Tennis in Egypt (part 2)Filed Under: Quick Facts, Tennis
I’ve been playing tennis in Egypt for almost 20 years now, I practiced with several coaches and I witnessed the administration of 5 tennis federations. I was there when there were no international tournaments at all to play in Egypt for several years, when you had to travel all year round in order to participate in Futures, and when finally Satellites and Futures started to be played, including Cairo Open held in Gezira Club 7 years ago and the most recent years tournaments. Years passed by and still we don’t have any player in the top 100 or even 200 except for the ones who did it in the 70’s. Of course people here in Egypt start wondering why we don’t have top tennis players like in other countries.. well it’s easy to ask the question but creating such kind of top players is not that easy, especially in a game like tennis that is growing year by year and getting more and more competitive; not to mention the large amounts of money that it absorbs. We had so many good juniors over the last 15 years but as soon as they pass the junior stage it’s over. In juniors we always have a player that is in the top 50 and even top 20 but what happens when they enter the men’s circuit?! Everything changes. It’s a big difference between men’s circuit and juniors.
So what are the main reasons that prevent us from reaching a high ranking? I think sponsors and education and the system of training are the main reasons. To be a top player you need to have a sponsor who can support you financially. Sponsors don’t have to be individuals, I am talking about big companies for which sponsoring someone wouldn’t make a big difference in cost, and it would be a fraction of what they are spending on publicity. As a player you need money for equipments, traveling and for your traveling coach if you have one, tennis is very expensive in that, you need to play around 25-30 weeks of Futures and Challengers a year to really evaluate yourself and to reach a decent ranking. Imagine all the countries you have to travel to in order to achieve that, not to count the expenses of training at a high level, which is not available in Egypt until now because of the lack of experienced coaches. So how can we reach a top ranking if we don’t even play half of these tournaments and even if we do, the money you get from winning is not enough to cover the other expenses. Countries like Spain, France, Italy and America have so many tournaments that the players there don’t need to travel outside to play, a country like Italy or the States has around 30 futures and 15 or 20 Challengers and ATP series; imagine the intensity of competition they have and the number of players who compete… well it’s nearly impossible not to have top ranked players after all that!
Education is another problem; we are not a sport oriented country; what I mean is that people consider sports as a hobby not as a profession. When you are in school or university the teachers and the system don’t support an athlete because they think it’s a waste of time. Well not everybody has to be a doctor or an engineer, we have plenty. What we don’t have is a champion in tennis or in most of the other sports.
The transition from juniors to seniors is delayed because of the university period; it starts from the age of 17 to 22, the peak of any athlete actually. It doesn’t mean that if he/she doesn’t reach the best during this period then it’s over, on the contrary, a lot of players mature after that age and reach their peak around 26- 27 but at least they started early enough to be able to reach top form at that age. What happens here is that most of our players quit during university or travel to the States to continue their studies, play college tennis over there then come back to Egypt and quit tennis to pursue the carrier they studied for. You don’t have to quit studying in order to become a tennis professional (provided that this is your dream!) You can very well do both. Studying at the appropriate age while working on becoming a tennis champ can and should go hand in hand, and once you’re done studying you’re free to choose any of the two carrier paths.
Finally the training system in the country… qualified coaches are few and most of the coaches and trainers that we have never competed on a high level or even intermediate level. It’s very hard to teach someone something (especially in sport) if you never felt it or experienced it. I am not only talking about tennis trainers and coaches but fitness trainers as well. Hopefully my generation and the future one will be a new start for a better training system and coaching for the young ones.
I think that if the above three aspects are achieved we might have a chance of having a top 100 or even top 50 player in the future.
- Read More
- karimadm
- 23 Jul 2009 10:49 PM
- Comments (0)
