Selection Dilemma !

Being involved as a Coach and selector for local rep matches can be a nightmare as you confront a whole series of issues why players are unavailable.There is nothing new to issues such as injury's, family weddings, cannot afford the time off school and psychological factors or just could not be bothered which I must say is very rare.Nothing surprises me, however it is still disappointing to deal with what is an age old problem.Injury's I guess you can't help and one must not dwell too much on these, its the other factors that one tires of.Tennis is an individual sport and its in this environment the selfish factor is brought to the forefront.It can be simply the parents don't want their child to lose in a head to head match up with a particular opponent during the team event and this can lead into a list of excuses non tennis related, one a coach just does not want to deal with.Some players have gone well and above the call of duty to play events ,one player had major surgery on their back and played the team event serving underarm and winning vital rubbers to secure an overall team victory.I say where there is a will there is a way and yes you might not be at your best sometimes but you do it for the team.This post is no way singling anyone out... its a fact Coach and selectors have to deal with every time one picks a team however try looking at the other side once in a while and remember tennis sometimes is a Team Sport.You know Juniors who are involved with rep sport must know that at a certain level you have to commit. Sometimes events clash and sacrifices must be made.As a Pro Coach I expect parents and players to realize that you cannot be in two places at once and the right choice is made for the good of the team. Just as in other rep sport tennis requires the same support!.Just remember when unavailable have a good excuse ready because I have heard them all , I don't mind legit but honestly I have not come down in the last rain shower for most. What I have noticed in the current generation the sense of pride playing for your region is met with mediocre outlook.I could go on but I'm afraid I face a losing battle , I admire and respect those that you can continue to count on.Whilst this is not relevant I can remember an old coach saying that if you were in the trenches of Normandy in WW2 you hope your team mate that gives it their all on the playing field is the guy you want next to you in those trenches .. a mate you can rely on on when the going gets tough.Commitment does start pre season!

Ashburton Update

George Tarbotton pictured above top had a good win against Dougal Halifax 6-4 6-3 and will play Kye Lee from Canterbury in his next match. Duncan Rollinson pictured bottom has continued his winning way in the 8s and will play the final tomorrow.Ben Deeley also showed good form winning his first round in the boys 10's.Jack Deeley will play tomorrow in the 12s in what has been a curious scheduling of a three day tournament .


Meanwhile in Auckland Anabel Ellis has scored a win in her second pool match defeating Erasmus from Canterbury 6-2 6-4.Great conditions abound still in Ashburton however as we know weather in New Zealand can be perfect but change as quick as you can say "double fault".

Ashburton Junior Tournament

In Ashburton today to watch South Canterbury Juniors participate in the Long Weekend Tournament.I hate to say I first visited a Junior tournament in Ashburton some 20 years ago when I took a group of Australian juniors to New Zealand.Back then the complex was all grass , now its one of the best tennis centers in the South Island with 14 Hard courts.The above picture is of Rebecca Gill ready to play her next match.Rebecca played the 4th seed Anastasiya Korzh of Christchurch but went down in a close battle 6-4 7-6.Charlotte Lamb lost her first round match , Hugh Rollinson battled to win a tough three setter whilst younger brother Duncan had a win in his first round of the 8s.The Deely brothers Jack and Ben will be in action later today as well as George Tarbotton.


Annabel Ellis is in Auckland playing the Masters series which is top 8 for each age group .Annabel is first years 14 and will have some tough matches over the three days.Annabel went down 3 and 0 in her first match today.

Above is Annabel sending down at serve at training.

Busy Busy Busy!

I have been leading the Schools Tennis Program in South Canterbury and it never ceases to amaze me the enthusiasm that greets us at each school.The Above picture is our Group for St Jo's Fairlie .Thursdays see us delivering the program to over 160 students in the Fairlie region.Participants this year are St Jo's Fairlie, Fairlie Primary, Mackenzie College and Albury. 


After a hectic day up country its back to the Tennis Center for Tennis South Canterbury squad , the 14s and 16s age group are in action on Thursday's. Below I have posted shots taken yesterday at the center.Gabrielle Grady is pictured working with talented 8 year old Duncan Rollinson, Dino Ilecic leads a fitness session and Sam Lane is stylish on serve.

Loads of talent

Some action shots of Tennis South Canterbury junior squads , above are our talented 10s team whilst below are the 12s. Great to see the rebuilding of junior girl participants and more will be added shortly to our programs.

Some great shots of Oscar Acland (left) and Hugh Rollinson (right) in action from Monday's squads.


Thanks to Basil Valentine for his nice comment on my last post. Basil ( or is that his internet nick ) visited my site from the South Canterbury page and obviously Basil stops by a little looking at how many visits they have made :)


Below is a picture of where people have visited me from over the past few weeks and as you can see my Blog is read all over the world.

Aussie Open Tennis Tour with the Eye!

For New Zealander's only , come and join us for the first week of the Australian open just drop me an email for a detailed itinerary tennis12@xtra.co.nz

New Coaches

Each Summer I have been lucky to have young tennis coaches from all parts of the world assist over the summer with our tennis program here in South Canterbury.What a great opportunity for young people with tennis in their blood to visit and do something that they love in another part of the world.Recent Summer's have seen Hector Garcia from Mexico,Tyler Begg from Canada and Jeff West from Dallas Texas. All have been very popular here in South Canterbury and each coach has left a lasting impression on the young tennis players of the area.I wish I had done this at their age getting vital life experience in different country's.Pictured left is Dino Ilecic who joins us this year from Sweden.Click HERE to read today's Timaru Herald's story on Dino!This year we have also former outstanding local Junior Gabrielle Grady one of the area's best performed junior tennis players.Gabrielle is here for the term and will depart January on a tennis scholarship to Jacksonville Florida a reward for her tennis dedication. Gabrielle has also coached in Auckland with Gary Swinkels in junior holiday programs. Gabrielle also was part of Tennis New Zealand project Europe spending training in Spain. Her experience will also be very valuable to the coaching this summer.Below is a picture of Gabrielle and Dino decked out in ASB shirts who are big supporters of Tennis South Canterbury.

Getting to the Top in Tennis is Tough!

ITF junior tournaments have their place in a promising junior tennis player’s pathway to the top. However one can get lost in the quest for rankings points. I have to comment again on ITF junior rankings and how inaccurate they can be and give no real indication where you sit really in the tennis world. One has to look deeper in the point’s race and how a player accumulated those remembering singles and doubles points combine to give you an individual ranking. Also take into account which side of the world you gained most of your points and how many ITF junior events did you play. There are many juniors around the world with not so high ITF rankings but are more talented than a lot that appear in the top 50.If your goal is to get a College scholarship a high ITF ranking will assure you get a highly ranked American College. National Bodies can also reward their players on reaching top 100 and can receive funding for their Junior ITF players. Just to show you how Mickey Mouse results can be in the Juniors I will give some examples. A New Zealand Junior earlier this week was reported to be the highest ranked junior in Australasia (102), and that in itself should send alarm bells ringing in Australia. Looking deeper into results is important when assessing current standings. Losses at the last 7 tournaments were to players ranked, 47, 125, 212, 78, 110, 550, and 479 with three of those losses to girls from Australasia. However it is good to see players such as this testing themselves overseas but I question whether it should be in Cairo Egypt and maybe should be Spain or the USA.

Another New Zealand Junior ranked 132 went into the u18 Boy’s Canadian World ranking tournament this week as top seed. Lost first round to a player from the USA ranked 691.

Jack Sock winner of the boys U18 US OPEN singles title went into this event unseeded. These results are common to a lot of Junior events my advice is don’t get too hung up on ITF rankings test yourself with Futures and Challengers if your potential is there to do this, choose your tournament program wisely , don’t look at points you could get but more on the strength of the tournament. If you are going to make it as a top pro tennis player you will survive playing stronger events , playing weaker events certainly will give you ranking points in the Junior ITF grade! will they transgress to the senior ranks? , I hardly think so!

Tennis is a job for pro players and for many the best they will do is hovering the 350-250 mark .In the real world if you held a Job and performed at this level for 5 years your boss should have fired you by now. If you were running as a business there is so many years of loss you can cope before you go under.
Getting to the top in Tennis is Tough!

School Holiday Tennis Camps

Above are more pictures from the South Canterbury Region.Enthusiastic children at Temuka and Geraldine.Bottom left is Gabrielle Grady and Dino Ilecic who are assisting the coaching department this year.Nice weather certainly makes it more enjoyable for all concerned coaches and participants.

On The Road Again

Pictured above are kids from Geraldine and Temuka enjoying a Tennis camp we are conducting during the School Holidays at each location.Also above bottom right is new coach Dino Ilecic who has arrived from Sweden to coach tennis with our team over the summer.More about Dino soon .Canterbury Spring Open is being held this week and Annabel Ellis is leading the way with wins today in the 14s age group.I will update this event later this week.


And looks like another player swap with a former New Zealand Junior being listed as Australian.


oztennisresults 

  

Women's Final Round Qualifying: Rachel Tredoux (AUS) d Chelsea TeTai (AUS) 5-7 6-3 6-1#Portpirieprotour


FOR THOSE THAT ARE NOT SURE THE PLAYER IS CHELSEA TE TAI. May be a misprint or an error by TA.

Day 2 Highlights- South Canterbury Junior Spring Open Tennis Tournament

A very successful tournament finished today and lots of tennis was provided for competitors from as far a field as Australia.Col and Lynne Maher are frequent visitors to the area.Col a tennis Coach from Young NSW Australia brought 8 Aussie junior tennis players to compete in our tournament and will move on to play Canterbury in Christchurch.Its a great experience for youngsters to visit another country and I am sure a trip like this will be invaluable to their life experience in years to come.You can find all the results here at this LINK
The below video has some highlights and I just could not let Col's group go with out getting them to give a rendition of Advance Australia Fair.....Music to my ears!

South Canterbury Junior Spring Open 2010 -Highlights Day 1

Rain hampered play on Day 1 however organizers had been able to push through a lot of matches before play was suspended for the day.I have posted a video Highlight package of Day 1 Featuring, Nai Nai from Christchurch,Rebecca Gill, George Tarbotton, Duncan Rollinson,Daniel Kelliher ,Angus Rollinson,Annabel Ellis,Brad Cvtanich,and new Coach Dino Ilecic stringing racquet's.Play will continue tomorrow and results and draws can be found at this LINK

Summer Fun

The thing about coaching in New Zealand especially outdoor's you have to be prepared for any change of weather conditions from , gale force winds , ice and rain and sometimes perfect summer conditions.When it is a perfect day there is no better place than on a tennis court in South Canterbury.The above pictures are from Fairlie as we did a two day coaching camp earlier this week.A very enthusiastic group improved their tennis skills ready for the coming season.  

C'MON AUSSIE C'MON C'MON

Australia's recent Davis Cup loss to Belgium that puts them back to the peanut gallery competition that includes New Zealand must certainly warrant questions on the current State of Men's Tennis and for that fact the Junior Development program.Sam Stosur has saved Australian Tennis further scrutiny along with imports Groth and Rodionova.Look Deeper into the Women's game and it is worse than the men's.No Junior girl representatives in the last grandslam tournament of the year and a poor showing at Junior Wimbledon by the girls gives us a glimpse of what is in store for the future and its NOT GOOD!Lleyton Hewitt is literally on his last legs and those under him are just not up to a high level in Men's Tennis.Ball was a disaster and Peter Luczak has hovered around the 100's for some time and he is also at the end of his career. So which Australian Male could restore pride in Australian tennis.Davis Cup Captain John Fitzgerald was  upbeat. ''These are tough situations that they haven't faced a lot,'' Fitzgerald said of his young charges such as the 23-year-old Ball.C'mon Fitzy Nadal at 24 has numerous grandslam titles under his belt. And what tough situations are you going to get at 151 in the world?How long do you think it will take a player like Ball to achieve this experience! I am sure the Davis Cup Captain will soon be replaced , however its not his fault and the next Captain will also find the cupboards bare and we are not moving into the Main World Group Davis Cup in the near future.


Lets Look at the current rankings

1. Lleyton Hewitt | 37 
2. Peter Luczak| 129 
3. Carsten Ball | 151 
4. Matt Ebden | 164 
5. Marinko Matosevic | 166 
6. Bernard Tomic | 219 
7. John Millman | 229 
8. Greg Jones | 229 
9. Nick Lindahl | 242 
10. Brydan Klein | 260 

Take out Hewitt... who then in the above group will come through,In my mind the only player that has a chance is Bernard Tomic who turns 18 soon.His form has not been anything special and is playing currently in Thailand.I can remember watching Tomic and Grigor Dimitrov play each other at Junior Wimbledon and thinking Tomic just does not posses any major weapon whilst the Bulgarian was a shot maker.Dimitrov has just won his third challenger in a row and is now around 142 in the World and rising! Group all the others in the same boat unfortunately I cant see anyone in the above list making top 100 outside Tomic. Pat Rafter had this to say about current Junior tennis "Rafter said there was no secret answer to ending Australia's decline and suggested, if anything, Tennis Australia was pampering the up-and-coming juniors. ''One thing I'm really jamming down the kids' throats is that we've got to make it tougher for them, they've got to toughen up as well and there are ways to do that" he went on to say "By giving them everything, it's not helping to find solutions. If we give them a tough situation where they are on their own for a few months with no coach, no nothing and make them do it tough in Europe, you've got to find different solutions and ways of getting around it. ''It's just life skills to me that these kids could take into their game as well and, when they are on the court, they've got to tough it out for themselves and not have someone tell them what to do all the time.'' Yep Pat you have some Merit in what you say but really Life skills begins at home and that's where the kids have it too easy!!! Ben Mitchell ,James Duckworth and Jason Kubler are some of the teenagers touted to come through.......but I ask come through to where? the 100-150 mark?When you see Juniors like Dimitrov who is coached by an Aussie Peter McNamara then one has little hope for our current juniors. The current challengers in Australia is really just a competition for the locals ...yes some points for rankings but not a true picture where you sit in the World.I was reading the Tennis news boards and someone made this statement commenting on the Aussie guys "That last comment raises the old chestnut of why Tennis Australia can't get the promising youngsters - Klein, Jonesie, Lindahl (all Junior Grand Slam Winners or Finalists/Top 10 Juniors) - to make the transition between the Juniors and Seniors. I still think there is potential for these players to break into and stay in the top 100, given the average age of players in the top 100 is over 25 years old."...Basically Itf junior rankings are Mickey Mouse.Look at American Jack Sock who was unseeded for this years USOPEN junior event and won it....its no guarantee if you have a high ITF junior ranking that you will make it with the big boy's it probably means that your Parents can afford sending you all over the World to places like Egypt and Serbia to gain inflated points that for most looks good on the ITF junior rankings list but means nothing when you enter the pro events.Rafter has the right track we all need to toughen up!!   how we can do that is another question.. Unfortunately for Aussie Tennis it wont be oi oi oi it will be OH OH OH for a few years to come!