'THE C AND S DEBACLE' ( Part 2 )

You will often hear in many sports that a team can be built around a player depending on their level of expertise and I believe that this statement could be correct. As far as a sporting facility is concerned well I believe that if it is run correctly then people will keep coming through the gates to play. A sport can be built around a venue, you just need the right people to run it.
The C and S Tennis Club had that sort of aura surrounding it when I was a kid because it owned a vision or rather one man owned a vision for the future of the sport in Albany.
Peter Holmes ( Holmsey ) who I often write fondly of on this site had a Business mind as well as a tennis mind and he put that business brain of his to work beautifully. I don't like to compare myself to Holmsey because he was by far a better tennis coach but I think we were both on the same wave length when it came to teaching juniors the sport of tennis.
Previously I have written about the program which we ran at the Lawley Park Tennis Club 5 or 6 years ago that brought juniors through into the senior club. Well that was also how Peter ran his program because he had a vision for the future as far as the youth of the sport was concerned and he wasn't just in it to make a dollar.
The Saturday morning junior club was an integral part of the C and S Tennis Club and it made kids strive for the afternoon matches with the adults. We all treated it as almost an honour to be selected to play in the afternoons because we knew that it would make us into better players. How could it not ? Saturday morning tennis was ridiculously competitive because of what was at stake for us if we continued to get better.
Holmsey had a way with his teaching that brought the best out of a kid who showed potential and his methods were nothing short of brilliant as he urged kids to become a part of the club and not just someone who turned up for a session.
You see there is a difference, yet it is common now days for a kid to go to coaching yet not even play the senior afternoon club matches which I find bemusing to say the least. If a coach turns up at his local club at 1 pm on a Saturday along with 4 or 5 of their pupils it brings a good vibe to a tennis club, that's what Holmsey did.
You can only play so many tournaments due to what is available on the calendar so surely in between those competitions a kid of say 12 or 14 years of age needs some good hard hitting. That's where C and S was so damn good as it was a tennis club where ALL of Albany's best senior and junior tennis players competed due largely to Peter's management skills.
Peter had a way about him, a way that commanded respect and his Saturday morning junior coaching program as well as the junior club match play filled the eight courts easily week in, week out of the season. The strongest juniors would play for three hours in the morning and then stay on for the senior club matches which ultimately proved the difference in tennis club strength in the Region.
As an adult you just knew that Saturday arvo club play was going to be hard work due to the standard of players who would turn up each week. Peter's adult coaching was also brilliant because he would bring players through his program and into the club to strengthen it.
There was always an idea to bring a novice adult into the club, never a 'thanks mate see you same time next week' sort of situation that does nothing to help bring a club new members.
The club on the highway I believe was the strongest tennis club this side of Perth and I recall a competition which proved that statement to be correct.
From memory I believe that it was 1985 and Holmsey organised a City vs Country Competition where the State 16's and 14's best players came to town to play over a full weekend. It is a fact that every single player from our team was a member of the C and S Tennis Club and I was fortunate enough to be selected to play. Peter put a team together of around 10 players and we played their best 10, we won easily, our team was outrageously strong.
Putting that into perspective now I could not find more than 4 locals of any age who would even have a sniff of a chance against a team like that from Perth yet we had TEN who barely lost a match consisting of adults and juniors all operating out of one tennis club, the C and S Tennis Club.......
Part 3 to follow

'THE C and S DEBACLE' (Part 1)

                        The C and S Tennis Club 1984 ( GT vs my Doubles partner Dale Jones
                         Final of the Boys 16's Singles, Albany Junior Open.

                            The same spot that was once home to the biggest tennis centre in Albany.


The idea to write a post about my old tennis club has been going around in my head for a while because it's one of those things in life, do you drag it up or let it go ? The problem in my own head is that I own a tendency to do the former, I drag many tennis issues up however that's just me and being me aint easy, trust me.
I think the one thing that bothers me the most about the old Country and Suburban Tennis Club ( C and S ) is that it could so easily have been avoided. I refer to the closing of the club. How does a once hugely successful tennis club which saw hundreds of kids once take part in a junior open tournament in the holiday season suddenly fall apart and become a 'ghost club' almost overnight ? Tough question but as I always I look for answers.
The C and S Tennis Club was a club that had everything except a perfect location as it was on a busy highway, Albany Highway to be precise yet as a player you would get used to the constant sound of cars going by. New York has aeroplanes flying over at the US Open so a car when you think about it is not really a major distraction. As I said, you got used to it.
C and S had a huge club house, bbq area, a shed to watch matches from and above all it had EIGHT TENNIS COURTS. That was enough to hold an open tournament. Now this town only has six court clubs which do not cater for big tournaments so in a nutshell Albany does not hold big tennis tournaments. The Albany Open held at the Emu Point Tennis Club sees around 100 players hit the courts on a Saturday for Mens and Ladies A and B Grade doubles plus on the Sunday around 50 players contest the Mixed Doubles. So all in all it's not a bad effort from Emu Point to get through that many matches on six courts over a weekend.
So how easily would the C and S Tennis Club have been able to stage that same event over eight courts ? Well two extra courts do make a huge difference and the old junior event despite it's huge numbers was able to make it through Saturday and Sunday complete with best of three set matches for the finals which was the correct way to finish a tennis tournament.
Locally we now have to play on the clock or with a shortened version of scoring and tennis is not like that in the real World, just ask Mahut and Isner where they took three days to once complete a match at Wimbledon. Tennis tournaments should not be put on a clock, full stop, yet they are locally due to court availability.
So to the issues surrounding C and S and could they have been avoided and should that now defunct tennis club still be operating ? Well in my view it should be THE Albany Tennis Centre complete with lights and facilities upgraded to cater not only for 100 or more players on a Saturday ( juniors in the morning and seniors in the afternoon ) as it once did but it should be a showpiece for Great Southern tennis in general. The above photo tells another story.
Could the local town council have saved the club and resurfaced the courts, put in lights and kept it despite the droves of members who walked out on the club leaving it in disarray ? Well the club folded due to conflict within the committee and amongst members so there is your number one reason why you don't let people who are usually unsuccessful on court try to become successful in a boardroom.
I am sure that the C and S Tennis Club was not the first sporting club to be ruined by a group of people who could not get along and who couldn't make the correct decisions regarding what was in the best interests of a sport.
C and S needed to be handed to an independent group who actually had a vision for the sport in this town and should not have allowed it to be run by people with egos and personal agendas who did not have the good of tennis at the fore front of their decision making.  
The final committee at the C and S Tennis Club simply washed their hands of the whole affair and could not see that the club was the future of tennis in this town. They found it easier to walk away from it and joined other clubs in town, Lawley, Emu and Merrifield.
I am sure those clubs would have been absolutely ecstatic with the influx of members at the time yet rather bemused all the same with the folding of the town's biggest tennis club.
Part 2 to follow......

'WORK THIS ONE OUT'

Chris Guccioni is an Australian Tennis Professional. He has been on the Pro Tour for nearly 15 years. Chris has earned just over $1.4 Million Dollars in his career which works out to be roughly $100,000 per year.
Take off tax, take off travel expenses, what would that leave him with ?
It is common knowledge that a Tennis Professional REQUIRES AT LEAST $100,000 PER YEAR JUST TO BREAK EVEN ON THE PRO TOUR. So if you look at Guccioni's career earning it looks as though he will have to get a 'real job' when he retires as he will have probably less than nothing left at the end of it all.
I am not sure if I am the only one who sees Pro Tennis players' earnings and raise my eyebrows at the viability of it all when you see certain player profiles and just how long they have been on the circuit for. Guccioni's earnings do not in fact add up to a figure that sees his incoming wages over ride his outgoing costs.
Call me cynical however I fail to see how many Tennis Professionals can in fact afford to live from week to week without hand outs from family, friends or tournament sponsors. I am all for the life of a Tennis Pro however after almost 15 years on tour and earnings after expenses that a local Taxi Driver would be comfortably making I find it hard to believe Chris's job is viable.
Chris is 30 years of age and he needs some big wins ASAP if he is to remain on tour and be able to afford to travel the World doing what he loves. Chris Guccioni's story is a typical tennis story but is not heard and seen as much as it should be as the glamorous life of a Tennis Professional is portrayed to the public as the 'norm'.
If a player is to be coached professionally by someone who really does know the intricacies of the game and I don't mean by a 'Walt Disney Tennis Coach' then they would have to be coming up with at least a grand each week to just cover their costs alone. Realistically they would in fact need two grand to cover a 'REAL' coach's costs per week on tour including flights and expenses.
The best players or rather the most successful players enlist an experienced coach to help them week in, week out and I would doubt that any player inside the top 50 does not have a full time coach. If they don't I would call them a 'Freak Show' as knowing all there is to know about tennis and being ranked inside the best 50 players in the World without a mentor would be nothing short of outrageous. 
If nothing else a player who wishes to become successful in tennis needs a BIG WIN, one that sees sponsors chip in and one that affords the luxury of being able to hire a coach even if it is in the short term. If that big win does not happen then most players will scratch around the tour just as Chris Guccioni has done for nearly 15 hard years and perhaps just break even in the process.
Tough sport Tennis, not for the poor or the faint hearted.......

'RAFA, A CERTAINTY'

Not sure how long it's been since Rafa has ruled the clay in Europe, maybe two years or so where injuries and lack of confidence has kept him from dominating the dirt as he did for ten years or so. It's funny how the Tennis World finds a way to give a champion another chance just as it did with Federer after all those beltings at the French Open by Rafa.
All that had to happen for Roger to gain tennis immortality was for Rafa to have a day against a challenger that didn't go according to plan and that's exactly what happened in 2009 when Soderling stunned the Spaniard in the Fourth Round.
To prove it wasn't a fluke Soderling also beat Roger in 2010 in the quarters at the same event. Back to 2009.
Roger took that unexpected loss to Rafa as a catalyst to put his name in the record books as maybe the greatest ever tennis player on the planet. It was almost all or nothing because if Roger didn't make the most of that opportunity then he quite possibly would never have won it. I am probably stating the obvious here.
This year in Monte Carlo Novak Djokovic got beaten rather early for his lofty standards and even though he was a 'local' he played like a tourist, perhaps more interested in the surrounds than the tennis. Monte Carlo is like that, trust me I have been there, the scenery is distracting. Maybe Novak thought that as a resident of one of the most magnificent places in the World to play tennis at he could simply turn up on his home turf and claim the title. Tennis aint like that.
So back to this year.
I put Rafa in now as a certainty to win the event because the pressure is off. No one has to play Novak in the final so there is no tightness, no concern over who is going to finish second to the World number 1 and no thought of a press conference asking why Novak can't be beaten. It's party time in Monte Carlo.
Rafa will take this opportunity to show the rest of the World that he isn't quite finished just yet and when he wins this year in Monte Carlo he may just put some doubt in the mind of Novak going into the French Open because that's all Novak requires to join Rafa and Roger as all time legends of the game.
You need to win all 4, Novak knows it but now he may be doubting it but best of 3 is a little different than best of 5, tactics change and so does the mind set.
If Rafa loses in Monte Carlo he can kiss his chances goodbye of winning another title on the dirt of any significance because Novak won't lose too many unless he is injured from now on. I think he simply turned up this year at the home of Bjorn Borg's last ever tournament match with the wrong attitude, he will fix it I am sure.
I am tipping Rafa to get through to the final in Monte Carlo and to win it comfortably to put him back on the clay court tennis map. He has won it eight times, I think his ninth is only a few days away. Not many champions let an opportunity like this go by just as Roger did in Paris in 2009 when Rafa went out early.
They sense a moment, I think Rafa already senses his.....

'YES, SAME OLD LINE'

" I was playing really, really bad ". That's what Novak Djokovic said after his match where he lost in the second round at Monte Carlo. Then he said that his opponent played well. I reckon once again that's a 'bet each way'. Now if a player says that their opponent simply outplayed them well that to me is the best answer because if you do get beaten at any level well you must give some credit to your opponent. But not secondly, it must be firstly.
Sure we have all lost matches to people we either dislike or have beaten in the past but when it really comes down to it we have days we would rather forget on a tennis court. Personally I have had many but I am sure that I am not alone there. I have always thought however that it was my head that lost me a tennis match and not my shots, I am sure most would agree.
Novak got beaten by Jiri Vesely, a player who can hit a ball extremely well but should not be smart enough to outsmart a player of Novak's ability, yet it happened, Novak is human after all. Novak may have played 'really, really bad' as he described his performance but that's tennis for you as your game only needs to be off a little to get beaten by someone who's game is on. Nature of the sport.
Novak needs to clean up his press conference dialogue as it's typical tennis banter that has arrogance written all over it. A loss is a loss, a fact of life on a tennis court that will usually happen more than a win due to the impossibility of regular victories in a sport that requires a genius and nothing less to keep winning.
I hate press conferences because it's the same old 'crap' as Gulbis said quite some time ago. Ernest was correct and he would know, he loses more than he wins and he does not provide cliché's as answers like many do.
You got beaten by a better player on the day Novak, fact of life in tennis............

'NEVER A LOT IN IT'

American Tennis Pro Denis Kudla had a rather frustrating week at the 'office' in this week's Clay Court Championships in Houston, Texas. Kudla is a battler on the circuit though he is now at an all time high ranking of 59 in singles so he is at last making some good dollars. He has in fact made US $1.2 million in his six years on the tour, but let's put that into perspective.
Two hundred thousand a year before tax and after expenses does not leave a pro tennis player a whole lot at the end of the year but it isn't a bad way to tour the World either. The frustrating thing about Kudla's week in Texas was that he was a whisker away from some much needed dollars but in particular some ranking points that would have eliminated the requirement for him to qualify for the smaller 64 man events. Currently he is right on the edge.
Kudla lost in the Round of 16 to big serving American John Isner by the typical Isner match score line of 7-6, 7-6 but his heart break didn't end there. Now Kudla is not really a doubles exponent as his current ranking of 600 plus suggests but he and fellow Countryman Don Young lost 9-11 in the third set super tie breaker to the greatest team of all time in Men's Doubles, the Bryan Brothers.
Kudla picked up almost $9,000 US for the singles effort and whilst I don't have the Doubles Prize money in front of me the smaller tournaments offer around $2,000 US for an early loss to each player, so it was a lucrative week none the less for Denis. If he had managed the tie breakers a little better against Isner he would have been guaranteed an extra $6,000 US plus double what he went home with if luck had been kind to them against the Bryans.
Yet that's Men's Pro Tennis for you, never a lot in it and usually it's a couple of points here and there that decide a match.
Denis Kudla picked up 20 ranking points for making the last 16 in the Men's Singles which has given his number a small boost on the rankings list. His 600 plus doubles ranking will probably stay the same. For the record Kudla scraped into the second round by a score line of 3-6, 7-6, 7-6 against a guy by the name of Mischa Zverev of Germany who is currently ranked 164 in singles. I suppose we could say the same thing about Zverev as we have about Kudla in regards to a close match and a score line which suggests it could have gone either way.
Look at how many games Zverev won ( 18 ) and look at how many Kudla won ( 17 ) and you tell me whether or not it seems totally unfair that a player goes out of a tennis tournament as the 'loser' sometimes. Tennis, tough sport to make a living out of. A sport of small margins and a sport of close line calls that may turn a match result if a linesman gets it wrong and Hawkeye is not at that particular smaller event.
Hats off to the Pros who make a living from a sport that requires some to hire a psychologist as well as a coach just to help them think better.......

'GT NUMBER ONE IN THE WORLD'

Did you see who rates number 1 on Google for one of the most famous tennis quotes in history ? Yep yours truly is WORLD NUMBER 1 when it comes to looking up 'A Haircut and a forehand' by the great Ivan Lendl in regards to the great Andre Agassi.
I always had a dream of being World Number 1. Some people don't like me because of what I write though that particular chapter has in fact had over 30,000 views World wide. I still receive the occasional email over that one even though it has been around for a while now. I haven't received a negative one yet, most like the content of 'A Haircut and a forehand' as it is a compliment to one of the World's greatest ever tennis players.
Nice to be Number 1........