Irish tennis intends to catch up by aiming high

Tennis Development scheme at DCUJohnny Watterson on the scheme to identify young Irish players with the ability - and height - to succeed

An apocryphal tale: talented Bud has been impressing the coaches down on the back courts in the Florida tennis factory. He's got all the shots. He's got the right attitude. He's got the work ethic. He even has a second serve. He loves the game. The coaches love him. Bud, it seems, has a bright future in professional tennis. The head coach at the academy wants to sign him up. Best kid he's seen in years.

The contracts come out and are laid on the table. The lawyer is in the room, the coffee brewing. They're waiting on Bud and his parents to arrive. Bud bounces in through the door, sun-tanned, big smile, his parents behind. His mother is 5ft 2in and his father 5ft 6in. They don't see the life draining from the coach's face. They don't notice the only thing that day that moves faster than Bud's first serve is the coach's hand snatching the contract off the table. Deal closed.

We may try to blame our parents for everything. And in tennis many have tried. What good is Bud's serve-volley game when he may stop growing at a few inches under six feet?

In Dublin City University, Tennis Ireland has formulated a system for young "Buds" that doesn't require such dramatic measures, with a radical system that no other sport in Ireland has developed.

They are finally trying to halt the lugubrious roll call of Irish players who cannot break into the top 100. Nutritionists, sports psychologists, physiologists, strength and conditioning coaches and biomechanists have assembled a programme into which the first full-time tennis players will enter in September in an effort to get competitors into Grand Slam events.

These "Buds" will be 12 or younger, male and female. The idea is to identify their strengths at an early stage and develop their game in a way that favours their ability and shape.

"We screen players with what we call a physio screening," says Tennis Ireland coach Gary Cahill. "We try to look for potential injuries. Shoulders and lower backs are the big problems for tennis players but we look at all major body parts. We'd do this screening at eight or nine years of age. I suppose I do look at parents to see how tall they are but I wouldn't rule players out just because of their parents' height."

Height is an issue in tennis. Predicting it is part of the programme but genetics can be an inexact science. Ciarán Moran, of the Biomechanics Department in DCU, is part of the team. His job is to measure, assess and shape players from a young age and in tandem with Cahill match their game with their physique and ability.

"We would look at appropriate physical training programmes. Power, agility, neuromuscular capacity, and try to predict height," says Dr Moran. "You can look at a child's height relative to the biological age of development and from that try to predict.

"Chronological age in younger age groups is almost irrelevant.

"But the most accurate way is to combine that information with the X-rays of the carpel bones in the hand. The bones are measured by radiographers and it is the distance between them that they look at. The parents' height is only relevant if we are taking other measurements."

Children's bodies grow in all sorts of ways and the biomechanists know what to expect. The younger age-groups principally grow equally in the lower body and upper body areas. Between the ages of five and 11 there is more growth in the lower body. After 11 up to puberty, the main growth is in the upper body.

"There is a height at which they start accelerating. The taller they are before that, the taller they will be afterwards," says Dr Moran.

All the developed tennis countries put the measuring rule over children and classify them by physical attributes. No doubt they would make efforts to ascertain the kids' mental performances too but at such a young age that has been shown not to be possible. No one can predict the puberty strike. In Australia scientists have tried to streamline children into certain sports according to their body types. The hopeful tennis player becomes a swimmer, the would-be weightlifter a tighthead prop.

"Our problem in Ireland has always been that the players have never got the number of hours, maybe only 14 hours a week. Now the full-time players will get 24 hours," says Cahill, who currently has 17 national players and 90 regional players on his books.

Each week he receives a report on each player. Every six weeks videos of the squads are taken and sent to him to advise on technique. Every eight weeks they are tested for speed, power, flexibility and technique and when the full-time programme begins, this will be backed up by the nutritionists, psychologists and the experts in biomechanics.

"As a coach I need to know what they will be like at 14, 15 and 16 years old. I have a guy who is 6ft 3in at 16 and another who is 5ft 8in at the same age. The growth spurts also affect their movement," he says.

Of the current top 10 male players on the professional ATP Tour, five are 6ft 1in or more. Only Lleyton Hewitt at 5ft 11in has gate-crashed his way in among the top five.

Andre Agassi, one of the outstanding players of his generation, is currently at seven, and also stands at a relatively modest 5ft 11in.

In the women's WTA Tour, three of the current top 10 are six feet tall or more, Lindsay Davenport the current number one standing half an inch over 6ft 2in. Russia's Vera Zvonareva at 5ft 8in and ranked at 10 on the list is the smallest of the group.

Out of the current world top 20 players, male and female, 12 stand at 5ft 11in or more in height. Take the fastest top male servers and you can add four or five inches to the heights for the dream 150 m.p.h. delivery.

Still, the former world number one, Justine Henin, stands at 5ft 5in, while her Belgium compatriot Kim Clijsters is 5ft 8in. Size is an advantage but not essential.

"Not even in the UK is this being done," says Dr Moran. "By that I mean the profiling of the players and the systematic development with all the integrated science. I think it has been visionary to take this approach. Even now the under-14s have reached a European grading higher than they had previously and this was based on weekend work over two years."

Gavin Gilhawley is ranked 40th in Europe at under-14 level while Niall Murphy is ranked 52nd in the same age group. Amy Bowtell is also showing promise and recently made two finals at under-14 events in Britain, although, she is still just 12.

The bubble-shaped building students see as they walk down the tree-lined avenue of the main university entrance at DCU is the new starting point. Four indoor courts less than 100 yards from the Tennis Ireland offices and on campus.

Irish tennis knows it is under pressure as golf, snooker, football, hockey, athletics and swimming turn out athletes who can make it to the top-ranked world events. Why tennis cannot do this has worked to its disadvantage. With science this seems like a reasonable place to begin again.