Spoke with Michael Redlicki yesterday, he like many other players are just not happy with these new rules of ATP and ITF Tours and the point system and how lower ranked players are being weeded out. Petr Korda is also not a fan of the new rules, concerned about the futures of the lower ranked players and how hard it is to get to the top 100. The qualifying tournament for this Sarasota Open had just two matches. The foundation of tennis – the young players – are being pushed out. It’s too hard to make money in pro tennis and the sport will suffer.
Korda wisely noted that the Super Bowl doesn’t change rules. Why should pro tennis?
Redlicki, 25, said his best win was maybe against Yoshihito Nishioka in qualies of a $10,000, losing the first game and then winning 12 in a row. He lost today to 18 year old Nick Hardt of Dominican Republic 63 in the third, with the IMG coaches and Jimmy Arias cheering him on. Hardt is an IMG player.
One player who did qualify today was Zane Khan with a 63 63 win vs Benjamin Hassan of Germany. Khan got the call to play qualies on Saturday afternoon, drove up yesterday with his coach/uncle Sharik, his brother Faris and trained yesterday and again this morning.
Khan will play Houston semifinalist Galan of Colombia tomorrow in the first round.
Tennys Sandgren trained twice today with Noah Rubin and Mitch Krueger. I reminded him that his 76 in the third set win vs Opelka here two years ago was the match that sparked his career explosion. He remarked that he came back from two breaks down in the third to win that first round match which propelled him to the final where he lost to Tiafoe, but the win sparked his best tennis which lead to the French Open wildcard and nine months later, the amazing quarterfinal run at Australian Open.
Sandgren said he played his best tennis this year in winning Sydney, where he defeated Kohlshreiber who “was playing well.”
Noah Rubin did a Biofile with me and also a nice interview about his brainchild “Behind The Racquet” interview series on Instagram which has become a sensation. He talked about some details about it and some future projects and also noted how he liked doing the Biofile because the questions were not just about his “forehand and backhand.” Stay tuned for this interview.
I also did a Biofile with Marcos Giron which also was highly entertaining and insightful.
I also did an interview with Petr Korda about his memories of beating Marcelo Rios at the Australian Open final 21 years ago and the progress of his son Sebastian who will play main draw as a wildcard tomorrow. Sebi Korda just lost in the finals in the Sunrise Futures to Dmitry Popko for the third time this year. Popko beat Stefan Kozlov in the second round.
Dan Markowitz · April 16, 2019 at 4:14 pm
Scoop,
I thought the new rules were supposed to help these lower-level pros make a living. Is n’t the prize purse at these Challengers greater than in the past? The winner of the Sarasota Challenger makes almost $15,000 that sounds like a decent amount for a lower-level event. I realize they’ve cut down on the Qualis to Challenger events, but the final seed at Sarasota, no. 8 seed Peter Polansky is no. 128 and he’s made 60 grand already this year. If he can play in a couple of more slams maybe he makes $200 k this year. These guys’s expenses if they’re not using a coach can’t be more than 50 k a year so if they’re pulling down 100-150 k it’s not what a pro basketball player makes or a any major team sport, but it’s still pretty good, especially if he can augment it with a few high $ private lessons and exhibition matches.
Hartt · April 16, 2019 at 7:25 pm
But shouldn’t a player ranked No.128 be able to afford a coach?
Dan Markowitz · April 16, 2019 at 8:32 pm
I would think not, Hartt, because he’s not guaranteed a spot in the four majors. Once you can count on that, you’re banking almost 200 grand a year and i think you can take a coach out then. But if you’re Polansky, maybe you work with a coach at home and that coach comes to the Canadian Open and maybe the US Open, but if you’re making like 150 k a year, and you pay a coach $25-35 k a year then it’s getting very tight.
Even private coaches for my son cost $150-200 an hour for a private lesson. That’s expensive and some people would say players like my son don’t need it, but I feel getting expert advice on how to play and stroke technique is worth it at his age.
Jg · April 16, 2019 at 8:35 pm
Apparently the new system favors juniors with a high ITF ranking or ones just coming off ITF juniors, where the old system had more room for top college players, they apparently are the ones being left out. The futures too have gotten harder to gain entry. The usta is sponsoring a new level, starting in the summer, ( for highly ranked college players who can earn points to get into the challengers) I was going to sponsor one of the tournaments but the facility (public facility) didn’t want to donate all 14 courts for the week, which is a big ask in the middle of the summer, with camps and all. The other locations across the country had numerous courts available. Hopefully we will make another run at it.
Scoop Malinowski · April 16, 2019 at 10:53 pm
Right jg, futures have very small qualifying draws now. Petr described it as an upside down pyramid. The pool of lesser players is becoming the bottom of the pyramid and all the top players are on top. Tennis is supposed to be made of the foundation of the lesser players with the elites at the top of the pyramid tip. Petr and many are concerned for the future of tennis.
Scoop Malinowski · April 16, 2019 at 11:03 pm
Had a great conversation with Tennys Sandgren before his long marathon with Ryan Shane on center court, which he prevailed 36 76 76. Talked about many things such as how hard he worked in the off season in orlando and with Kevin Anderson in Delray and it paid off with the Sydney title where he played amazing tennis. We ran through the whole Aussie Open QF experience, the Thiem match where Thiem hit the running one hander up the line on the line winner to take the fourth set and Tennys kept his head and said just hold serve, don’t get broken and he was able to break Thiem at 23 and pulled it off. Then the whole thing with the media and then later two big media writers sat down with him for 30 and 45 minutes and didn’t ever write stories about it as they probably were looking for him to make some crazy statement and their intent was to portray him as a bad guy but they found out he’s actually a very smart, intelligent, informed and decent guy so they had to kill their stories because it didn’t match their agenda. He said fans around the world have been very receptive to him, particularly Mexico, US, Europe. He had a really nice moment tonight, after the second set, one of the ballkids had to leave the match and go home with his mom. Tennys was going out to the baseline to start third set and he noticed the kid leaving. He said, “Hey buddy, where you going? Are you leaving?” He then went over and signed the kid’s hat as he left. My friend Ray Collins snapped a photo of it and showed it to Tennys after the match and he asked if Ray could sent it to him and they exchanged phone numbers. Cool moment. This is really a nice special little tournament. Players are so accessible here, you can walk up to and start a conversation with any player, they are all around every day all over the grounds.
Scoop Malinowski · April 16, 2019 at 11:06 pm
For example, Philipp Petzschner is here coaching Mats Moraing. I called him by the nickname he told me in his Biofile about ten years ago, “Picasso.” We started talking, he said his best match ever was against Moya in Vienna, he just played perfect and killed him 61 62. Did nothing wrong. And he said Murray was the toughest match up for him, not Fed Rafa or Djokovic. He said he was beating Rafa two sets to 1 at Wimbledon and had breaks in the fourth and fifth but Rafa used a 13 minute injury time out for his knee in the third set and it altered the match. He also said Rafa made him wait 15 minutes in the hallway before the start of the match. Rafa is known for making everybody wait, he does it to everybody.
Brigitte · April 18, 2019 at 3:24 am
What is Sandgren’s coaching situation now? Saw that USTA coaches Brian Baker and Diego were at his first round match.
Scoop Malinowski · April 18, 2019 at 8:28 am
Brigitte, I didn’t ask him, butbefore his match with Shane, he was on a court by himself, we talked for 30 minutes then when the stadium court match was about to end, he started to do a warmup by himself. Yesterday after he lost doubles he trained on court with Baker feeding him balls. Baker and Moyano were at the Shane match but they didn’t verbalize any support at all for Sandgren during the match at all. I will ask Tennys today who exactly is his coach.
John Neeley · April 22, 2019 at 7:19 pm
Has Brian baker with his new coaching position officially retired from competitive tennis?
Scoop Malinowski · April 22, 2019 at 9:57 pm
John, no Baker has not retired but he’s had recent setbacks and has some back issues at the moment. It does not look good that he will compete again. Today he was feeding balls to kwiatkowski but not playing points. He’s been given a coachung job by usta, helping kwiatkowski, Kozlov and other usta players.
Douglas Day · April 23, 2019 at 7:57 am
Great hometown reporting Scoop.I ball-boyed first 3 days & that Fantangelo Nagal match 1st sets. Shocked me Bijorn came back. Most impressed with Marcos Giron’s grit. How can i read his biofile?