Young hopefuls face long haul

Tennis Column Johnny WattersonRight now there are eight International Tennis Federation junior tournaments scheduled in various parts of the world. The one planned for the Lebanon has been cancelled, but young kids with big racquets and bigger ambitions are hitting balls at events in Spain, Kazakhstan, Switzerland, South Africa, Luxembourg, The Dominican Republic and, this week, Ireland.

Donnybrook is hosting the Irish tournament, where yesterday Castleknock's Simon Rafter and Gavin Gilhawley and Clontarf's Paul Foley all went out in the second round. In the girls' event Jenny Claffey, Andrea Maughan, Lisa Lawlor and Naoimh Coveny all departed at the same stage.

The competition is a grade-five event, which is the bottom rung for under-18 players putting a foot on the ladder. Most of them have high hopes and vivid dreams, including playing a junior Grand Slam at some stage and eventually playing professionally for a living.

After grade five the tournament standard rises through grade four, grade three, grade two and finally grade one before Grand Slam tennis becomes a reality. For a hungry 16-year-old, that road ahead represents a long slog, a lot of tennis, real commitment and pockets of cash.

For many of the players, who would range in age from 14 upward, this is their first taste of what professional tennis is about, what it takes to make an impression in the sport. Some didn't even make it into the main 32-player draw in Donnybrook, having fallen in the qualifying event last Sunday.

As was also pointed out, many of the kids playing are at "tennis schools" in their own countries. That means they play tennis and the associated book study is the extracurricular bit that makes them numerate and literate, whereas in Ireland it's the other way around.

Who makes the biggest sacrifice is a moot point. Is it the kid who puts tennis before everything, including education, and fails as a professional, or the talented Irish junior whose parents believe a decent schooling comes first and tennis second?

The reality too is that winning junior events around the world and even climbing through the different grade groups doesn't guarantee success as an adult - success, that is, as in playing in the top-tier tournaments and Grand Slam events.

The reality is that even junior Grand Slam champions have often been unable to take the leap from underage prodigy to even the top 100 in the senior international shark pool.

Looking over junior Wimbledon winners from the past, there are names that most people will recognise as top players. Roger Federer is there as the 1998 winner. Mark Philippoussis is there as the beaten 1994 junior finalist. Mario Ancic, the talented Croatian, was beaten in the 2000 final, And the world number four, Ivan Ljubicic, was defeated in the 1996 junior final.

But a cursory look at the subsequent careers of other names that have won the biggest junior event in the world reveals how savage the game can be at the top. Names like Nicolas Mahut, Jürgen Melzer, Wesley Whitehouse, Olivier Mutis, Daniel Elsner, Gilles Muller, Razvan Sabau, Scott Humphries, Kristian Pless and Jimy Szymanski have either won junior Wimbledon in the past 10 years or reached the final.

Pless and Sabau recently played in the Dublin Challenger event at Fitzwilliam, but none of that group has been to a Grand Slam final. Nowhere near it in fact. In the junior girls' event, the story is no different. While Grand Slam winners Kim Clijsters, Maria Sharapova and this year's Wimbledon champion, Amelie Mauresmo, have won or been to the final of junior Wimbledon, other finalists have become as invisible as Sharapova has become a global product. Winners between 1995 and 2000 include Aleksandra Olsza, Iroda Tulyaganova and Maria-Amelia Salemi.

We will continue to look out for Agnieszka Radwanska from Poland, who beat the Austrian Tamira Paszek, in last year's final. But we won't be entirely surprised if we don't see such names reaching the topmost levels.

What the young juniors will take away this week from their efforts in Donnybrook depends on how they are coached to look at their careers. It can be either a positive or negative experience. The competition winners will see the names of Sharapova and Mauresmo and want to be like them; the losers will wonder why the names of Steffi Graf and Martina Navratilova are not on the list of Wimbledon junior winners.

The message is simple.Winning or doing well at Donnybrook this week is encouraging, builds confidence, gets players into better competitions and gives them ranking points and recognition.

But it cannot tell them where their careers will be in five or more years' time, or if their dreams are just that.

MARIANA LEVOVA, WHO was beaten by Yvonne Doyle in the South Leinster Championships at Carrickmines two weeks ago, was the only local player to make it through to the next round of the International Tennis Federation (ITF) Junior event in Donnybrook yesterday.

Levova continues to cause some excitement around the place with her hard-hitting back-court style. The teenager, a native of Bulgaria, has settled in Ireland and though she is playing under the Bulgarian flag in the ITF tournament, she has become part of the Irish scene in recent months. She also leads the Danone Masters series with 320 points, Doyle and Emma Murphy chasing with 250.

The Masters Series in a season long league-type event with a grand final at the end of the year.