A question that is often posed over a pint of beer — or a can of Coke — at gatherings with some insight into the sport of tennis is: Would the masterful and mellifluous, near-genius skills of world number one Roger Federer have surfaced in all their glory had his parents decided to remain in South Africa instead of returning to Switzerland soon after their marriage in the late 1970s?
The damning indictment directed at tennis structures here is that, had Federer’s Swiss-born father and South African-born mother elected to remain in the grey, industrialised surroundings of Kempton Park, his immense talents would have been substantially diluted, if not lost altogether to the world.
You might say something similar about South Africa’s world-breaking swimmers had they not honed their talents in the United States; Kevin Pietersen’s dynamic batting prowess had he elected to represent the KwaZulu-Natal B team instead of deciding to display his talent in England; or Clive Rathbone not easing his rugby frustrations in Australia.
”It’s not a tennis problem,” says South African Tennis Association (Sata) CEO Ian Smith, ”but a problem confronting all sports in the country — although, for one or more reasons, tennis seems to have suffered more than most.”
Smith believes, however, all is not gloom and doom for tennis in South Africa and, in fact, sees the game having taken a significant U-turn in the past year to arouse a degree of optimism about reliving the glory days of the late 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s when the Davis Cup was annexed — albeit with a walkover win over India in the final — and greats like Rod Laver, Bjorn Borg, Ken Rosewall, Jimmy Connors, Arthur Ashe, Guilermo Vilas, Chris Evert, Billie-Jean King and Maria Bueno regularly competed in the South African Open.
And the great comeback, he suggests, could have its seeds in the dusty, grim surroundings of the Jabavu township in Soweto where the derelict Arthur Ashe Tennis Centre is in the process of being rebuilt after 20 years of decay following a combined grant of R4,5-million from the Lotto Board and the Gauteng administration. It is expected to be completed by October.
”I sense an exciting new interest in tennis in the black community,” says the Sata CEO, ”with enthusiasm at the limited facilities in Soweto truly encouraging. Once the modernised Arthur Ashe Centre, with eight hard courts, adequate coaching and other facilities, is in full swing, everything could really get moving.”
In the meantime, with little hope of acquiring a prestigious but expensive ATP event in the next couple of years — South Africa at one time boasted two flourishing tournaments of this kind — a less grandiose but overdue South African Open in which mainly the best local players participate could be reintroduced.
Wesley Moodie has finally won a major ATP tournament in Japan — as well as the Wimbledon men’s doubles title last year — and cemented his position as South Africa’s number one in succession to Wayne Ferreira, although his respectable ranking in the region of 60 has a long way to go before emulating Ferreira’s highpoint of sixth in the world and 15 major titles in all.
Moodie missed South Africa’s latest gloomy Davis Cup defeat against Morocco in October, but has committed himself to playing in all fixtures this year in a bid to move the country closer to a position in the elite World Group.
The first of these ties will be in Georgia in April and Smith reveals all three ties this year are likely to be played outside the country — always a severe handicap to overcome in Davis Cup competition.
Women’s tennis is taking less notable strides in emerging from the doldrums and rekindling the era that produced the likes of Sandra Reynolds, Pat Pretorius, Brenda Kirk and Rene Schuurman, but Smith says enthusiasm is at a particularly high level.
”If you take into account the interest among women in tennis,” he says, ”it’s little wonder surveys have placed the popularity of the game consistently behind only soccer in South Africa and often above that of cricket and rugby.”
”What we need,” he says, ”is a South African tennis hero to galvanise the masses.” And, who knows, one might emerge on the road that leads to Jabavu.