YONEX manager Carsten Neuhaus: "Osaka, Kyrgios, Shapovalov - we always scout something special"
At YONEX, Carsten Neuhaus is responsible for most of Europe as a tennis promotion manager - and travels all over Europe as a junior and young scout. In an interview with tennisnet, Neuhaus explains the company's history, the scouting system and the specialty of Naomi Osaka .
by tennisnet.com
last edit: Sep 26, 2020, 12:09 pm
tennisnet : Mr. Neuhaus. YONEX has established itself as one of the leading racket brands in the tennis circuit, not least thanks to the success of Stan Wawrinka and, most recently, Naomi Osaka at the US Open. But how did it all start?
Carsten Neuhaus : YONEX was founded in 1946. The company had its origins in the wood industry: YONEX produced floats for fishing nets. After the competitors had switched to plastic and the wooden floats were no longer in demand, it was clear to YONEX: You have to listen to the market, ask yourself: what are the competitors doing? Badminton rackets were also produced in the wood factory. Then you tried around with materials and finally came up with lighter clubs with graphite and other things. As a racket sports company, it made sense to start producing rackets for tennis as well.
tennisnet : Is the company headquarters still at the place of foundation?
Neuhaus : The company is based in Tokyo, the manufacture in Nigata, the birthplace of Minoru Yoneyama. And his son Ben runs the company today. YONEX is still mostly family-owned.
tennisnet : The YONEX logo is striking. What do we see there?
Neuhaus : There are two Ys - and they stand for the family name Yoneyama. At the beginning they produced clubs for other brands, but at some point the company grew so big and exported. And this is how the name came about: YONEX is short for Yoneyama Export. What also distinguishes us from the competition: While almost all brands produce in China, we still manufacture all of our inline tournament rackets in Nigata today. The Japanese are very perfectionists - and most trust their own people. And while other brands have to give a tolerance of plus / minus seven grams, i.e. up to 14 grams difference, with regard to the weight of the rackets, a YONEX racket that leaves the factory in Nigata is 100 percent the weight and the balance point, and is also noted on the clubs. This is the case with other brands for professional players, with Yonex it applies to every single club that comes from Nigata.
"Billie Jean King and Martina Navratilova helped us a lot"
tennisnet : Early on and to this day, YONEX has stood out from its competitors because the rackets are not oval.
Neuhaus : The isometric shape of the rackets is unique: it is rumored that Minoru Yoneyama, who as a visionary always liked to swim against the current, wanted to differentiate himself from the competition. And people believed in it, and this is still a great advantage of our brand today, that the isometric shape enlarges the sweet spot and, especially for people who play with a lot of spin, has the sweet spot a little higher - and thus the trampoline -Effect is greater.
# IMG2 #
tennisnet : With which players did Yonex break through in professional tennis?
Neuhaus : Billie Jean King and Martina Navratilova helped us a lot in making the brand big. For a long time, YONEX was more of a "women's brand". Because later Pam Shriver, Monica Seles, Martina Hingis, and now Angelique Kerber played and still play very successfully with our clubs. But what many forget: A Lleyton Hewitt, number one in the world and completely in YONEX, a Richard Krajicek as Wimbledon winner, a MaliVai Washington as Wimbledon finalist, the multiple French Open champion Sergi Bruguera and of course Marcelo Rios, who too topped the world rankings. Andres Gomez won the French Open with a YONEX racket.
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tennisnet : How do you get to such exceptional players?
Neuhaus : Our focus is clearly on scouting among juniors. We currently have one of the most interesting players in Nick Kyrgios , Stan Wawrinka, who has won three Grand Slam titles with YONEX head-to-toe. For me personally, the hottest iron in the future is certainly Denis Shapovalov . He just cracked the top ten. We firmly believe that he is capable of becoming a Grand Slam champion, both mentally and physically as well as in terms of the playing structure. Shapo is currently in top form, so I'm excited to see how far Paris will go. And Casper Ruud has just moved into the top 30.
tennisnet : How does YONEX support young players?
Neuhaus : We have had a program for a few years called "Vamos J". It doesn't sound like Japanese, but it was created when YONEX organized a camp in Madrid for a group of Japanese performance players. This is a high-performance program that we launched in Germany for the first time last year. Where we bring the top teenagers under 14 together in an intensive camp with Nick Horvat, who recently temporarily coached Donna Vekic, as the main coach. Not only YONEX players come there. But we finance it. It is also about training off the court, for everyone it is also a personal development. Because the children were there without their parents. Anke Huber gave a lecture on professional life, Martina Hingis did that in London and even trained with us. And that worked so well that we still had great feedback at the German Youth Championships in Ludwigshafen
"Naomi Osaka is a stroke of luck"
tennisnet : What is the decisive factor for YONEX when choosing a player?
Neuhaus : We always scout something special. We scout everything, just not boring. In the end, it goes all the way to the owner: If Ben Yoneyama likes someone, we get a hint from the scouting: we want them. And that was certainly the case with Stan Wawrinka. It is still like that today.
tennisnet : Does a player like Wawrinka help with his experience with the further development of the racket?
Neuhaus : Absolutely. I went to Monte Carlo last December to test products with Stan. At YONEX, we use the expertise of our players to continuously develop our clubs. The product managers and the players are in constant contact with us.
tennisnet : Naomi Osaka is not only the best-paid athlete in the world and the newly crowned US Open winner, but has also distinguished herself through her social commitment. How is that seen at YONEX?
Neuhaus : At YONEX it is in our DNA to challenge the world through sport. We are proud of Naomi for using her platform to raise awareness of social change. Naomi Osaka is a stroke of luck similar to a Stan Wawrinka. There is hardly an athlete who embodies the YONEX brand like Naomi. As a Japanese, Ben Yoneyama was a managing director in the USA for a long time, and his daughter Alyssa is a marketing manager in the USA, born there and lives in LA. Ben's wife is American with Japanese roots. And the combination of these two countries, which could hardly be more different, also embodies Naomi. Because being Japanese, she's actually an American. And of course you shouldn't underestimate the Asian market. I can remember when Kei Nishikori was number 70 in the world in 2011, he was one of the highest paid players. If you look at Naomi: she always seems very calm, but if you look at her social media appearances, she's pretty crazy.
tennisnet : Other manufacturers basically have completely different racket types for their top players. How does it look at YONEX?
Neuhaus : We have three pillars on which we base our performance clubs. There is the VCORE series played by Angie Kerber and Denis Shapovalov. There is, however, a difference in the framework: Angie plays a 100 head, a little easier. And Shapovalov plays a 95 head, very difficult. For us, this series stands for spin. The VCORE Pro series is played by Stan Wawrinka, Frances Tiafoe, Pierre-Hugues Herbert or Dayana Yastremska. This is a very classic club shape with a very narrow frame that stands for a lot of control. The third pillar is the EZONE series, with which Naomi Osaka plays. She gets a lot of acceleration with this racket. Nick Kyrgios and Casper Ruud also play this racket.
tennisnet : What goals is YONEX aiming for in the coming months and years?
Neuhaus : We are still a long way from where we want to be. And we're now launching an unprecedented offensive to get the brand where it belongs. If you are the market leader, like YONEX in badminton, everything sells much easier. But there are other good tennis brands too. And YONEX has always been exotic. We always stood for good thugs, but no one ever knew exactly how good we were. And now we are using the potential that we have.