What’s the Secret behind the Rise of Serbian Tennis?
Posted by Aaress Lawless on May 24, 2008 | Print
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I was offered to contribute to On the Baseline by writing my perspective on tennis’ growth in Serbia, and I gladly accepted the invitation. Being from Serbia, people sometimes ask me about my opinion on the surge of Serbian tennis players, and I will use this opportunity to explain my view publicly. This article was particularly inspired by a conversation with one of my Facebook friends.
My first thought would be that the success of Serbian tennis is just a coincidence, but since nothing happens by chance, I will give up this presumption. However, I believe there is no just one thing that we can point our finger at and say is the cause. There is certainly a combination of factors – family, talent, motivation to work hard and pursue your dreams, and many others.
Still, if I need to pinpoint one thing that Serbian tennis stars have in common, I would say it is the hard times people in Serbia have been going through. It sounds strange, but I feel that all the problems Serbian tennis players, together with the rest of the nation, had to endure made them stronger and more willing to do their best.
The tough situation (lack of money and isolation of Serbia as a country — to name just a few) made our tennis players work a lot and not fool around. You are much more motivated when you are in a bad situation, and you know that your hard work might give you a better future. Also, tennis is an expensive sport in every way, and I suppose they felt as if they had to do their best at every lesson.
Moreover, they knew that they absolutely had to take advantage of every opportunity they received. For example, Ana Ivanovic found a sponsor who invested a lot in her, sent her to Switzerland, and she knew she should not disappoint him and her family.
Other than this wish to improve their lives and achieve something, I do not see anything else that would have suggested the rise of Serbian tennis.
It seems Jelena Jankovic shares my opinion. She once said: “Not a penny is invested in us. We are very hungry, we want to do well, we want to be the best that we can be. We didn’t have anything given to us so we had to work for our sport.” And of course, you know about Ana Ivanovic’s famous swimming pool story.
In addition, the success of Serbian tennis players is hard to explain because all of them had their tennis careers developed differently, and in different countries. Essentially, the only thing they had in common was that they each had to overcome the burden of being from Serbia.
This “coincidence” made Serbia a tennis country, and all the kids in the streets are holding racquets. Hopefully, this will bring more future champions from Serbia.
Marija Zivlak writes about women’s tennis at www.womenstennisblog.com.
This article is part of On the Baseline’s Tennis 101 series. Please click here to find the rest of the series.
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Brian Thurogood | Jun 1, 2008 | Reply
DOUBLE FAULTS AND LOST BREAKS
Roland Garros has again revealed some significant flaws in the women’s game. Top seeds are logging high numbers of double faults and low returns on break points.
Sharapova and Jankovic are struggling, and what we might call second tier (Radwanska et al) are playing below par.
So many matches are disappointments. The favourite may win in some cases, but they are not satisfying matches. Maybe we expected one or both Williams sisters to falter; we still thought Mauresmo could do better (after all these years!).
Missed opportunities are so extensive that most matches are a lottery. Not who will win a point, but who will throw one away.
Disappointing that one of the great stages of women’s tennis should be so poor - so far.