Swing In Fortunes - Canadian Tennis

Borg, Edberg, Bjorkman, Johansson, Soderling. Sweden has produced some sterling players over the years. Now you could say almost like Great Britain they face quite a challenge. As of 04.03.2013 they have no players in the top 200. The nearest they have is ranked 374. Soderling's future in the game is uncertain. In January in 2003 Sweden had 8 players ranked in the top 200, now there is none.

Canada. In January in 2003 they had no players in the top 200. Simon Larose was ranked 355. Canada is not steeped in tennis history. Greg Rusedski defected to Great Britain and apart from that Canada hasn't made a splash on the tennis. However fortunes have changed. In 2004 they devised a 4 year plan. This was the outcome of that plan. It focused in on these areas:

- Increasing participation numbers - Target 1.4M - 1.75M achieved
- Building tennis communities - Target 60 - 70 achieved
- New tennis high development centres - Target 42 - 42 achieved
- New tennis centres - Target 2 - 1 in place and 1 for re-groupping
- FC/DC world play offs - Achieved World Group status twice
- 3 players ranked in top 100 ATP/WTA - Only Dancevic and Wozniak made the top 100
- 2 players ranked in ITF wheelchair top 10 - Both Hunter and Chokyu made the top 10
- Increase in TPA membership - Target 1,100 - 1,800+ achieved
- Increase Gross and Net Investment Plan - $3.5M to $6.5M Gross - $2M to $3.4M Net

In 2008 they implemented another 4 year plan and the goals set were:

- Increase investment from $6.5M to $10M
- Increase participation from 1.75M to 2.1M
- 2 Top 50 ATP/WTA players and 2 ITF top 10 wheelchair players. Current was 0 players in top 50 ATP/WTA and only 1 player in the top 10 ITF.
- Increased base ranked players from 4,000 to 6,000.

They delivered on the 2 top 50 WTA/ATP players in Raonic and Wozniak. They have no players ranked in the top 10 ITF Wheelchair rankings.

However Canada have 5 players ranked in the top 200 of the ATP and 5 players ranked in the top 200 of the WTA. Eugenie Bouchard and Filip Peliwo enjoyed juniors success in 2012 both winning Wimbledon and Peliwo winning the US Open. It has to be said that Canadian tennis has come on leaps and bounds. This is something the LTA could learn from. As you can see Tennis Canada has nowhere near squandered the same levels of money as the LTA and yet have produced some sterling results. A truly self sustaining model.

More can be found here - http://www.tenniscanada.com/files/StrategicPlanMay2008.pdf

It's been a remarkable ascent for certain legend. The key as been streaming of the most promising players from thier local clubs into regional training centers then ultimately to the National Centre in Montreal where they train full time under a carefully controlled and detailed environment

Raonic, Marino, Bouchard,Pospisil, and Peliwo were products of this system with others developing in it continually now.

I don't know how it stacks up against the programs in other countries or the LTA. I'd guess they would work in fundamentally the same manner.

Perhaps the difference is in the skill and decision making capabilities of the personnel hired to evaluate, stream and develop the talent once uncovered. One thing that is evident about the Canadian system is that it fosters a strong team or group mentality amonst the top players. There is a genuine esprit d corp amongst the DC and Fed Cup teams.teams and the players are very supportive of one another on tour and off.

Maybe another benefit is prospects here are not under the high expectations and acute media scrutiny that young players in GB or France would be. Even Raonic, win or lose gets scant attention in the national press relative to what it would be were he English or Spanish. He still gets page two coverage behind hockey and curling especially at this time of year!

Indeed QP. How they have reached most of their goals is a fantastic story. I admire the structured approach they took and it seems that they had no weak link in their stategy and that the shared vision was truly recognised and achieved.

I hope the LTA when it announces a new CEO that they can go back to the fundementals and devise a similar strategy.

I fully agree that the press expectation does not help the youngsters in this country if they are always measured against Murray and his success.

Email it to Draper's successor!
Nice article LK...shows what can be done with a push.
We need more facilities and tennis in schools carte blanche - that's the bottom line for me.

I like reading Filip's thread on TT Warehouse where he answers general questions from the forum about being an up and coming tennis pro. Don't think we'll ever get that on 606V2!

We could lydian, though I think it eats into the mods time. I remember on Twitter trying to get Q&A sessions with former pro's and pundits and it was a fruitless task which always ended without any joy. I think we did once get a former pro to answer questions.

I thought the report they done lydian was fantastic. A country not renowned for producing top players and in 8 years manage to produce a wealth of talent capable of moving up the rankings.

Typically the media coverage of Canadian players here is still very upbeat and positive in tone. There is still a collective sense of 'wow a Camadian player beat Murray, won two,Jr. Slams', etc. so the public's expectations are still catching up to the potential many players appear to have for major success.

I wonder what building tennis communities are?

For me that's where we really fall down in the UK...ok tennis is a singular pursuit in terms of being on court but players are cultivated too much in isolation of each other, when you build communities - you get peer pressure to push up the triangle. We seem to lack that somehow...perhaps its our island mentality coming through in all things!

It is worth pursuing having a Pro (Retired or current) to come here and assist. As LK says, there was a British player on here last year, IIRC.

Canadian Tennis has been steady in producing good players, but they did not achieve fame as much as they would have liked to. Rusedski probably moved to UK to get better visibility, as a starting point. Before Raonic, et al, Dancevic and Polansky, Wozniak and others have kept the flag flying.

In some cases, the models between Tennis Canada, LTA and USTA are very similar, the primary difference is in execution and connection to the grass roots.

In the housing complex that I lived in several years ago, there were 4 four HCs, with daily coaching sessions, and steady stream of youngsters and a group of USTA officials who would show up quarterly and spend half-a-day watching players play.

Lydian had posted some UTube clips of British prospects a couple of months ago, IIRC.

CANNNNNAAADAAAAAA!



Yeah... that's my contribution to this thread...

lydian I feel the LTA model needs to downsize. I think de-centralise it and work on getting the numbers in participation rising. One of the things in the stats with Canadian tennis was the 4,000 base ranked players. Not sure of the UK number, but I think that is a number the UK needs to aspire to.

I think the tennis communities are similar to the counties. I think the LTA needs to allow the counties to run their own training programmes and have like a national league/tournament for the juniors. I know many won't relish the travelling, but have the best players from the counties and age groups come together at a major tournament and invite potential sponsors and coaches in the game who can then offer parents and coaches funding and further development opportunities. You will still get those parents who might go outside the LTA to develop their child, but at least if you have a showpiece that gives exposure to the players as well as the coaches can stimulate the growth and conversion rates for juniors turning pro.

Yea Nice article LK , yes Canada Tennis Federation have taken steps to improve the level of the game in the country but yet we don't have talents of world class barring Raonic. There are way too many tennis courts available in Toronto, Montreal, Sudbury, Calgary etc,.. yet kids haven't taken the game seriously.

Its still all about stu Ice Hockey here inspite of strikes between players and player federations.

We need one real big hero who can inspire the kids to take the game seriously, we need somebody like Murray kinda player if not for Federer kinda player to inspire the kids to take the game seriously.

Thanks IC.

It is good that they have a such an infastructure in place. Too many courts isn't such a bad thing. Imagine if Raonic wins a Slam, the interest will just fly off the radar. I think the fact that Tennis Canada has nowhere near invested the same sums of money say as the LTA is astonishing. To have 10 players in the top 200 across the ATP/WTA is pretty decent return on the investment. You take over 8 years that Tennis Canada has invested $13M and yet the LTA has invested over £250M since 2007!

Yea LTA waste their funds, there is some fundamental stragety error , the money doesn't motivate the young kids to take up the kind in UK, I stayed in Cardiff for like 5 years and I don't remember seeing more than two Tennis courts for the entire city and that use to be so crowded that I never had a chance to play, so no idea where this £250M has gone?

Good to see a different kind of article and well written and all.

For me the question is where would Raonic be now if none of these plans or investment had happened?

Who knows HB. I think if he had the talent then there are many countries out there with tennis development systems in place. Probably wouldn't have surprised me if he was committed and supported by his parents early on, they might have gone south into the US and maybe got into the college system.

legendkillarV2 wrote:Thanks IC.

It is good that they have a such an infastructure in place. Too many courts isn't such a bad thing. Imagine if Raonic wins a Slam, the interest will just fly off the radar. I think the fact that Tennis Canada has nowhere near invested the same sums of money say as the LTA is astonishing. To have 10 players in the top 200 across the ATP/WTA is pretty decent return on the investment. You take over 8 years that Tennis Canada has invested $13M and yet the LTA has invested over £250M since 2007!

That is a seriously impressive set of figures...

Nice thread LK, good to hear about one of the up and coming federations, if you like. I wonder whether we'll see more Canadians on the big stage over the next decade?

Bouchard and Peliwo are the next two in line to make a move into the WTA and ATP respectively based upon their success as juniors. Sadly Rebecca Marino has retired this month due to ongoing problems with Depression.

I have my eye on another youngster who is now training in the national training program based in Toronto. He is 14 now but has been competing in age groups a year or two above him since he was 11. He's made semi and fiinal appearances at the large international jr. Tournaments in France and Miami singles and doubles. My interest is due to him being a product of my local neighbourhood club.

This is the thread I referred to yesterday on TT Warehouse by Peliwo...forum members can ask him any questions about being a pro player.

http://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/showthread.php?t=442583