Participation, participation, participation! By John Cavill

Tennis Works

We now have a new focus for British Tennis…Participation! Although I laugh when making that statement as it seems obvious that this is something a governing body should be doing but it is a serious direction that I believe should be the number one on the tennis agenda.

Over the 14 years that I have been developing the coaching element of Tennis Works, my focus has been on getting as many people as possible to try the game and give them opportunities to continue playing. I established a Charity called MK Ace, which allowed us to get funding to help cover the large costs of hiring public facilities, staff, marketing etc and make tennis very affordable for all. The network I created in and around my town in Milton Keynes, Bucks, was huge and the operation had over 18 venues, 12 coaches, 20 schools and 1000 people a week playing tennis.

Then…we hit a recession! Funding dried up, the Schools Sports Partnership network lost its budget to provide coaches into schools during curriculum time and the whole operation shrank as the increase in costs to the customers prohibit them from playing and companies were not dishing out the sponsorship money due to tough times.

I live and learn that you can’t build a house on sand and when your model is funding / sponsorship reliant, then at any point the wind can change and you have to act accordingly. I also felt a passion to take tennis to the masses and not only offer it to wealthier people who could afford the high prices. I hope this article can highlight the importance of solid exit routes to retain players, which is where I believe that Tennis Clubs are the jewels of British Tennis.

A Tennis Club should be more than just a place to play tennis but a welcoming hub of activity that has something for everyone. A good coach / coaching team and forward thinking committee are essential. While working in public access facilities, my operation was relatively simple as I would pay for the court or hall usage and get the numbers in. In a club there is a lot of politics, committee meetings, demands from members and other duties which if you cost out the time, is very expensive. The important thing about being at a club is what you can offer people that they can’t get at a public facility and these things are essential to keeping people playing. I have listed a few below:

• ·         Good court surfaces (no broken nets, hedges growing through the fences, glass on the courts etc)
• ·         Floodlights – More courts available under lights
• ·         Facilities – Changing, toilets, kitchen, lounge area all near the courts
• ·         Court access – as a member you can use the courts whenever you wish, where as in a public facility you have to hire the courts on an hourly basis or share the facility with other sports which is more expensive when you play regularly
• ·         Community – Clubs have a community of players for socialising and getting different people together e.g. club nights etc
• ·         Coaching – Usually more flexible when a coach can teach people within a club especially if a public facility is shared with a school so it can’t be accessed during the day

With participation falling over the years and tennis clubs recording lower memberships, there is a lot of support that the governing body should be giving the clubs…after all, they pay the governing body every year for affiliation fees, so they should be getting support for this. 

So what could the governing body do to help support clubs? Here are three elements that would definitely help my business which is now ran at a club:

• ·         Representatives to support
• ·         Resources
• ·         Funding

Like I mentioned, my business started and flourished from using Public facilities but in order to keep people playing the game, people need to filter from these facilities into a club. More work is needed on setting up Public facility programmes, supporting the costs of delivery and making sure every person is given the opportunity to play in the local club. I know of public programmes in my area that have no club links and there is only so far someone can go in a public facility, so I feel strongly that all the hard work getting these people playing will be wasted long term. Also, in order for the clubs to thrive and continue to support the affiliation fees, they need new members coming in. 

You are not allowed to charge the children directly for coaching in curriculum time and school budgets are sometimes restricted, it would be great if there was a bursary that coaches could apply for to send them into schools during the day. From my experience, this will increase participation massively.

As clubs and coaches we shouldn’t rely on the governing body but be able to stand on our own two feet. The governing body should be the centre pin between all the clubs and initiatives, ensuring that clubs are regularly communicated to and offered support. I haven’t my development officer for well over a year and that may be because they don’t think we need the help, but to ensure that everything in an area is coordinated well, these officers should be in regular contact.

In recent years, with the focus on Performance Tennis, I feel has done tennis no favours. It’s simple…more people playing, more chance of people going on to play to a higher level. Hopefully the new era in British Tennis will be one that will save our sport and bring many people enjoyment.

John Cavill runs Tennis Works, a tennis developmental and resource company.  For more information check out http://www.tennisworks.net/

Flashback to 2005 WTA Championships

Amelie Mauresmo and Mary Pierce

Laurie’s Tennis Articles continues to look at previous championships of the new millennium and this week looks at the 2005 edition in Staples centre Los Angeles.

The 2005 WTA championships was the final edition to be held at the Staples centre after a four year stint.  Unlike Madison Square Garden which was seen as a successful period for the championships; the problem with the Staples centre was not only was the stadium extremely vast, the court appeared at best medium slow.  In today’s tennis a slow indoor court is not an issue but in the early 2000s it seemed strange to hold such a prestigious event on a court where the ball was not really coming through quickly.  However, with the Americans dominating the WTA tour at the majors, it was sensible to hold the event where big crowds would be guaranteed.  Even so, Venus Williams missed three of the four editions; Serena Williams didn’t qualify in 2003 and was injured in 2005.  Lindsay Davenport failed to win there and Jennifer Capriati made the semifinal in 2003 but lost to Clijsters.  In fact, in the early 2000s it was very much the Europeans vs the Americans, with Hingis, Henin, Clijsters, Mauresmo, Dementieva in one corner and Venus, Serena, Capriati, Davenport and Seles in the other. 

By 2005, the Europeans were starting to take over.  In 2004 Russian players won three of the four majors on offer; Henin had four major championships to her name and won the 2005 French Open. Clijsters won her first US Open and dominated the hardcourts in North America winning Indian Wells, Miami, Stanford, Los Angeles and Canada.  Meanwhile Mary Pierce was the comeback player of the year making two major finals and won tier 1 titles in San Diego and Moscow.  Amelie Mauresmo was getting closer and closer at Wimbledon; the 2005 WTA championships would be the turning point in Mauresmo’s career and prove the catalyst for major success in 2006. 

The format of the championships had also changed since 2000.  There were now two groups of four in an eight women field with a round robin format, following the ATP Masters event.  The Black group saw Kim Clijsters, Mary Pierce, Amelie Mauresmo and Elena Dementieva.  While the green group contained Lindsay Davenport, Maria Sharapova, Nadia Petrova and Patty Schnyder.  Henin pulled out with a hamstring injury before the event. Venus Williams was an unused alternate and Serena Williams finished the year ranked number 11.

In the black group, Mary Pierce came out like a train against Kim Clijsters, who was clearly taken aback by the constant attack and promptly lost the first set 6:1.  Clijsters re-asserted herself in the second set and was probably seen as the favourite to take the match but Pierce was having none of it and claimed the victory in a third set tiebreak.  Pierce then defeated Dementieva in one of the grudge matches of the year; Dementieva still feeling aggrieved Pierce took a lengthy time out during their US Open semifinal which halted her momentum, even though Dementieva got some revenge in the Fed cup victory in Paris two weeks later.  Mauresmo would also lose to Pierce but got the better of Dementieva and Clijsters in straight sets to finish second in the group behind Pierce.   

In the green group, Davenport and Sharapova were the two big favourites although Petrova and Schnyder gave good accounts of themselves.  Ultimately, neither were going to dislodge Davenport and Sharapova from the semifinal places.  Petrova did beat Sharapova but Sharapova beat Davenport (in three sets) and Schnyder so both Davenport and Sharapova won two out of three matches with Sharapova topping the group thanks to her win over Davenport.

On semifinals day, we had two great match ups on paper in Davenport vs Pierce and Mauresmo vs Sharapova.  Davenport and Pierce played a similar game, a mixture of old school and new school.  New school in the power game and old school in having a strong serve where they didn’t get broken often, trying to cut down on errors and moving forward when the opportunity arose.

Not surprisingly, the match was very close with two tiebreaks and two breaks of serve where Pierce broke early but failed to serve out the first set.  It was a high quality match with quite a few aces from both players (14 from Pierce); Pierce took the match to reach her second WTA final after losing in straight sets to Jana Novotna in 1997; best of five back then!

The second semifinal saw Amelie Mauresmo take on Maria Sharapova.  Their games matched up well.  To this day, I am not sure how to describe Amelie Mauresmo’s game, an interesting mixture of counterpuncher and puncher. A player who was capable of playing the best serve and volley on tour but would spend so much time scurrying around the baseline being sent left and right by her opponents.  Mauresmo seemed to enjoy defence and soaking up pressure.  Sharapova had the groundstrokes but was troubled by Mauresmo’s slices and all court play.

Mauresmo won the match after taking the first set on a tiebreak and racing to a 5:1 lead in the second set, almost blew it but sneaked through 6:4 in the end. 

The final on Sunday afternoon was a special occasion between two French players.  Mary Pierce had beaten Amelie Mauresmo three straight times including in the quarterfinal of the US Open and round robin stage of the championships; but Mauresmo would get revenge in the final.  The beauty of the round robin format is that a player can be beaten in the round robin stage and gain revenge in the final.  In 1994 Becker beat Sampras in the round robin stage and then lost to Sampras in the final.  The same thing happened to Becker in 1996 when Sampras beat him in one of the greatest indoor finals.  In 1999 Agassi beat Sampras easily in the round robin and then was soundly beaten in the final.  Just a few weeks ago, Halep gave Serena a hiding in the round robin only to get a taste of her own medicine by Serena in the final.

Mauresmo was never going to give Pierce a hiding especially as Mary went into the match as the favourite.  It was a high quality and tensioned filled final; Pierce took a close first set 7:5 after getting a break late on.  The second set saw Mauresmo rush to a quick lead but couldn’t see it through, Pierce broke back and the set went to a tiebreak which Mauresmo took.  The interesting thing was that Pierce who was so in control of her forehand was starting to make strange mistakes, Mauresmo’s hustling and defending seemed to have an effect on Pierce while Mauresmo herself was really going for her shots and backhand in particular. Mauresmo played a strong tiebreak and deserved the set.

In the final set, Mauresmo again got an early break but was pegged back to 3:3 but broke late on at 4:4 to serve for the match.  With it about to the biggest win of her career, we knew it wouldn’t be easy and Mauresmo promptly went 0:40 down.  However, Mauresmo found new grit and won the match winning five points in a row. 

We knew Mauresmo had the talent and she finally won a major event.  I recall writing back in December 2005 that with Mauresmo winning the tour championships, it will be the platform to win a major tournament the next season, of course she went on to win two.  I based that view on Jana Novotna who won the Masters in 1997 and went on to win Wimbledon in 1998.  The victim in 1997 was also Mary Pierce.  You have to feel for Mary who took defeat with amazing grace but 2005 saw her lose the French Open, US Open and tour finals. 

The final capped another great year for womens tennis; with Venus’ amazing win at Wimbledon and Clijsters’ dominance on hardcourts, the WTA final capped it off nicely.

Flashback to 2000 WTA Championships

Laurie’s Tennis Articles will take a look at some of the classic WTA championships in recent times, which culminated in either a memorable final or memorable matches throughout the event.  This week we take a look at the 2000 championships.

In November 2000, the event called the Chase championships would be held at Madison Square Garden in New York for the very last time after a successful period of almost 30 years.  There was controversy over the new venue chosen for 2001 and 2002 in Munich Germany as Monica Seles publicly stated that she would never play in Germany again after the infamous stabbing incident in Hamburg in 1993 and perceived lack of justice in the German courts where her attacker was not given a prison sentence.

The tournament set up was vastly different back in 2000.  The top 16 in the world qualified for the year end tournament which was pure knock out from first round to the final.  With the format change since, this seems a bit harsh now because players could travel half way around the world just to play one match!  Players who withdrew from the tournament included Venus and Serena Williams, plus Amelie Mauresmo who were all injured.

There were some great matches as the tournament progressed and they mostly revolved around Elena Dementieva.  As Eurosport commentator Simon Reed noted, Dementieva posed a striking resemblance to Steffi Graf in terms of looks and speed around the court.  In the first round against Davenport, Lindsay found it all a bit too much, having claimed he first set and looking good for the win, but even at the age of eighteen Dementieva was already building a reputation for being a slow starter but getting better as the as the match went on.  And on the fast supreme court her speed around the court was in turn highlighting Davenport’s lack of relative mobility, which made Davenport frustrated.  Dementieva came through the match in three sets to put defending champion out of the tournament in the very first round. Davenport looking quite distraught in the end, no doubt annoyed to lose to such an inexperienced player.

Dementieva’s next great match came against Kim Clisjters in the quarterfinal.  Both players were seen as the future of the game and were the same age.  Clijsters would go on to dominate the rivalry but in their first encounter in New York, Dementieva would take the match again in three sets, coming from 4:2 down in the 3rd set to take it 6:4 2:6 6:4.  A strange call in the final game left Clisjters looking quite forlorn and frustrated.  What is interesting about this match fourteen years on is not only was it a great match between two extremely athletic and quick players, but it was also a contest between two teenagers at the top level, an absolute rarity in today’s tennis.

Meanwhile world number 1 Martina Hingis breezed through the tournament taking out Julie Halard in the first round, who went on to retire from tennis and  Nathalize Tauziat in the quarterfinal, who also went on to retire from tennis!.  Kournikova and Seles also arrived in the semifinals after easy wins; Kournikova taking out Conchita Martinez in the quarterfinal 6:4 6:0.  Therefore, the semifinal line up was Hingis against Kournikova and Seles against Dementieva; three of the four semifinalists were teenagers and Seles a former teenage prodigy.  Both Hingis and Seles won their semifinal matches comfortably although Seles was taken to a 2nd set tiebreak after Dementieva found her feet as Seles’ fast start stated to subside, but was able to finish it in straight sets.

The final between Seles and Hingis turned out to be one of the matches of the year with Seles pushing Hingis hard and it looked for a good period that Seles would cause an upset and walk away Masters champion.  As in the semifinal, Seles really took her game to the opponent, going for big serves and quick winners overwhelming Hingis who was flustered by the constant attack.  Seles’ plan was a combination of tactical and fitness; having missed a lot of the year through injury Seles wanted to finish the match quickly.

The tactic almost paid off as it looked like Seles would win the match in straight sets after being a break up twice in the 2nd set.  However, comparisons are often made between tennis and boxing and last week was the 40th anniversary of the “Rumble in the Jungle” between Mohammed Ali and George Foreman.  The scenario here was similar as Foreman exhausted himself trying to take out Ali and was knocked out in the eleventh round.  A similar fate befell Seles who had Hingis on the rack for an hour but was unable to finish the job and was taken to three sets where she lost it after visibly tiring.  In fact, both were tiring but Hingis’ counter punching skills and tenacity got her through to take the match 6:7 6:4 6:4.

Hingis was very emotional at the end the encounter knowing she had to work extremely hard for the victory and validated her number 1 position.  Hingis had come in for a lot of criticism for finishing the year as number 1 without winning a major title.  The tour was set up quite differently in 2000 and under today’s conditions, Venus’ run of Wimbledon, US and Olympic titles may well have seen her claim the number 1 position. 

2000 was the first year of the new millennium and set up what would be a golden period for WTA tennis with the emergence of Venus and Serena Williams, Kim Clijsters, Justine Henin, Amelie Mauresmo, Elena Dementieva and the re-emergence of Jennifer Capriati who was only a few years older at the age of 24 even though she had played in the 1991 US Open semifinal!  Lindsay Davenport and Martina Hingis were the established top two players in the world but Davenport would continue with her career in the top 10 while Hingis would retire in 2002 after citing a chronic foot condition.