the quasi self-styled administrator of the entire club operations. I am sure there are many in the island where this is happening. We are at the last stages of membership tennis facility management. This is the backdrop of our tennis facility upkeep today. This has reduced the number of tennis courts drastically island wide.
Clubs were on local government properties. Strapped for cash they forced to use their assets to make the money. The rates for club properties are so high that the subscription of members will come nowhere near the required figures. In many instances where the tennis courts were, on which most of us played, features a cement building.
Making a club to manage using building rentals is a ‘money-ball’ situation too complex for clubs. Integrity factor could also show questionable methodologies. In such situations, support for sport will be a low priority. A way out has to evolve soon.
Use of tennis facilities
Right through in our independence era, clubs in the island provided facilities to the noble cause of national tennis development. There is no formula to improve tennis standard of a country without tennis courts even now. Clubs conducted annual events and some form of coaching programmes.
Player development process in tennis is a long term project. All studies have shown tennis to be a late maturity sport. Sustaining development until full fledge player appears is a tiring requirement to all concerned, the most is to players.
Forward payment
Cost of playing tennis in an academy was never high as it is today. In Nadal’s tennis camp today in Spain a year is USD 60,000. Ours are closer to a million rupees per head a year. Here big share of this goes to staff, balls, to facility providing clubs and a set of complex sponsorship expenditure. It must be lucrative, going by the number academies in the island in every big town. SLTA management even in its hay days did not match this.
Tennis clubs take court payments from academies up to six months in advance, making competition tennis development even more complex. In international schools, tennis is a part of their curriculum. Tennis is one of the recognised supporting areas for overseas university entrance. International schools use local academies for their tennis activity.
–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–