What comes after Angie and Sascha? - Are the German tennis clubs oversleeping the youth work?
Behind Alexander Zverev there is a big gap in the line-up of German next-generation hopes. Experts are sounding the alarm.
by tennisnet.com
last edit: Jun 19, 2021, 09:24 pm
Sure, every country is subject to certain fluctuations in terms of the number of top players in the ATP and WTA world rankings. Sweden, for example, can tell a song about how steep it can go downhill after several generations of world-class players. A country that conjured up the greats of the white sport like Björn Borg, Mats Wilander, Stefan Edberg or Robin Söderling, is now more or less under run. With Mikael Ymer, a not so young talent is barely in the top 100 of the men's rankings, and with Rebecca Peterson (WTA 58) there is currently only one player in the top hundred of the WTA rankings.
Is a similar fate threatening the future of German tennis? “I think that we are not doing so badly in an international comparison,” says DTB junior general manager Lars Uebel in an interview with the daily newspaper “taz”. For example, even among the Americans who are used to success, no player is currently among the top 30 in the world. But he also speaks openly about problems: “The training has to get better in the training centers. Technically and tactically we have deficits. ”Uebel mentions Italy as a prime example. When it comes to the tournament landscape, you look there enviously.
A middle five-digit sum a year
As for the opinion on the pioneering role of the southern European state, Marc Raffel also agrees, who, among other things, has organized an ATP Challenger that has been running well for several years with the Meerbusch Tennis Open and also looks after individual players. “Italy is one of the upcoming tennis nations. In Germany, on the other hand, we have almost arrived in the valley of tears, ”he says. He sees the bad tournament funding from the associations as a scandal. “Far too often they are organized by and for seniors. In the past, a good men's or youth team counted for something there. Not today. There is hardly any promotion of young talent in the clubs. "
It is no great secret that tennis is not a cheap sport if you want to have an international career. A middle five-digit sum per year, the DTB rumored, has to be taken into account. This does not even include the trainer and any remaining staff. Raffel: "The few who still have a chance to achieve something in Germany are more and more the children from financially strong households or from tennis coaches." So if something does not change seriously in the area of youth development in the next few years, it must be motivated young German hopes to take a similar path as Dominik Koepfer. The man from the Black Forest started his career at an American college.