Tennis Prose




Feb/17

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What happened to Spanish Tennis?

robbredoA couple of years ago at the US Open I was in the interview room when Tommy Robredo was asked about why Spanish tennis was struggling to produce top caliber ATP stars after Rafael Nadal. Robredo revealed an interesting theory. The 34-year-old former World no. 5 said that in the golden age of Spanish tennis all the top Spaniards trained together in Barcelona. Which meant that the best of the best of Spain battled it out on the court every day lifting each other to greater levels. Robredo said a shift then occurred and Spain then had three main hubs for their ATP players to train – Madrid, Barcelona, and Valencia. Subsequently, the top players no longer trained as fiercely every day and gradually the excellent results of the “Spanish Armada” declined. Rafael Nadal trained on his own in Majorca. Two years ago at Eddie Herr I discussed this matter with a Spanish coach who added another interesting revelation. He said that Nadal’s incredible success triggered a “tennis boom” in Spain which inspired many youths to try tennis because they wanted to try to “be the next Nadal.” However these Spanish kids quickly realized tennis is not nearly as easy as Nadal made it look and most of these kids ended up “quitting tennis and going to soccer.” Thus the explanations of the curious decline of why Spanish tennis has struggled mightily to continuously produce consistent top ten stars such as Carlos Moya, Juan Carlos Ferrero, Albert Costa, Robredo, Alberto Berasategui and Alex Corretja. And in case you didn’t notice there are zero Spaniards in the ATP NEXT GEN group. [Note: Spain currently had six players in the ATP top 30 – Nadal (7) – Bautista Agut (15) – Carrena Busta (24) – Vinolas (25) – F Lopez (28) – D Ferrer (29).] – Scoop Malinowski

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14 comments

  • chris · February 27, 2017 at 12:59 pm

    What happened to Spanish tennis is the same thing that happened to “East German Wome Swimmers.” If you remember a while back there was, all of a sudden, a group of tremendous, almost unbelievable, women swimmers from East Germany, smashing world records at every meet…

    Here’s good way to evaluate the sudden appearance of a team or group of athletes that apparently, out of nowhere, dominate a sport to a here to fore unprecedented degree. It’s not that they are all “training together and pushing each other.” This claim certainly makes a nice story, and is good for the Spanish tennis training mystique and business.

    It’s that they are all seeing the same “Dr.” who prescibes very advanced “special nutritional supplements,” just as with the East German women swimmers.

    I am confident that, eventually, the truth will come out, just as with the East German women.

    Has anyone ever looked at the correlation between “special suplement” use and early onset baldness? Just sayin’…

  • Hartt · February 27, 2017 at 1:43 pm

    It must be incredibly tough for a country to continually produce top players. We have seen different countries in the past, such as Australia, Sweden and the US have great runs and then not have that degree of success. If someone could find the magic formula of how to get good tennis results for a country he/she would be extremely popular!

    The theory about the diverse training locations is an interesting one. I suppose it would be feasible for a smaller country to have one central training location but wonder if it would actually make a huge difference. And for geographically large countries like the US and Canada that would cause a lot of problems, taking youngsters so far from their families. (I know some families have made that sacrifice but think not all kids are suited to being away from their families.)

    I expect that several factors do increase the chances of having top players, including past champions from that country for youngsters to emulate and a federation that provides necessary support. But I wonder if a string of good players from one country is also as much luck as anything. Several excellent players pop up for a variety of reasons and they happen to be from the same country.

    But I do agree that Spain is lacking young up and coming players right now. I have a fairly extensive list of young ATP players who have potential. They are from a wide variety of countries but not one of them is Spanish.

  • Scoop Malinowski · February 27, 2017 at 2:05 pm

    Chris: Definitely an interesting theory and it could be plausible – “Operation Puerto” was certainly curious and suspicious – But citing baldness as evidence is not very well grounded as various players have lost their hair quickly and were not PED suspects (Blake – Agassi – Darcis – Cabal – Davydenko ) and lots of players who were/are suspects did not lose their hair (Ferrer – Becker) – The TUE issue is very curious also – Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this provocative topic –

  • Hartt · February 27, 2017 at 2:09 pm

    I did not see Chris’ post before writing mine. But I don’t think the magic formula I spoke of is doping. I am not saying there is not doping involved, I just don’t know and think we need substantial proof before going there. As far as “special supplements” and early onset baldness, there must be an awful lot of men taking those supplements!

  • Scoop Malinowski · February 27, 2017 at 2:12 pm

    Hartt: Spain actually had a young kid about ten years ago who was being considered to be even better than Nadal – think his name was Boluda and he won that very big Euro junior tourney for 14s twice in a row and Rafa only won it once – But then I was told coaches changed one of his strokes and it wrecked his career and last I saw he was still stuck in Futures and he’s now about 24 – It’s really strange how Spain hasn’t had any top ITF juniors for at least a half decade –

  • Andrew Miller · February 27, 2017 at 2:44 pm

    Scoop, Pat McEnroe looking more brilliant by the day. He can take credit for Sock, Johnson, DY, Harrison, Fritz, Tiafoe, Kozlov, Mmoh, Donaldson, Escobedo, Paul, Rubin and more.

  • Andrew Miller · February 27, 2017 at 2:45 pm

    (even though I criticize next generation for their strategies and games, I cannot deny talent and rankings).

  • Scoop Malinowski · February 27, 2017 at 2:50 pm

    Yes I fully agree Patrick did a fine job at USA Tennis – not a perfect job but clearly he left USA tennis in a positive state with a solid foundation and here we are today at the forefront with Canada and Russia and Australia as having the best young talent group in the sport –

  • Scoop Malinowski · February 27, 2017 at 2:51 pm

    If you want to criticize NEXT GEN results go and look at Roger Federer’s results age 18-21 – it’s not all roses and sunshine –

  • Andrew Miller · February 27, 2017 at 3:31 pm

    Always hard to call. But the higher the ranking at a young age favors better draws at a younger age. Thiem, Zverev the younger benefit here. Not full proof, but helpful to getting through earlier rounds.

  • Andrew Miller · February 27, 2017 at 3:34 pm

    No, I think they are doing fine. They aren’t ready to unseat their peers but I’m sure they fully intend to! If one of them starts separating from the pack like Sock did, move away from buddy buddy and double down on their future, I’m sure they will make a name for them self earlier.

    How it worked with the last guys was Taylor Dent made the first move, Riddick the next, then Fish had modest success, then Blake broke through, then Ginepri, then Fish. Same thing happened with earlier generations of us players.

  • Duke Carnoustie · February 27, 2017 at 4:09 pm

    I wouldn’t write off Spain just yet. It’s a great sporting nation and they will be back.

  • Scoop Malinowski · February 27, 2017 at 4:40 pm

    For sure Duke – Spain surely has to have a plethora of teenagers right now working hard – But Spain has not had a junior boys GS winner since 2001 at Roland Garros (Carlos Cuadrado) –

  • catherine bell · February 28, 2017 at 2:51 am

    Chris
    More rubbish about doping and the usual string of unfounded allegations. Absolutely no similarity whatsoever to Eastern bloc athletics in a past era.

    Nadal sued about doping allegations. Don’t think he’d have done that if he were guilty.

    And baldness ? Do me a favour. Does that include women as well ?

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