an exclusive club The Davis Cup tie against Austria may be an elitist event but its success will result in many new members being able to join the exclusive club of South African tennis TENNIS: Jon Swift
IT IS an inescapable fact that the South Africa-Austria Davis Cup tie which gets under way on the manicured lawns at the genteel Wanderers Club next Friday is an elitist
nnnAnd while elitism in the context of this country’s present state of development is a potion to be measured out with increasing reluctance, this very element of the three-day contest offers South Africa exactly the opposite. That the tie is due to happen at all owes much to the sudden renaissance of the game under the new management team, which has dragged tennis back from the brink of near extinction in this country and given the sport some much-needed credibility. The turning point was the release on October 23 last year of the report of Mervyn King’s one-man commission into the ills crippling tennis. King, a highly respected legal mind with equal respect in the business community, did the only real thing possible with the family silver having been lost, irreperably tarnished or sold off. He advised that a fresh start be made. This it indeed has. The Davis Cup tie which tournament director Keith Brebnor aptly describes as a `little miracle’ is one of the first concrete proofs of that. But, like the frantic preparations which have gone into ensuring that the Wanderers is a fit — and International Tennis Federation-approved — venue, the stands are only temporary realities. There is much yet to do in the way of laying permanent foundations. There are any number of reasons why this is so, but the most conclusively convincing of them is one oft-repeated and simple statement from South African tennis’s new Mr Fix-it, Terry Rosenberg: `You have to succeed at the top to make it happen at the bottom,’ he has said on more than one occasion. It means convincing the private sector on one hand and the public on the other that the tournament they are going to support is first of merit, and second not staged to the detriment of those who constitute the broader base of the game. The new management team have done much to use the elitism of the game — and the self-evident exclusivity of the tie — toward these ends. There can be little doubt — given the involvement of the local Davis Cup squad in clinics which form an integral though lower profile part of the tie — that the emphasis is swinging towards feeding young players in at the bottom. This is essential when one figures on the amount of effort required before any real proficiency is reached at the game. Tennis, for this and arguably other elitist reasons, must perforce have a high attrition rate at the lower end. So said, it is as important for our seldom-seen local tennis heroes to succeed at home as it was for the more familiar faces of the rugby, cricket and soccer stars to add some starch to the collective national spine. Everyone, so the old saying goes, loves a winner. The circle which encompasses those who achieve sporting success is a small one indeed. So it is perhaps even more relevant that the grass surface chosen as the arena is one which relies even more strongly on this element of exclusivity in the striving for national
It is not, for example, the surface that Thomas Muster, the world and Austrian No 1, would have made his first choice, even without the added disadvantage of playing in the thin atmosphere of the Gauteng highveld. While Muster took over the top global ranking after the Australian Open in Melbourne, he has been a consistent early casualty at Wimbledon … and even the ill-informed know that the All England Lawn Championship is played on grass. But is well to heed the warning sounded by Gary Muller — a full member of the team which also includes Wayne Ferreira, Marcos Ondruska, John Lafnie de Jager and veteran Christo van Rensburg, although not initially named by Davis Cup captain Danie Visser — that Muster cannot be discounted on grass. `Muster is a very determined character who fights to the bitter end. He won’t just throw in the towel,’ is Muller’s
Indeed, though much has been made of Muster’s near invincibility as a clay court specialist, it is well not to forget that anyone who reaches the top of the global rankings can play a bit — no matter in how low a regard the likes of Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi may hold the ranking system. Muster will, like the other singles designates, play two five-set matches, facing Ferreira and Ondruska in turn. It would be an unwise head that imagined that Ferreira — thankfully over the injuries which prompted his early exit in the second round at Melbourne — or Ondruska will sleep easy the night before taking to the court. There is, quite simply, no coming back in Davis Cup. Australia, beaten last time out on the disgraceful Durban surface, have found that out, having to play their way back into the world group of the competition. A singular slap in the face for the multiple holders of the trophy in the 1960s and 1970s. There is also no putting it behind you as a player and moving on to the next tournament. It is, if you like, as elitist as that. The exclusive feel of the tie is echoed in the number of those who will be able to see the three days of competition live. There will be fewer than 3 500 of these in the stands and corporate boxes. There is little wrong with this thinking either. Tennis has a way to go before that self-inflicted stand-off between the game itself and a public rapidly becoming sated with a surfeit of international events becomes a close and lasting relationship. The South Africans have an outstanding chance of advancing to the the next round — and a possible meeting with the Russia squad who showed us the door last time — here in April. Victory, not to put too fine a point on it, is the impetus the game needs and will give back some of the squandered credibility the game needs. And if this constitutes elitism in sport, more power to the arms of the South African team. JagerVan Rensburg and Muller.