Back to School
ACE Magazine, May 2003When 18-year-old Mario Ancic beat Roger Federer in the first round of Wimbledon last year, he instantly earned £12,250, worldwide media attention, and hero-status in his native Croatia. He probably thought his school days were over as well. Not so.
By breaking into the top 200 on the ATP Entry System, Ancic became a Division One player, and thus an automatic entrant into the ATP University. For the past 13 years, any male player who has obtained Division One status, either by virtue of their singles ranking, or by making it into the top 100 in doubles, have ended up in a classroom full of 20 fellow players, inside 12 months.
There have been no exceptions. Pete Sampras, Tim Henman, Lleyton Hewitt and any other top male player of the past decade that you care to mention, will have taken the three-day course in Monte Carlo in December, or Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida in March, or been stripped of their ATP membership. Since 1990, over 600 players have attended, learning about the rules of the game, how to manage their personal finances, look after their bodies, and deal with the media.
The thinking behind a University for players is fairly straightforward; the ATP recognises that there's a lot more to being a tennis professional than simply hitting a ball, however fantastically, over a tennis net.
Take Ancic for instance. Seconds after his win over Federer he was plunged into a live television interview with the BBC and challenged to talk candidly, expressively and emotionally in his second language, to millions of people.
Not a bad way to make a living, but for an 18-year-old, a little daunting.
Sport is littered with athletes who were given too much money, fame and attention, too fast. There aren't many horror-stories of tennis players going off the rails, but the image of Jennifer Capriati as a 17-year-old, staring out from a Police mug-shot after being arrested on drugs charges, remains a stark reminder of the potential dangers.
The ATP University tries to develop players into fully-rounded tennis professionals so that they can cope with the pressures.
Putting players back into a classroom environment after several years on the tennis circuit hasn't traditionally gone down well. Once they are there though, they seem to enjoy it, as Roger Federer, now firmly cemented in the world's top ten, explains.
"I was obviously not very pleased to go there at first, but it was nice," said Federer, who attended in 1999. As well as learning a few things, he remembers having a laugh with his colleagues.
"We were a group of guys who, after the classes had finished for the day, could go out in Monte Carlo , have a drink and take it easy because there were no matches the next day! It was a totally different atmosphere because suddenly we weren't opponents, we were friends.";
For the lecturers - a mixture of ATP staff members and guest speakers - getting and keeping the players attention isn't easy.
One of the most effective in recent years was Derek Sanderson, Vice President of a financial investment group called State Street Research.
He got to his feet, a grey-haired, well-dressed man who looked every bit the financial adviser, as the players chatted amongst themselves.
"In 1972, I was the highest paid athlete in the world," he announced. A hush fell over the room. The players stared at him, suddenly transfixed.
"I earned $2.65 million that year as an NHL Hockey star. Five years later, I was completely broke."
Sanderson went on to explain how he had lost his fortune after getting mixed up in drugs and alcohol, and warned that the money they earned from tennis would not last unless they invested it properly. He then told them how to do so.
One of the biggest responsibilities a tennis player has is to help sell their sport in an increasingly competitive market. It isn't enough for them to simply play their match and go home. They need to be available to the media - the very people who can transmit their personalities to the public and make them into global stars. If not, the reporters might go to cover other sports where athletes are more amenable, and the result is that tennis loses exposure, and sponsors, who provide much of their money, are less prepared to pay to associate themselves with tennis.
Guest speakers such as the former player, Guy Forget, were brought in to get the message across.
"You play a match and get a cheque at the end of a tournament, but where does that money come from?" he asked them. "From sponsors who pay to have their name and logo associated with you and the tournament. So, if you're asked to to do an interview with the media that will promote an event you're playing at, you should do it."
It's one thing to do an interview, it's another to do it well.
The players are given media training to teach them what's what.
Matt Rapp, the ATP's Vice President of Communications, puts them through their paces. The first thing he does is to get one of them in front of a television camera, and grills them. He then shows the results to the class for them to critique.
"It is all pretend but it feels very real to the player", says Rapp. "It demonstrates how bad a real interview can go and it shows the weaknesses that all people have when confronted with a microphone and a camera in their face."
The players are then shown examples of good and bad interviews with some of their more famous contemporaries such as Hewitt, and by the end, the penny does seem to drop.
"I always used to think that journalists were enemies," remembers Federer. "Now, I look at them as people that I need."
Rapp faces a tricky task though - on the one hand he implores them to tell interesting personal stories, on the other he needs to teach them techniques that will keep them within their 'comfort zone' and avoid making the sort of blunder that Greg Rusedski made at the US Open after losing to Pete Sampras. Rusedski stated that Sampras would go no further in the tournament because he wasn't the player he once was. Sampras went on to win the event and the Briton got a mauling in the press.
BBC commentator Iain Carter isn't completely convinced about that part of the training process.
"The biggest danger is that players get schooled into giving bland, boring answers which are counter-productive," he says.
"They need to go into press conferences, be honest and tell us something that we don't already know because that's all the editor and the reader wants. If a player does that for the journalist, then the journalist doesn't have to go digging for anything that the player doesn't want to get published."
Carter cites Tommy Haas as a polite man whose reluctance to go beyond the mundane has prevented him from fulfilling his potential.
"Someone like Haas should be a world famous, international sports star,"he says. "He's a good player who has been at the sharp-end of Grand Slam championships, he's a pin-up who must have some kind of sex appeal to women, and he's a bright bloke. Yet, he gives nothing in the press room, and surprise, surprise, no one knows who he is."
After two and a half days of tutoring, it became clear that Mario Ancic had no such problems.
His refreshing attitude to dealing with the media is just the same as his intelligent, enthusiastic, serve-and-volley approach to playing tennis.
"Ancic is a natural," confirmed Rapp. "He is very smart and already had the basics well in hand before the whole thing started. In fact, his was the best initial interview of anyone that I have done since my tenure with the ATP."
The player himself left with no regrets about his trip back to school.
"It was really nice," said Ancic. "We learned some good things about the history of the ATP, how to talk with the media and about how tournaments work behind the scenes. We players, we don't see that often - how much work goes into making big tournaments. Now we can appreciate it more."
The Future
After such a glowing endorsement, it might seem strange to report that Ancic's class will be the last to converge on Monte Carlo . The University, in its current format, will not take place in 2003, or ever again.
Instead, the ATP intends to run sessions at events like the Orange Bowl and Wimbledon Juniors to get to young players earlier, while developing DVD distance-learning kits for the rest of the players to use.
"The feedback from the graduates was that the coursework was excellent, the experience was good but that for some players the inconvenience of holding it in December during their precious off-season outweighed some of the positives," said Paul Settles, a University Director.
"We had also thrust them into a classroom environment that is pretty intensive. Some guys respond better to that than others, but it's a lot of information thrown at them in a short space of time. There's some concern about retention."
Anyone who has witnessed tennis players in their spare time would be entitled to worry that if they aren't made to go to University sessions as they have in the past, they won't do anything at all. Why would they bother following a distance learning DVD in the players" lounge of a tournament if they could be playing a video game?
"I must admit that I would probably have been one like that," said Federer, when told about the new format. "I wouldn't have wanted to sit down in front of a computer and do distance learning when I could be playing games, but I do believe there should be some kind of a test like you get with a driving license."
To their credit, the ATP had already thought of that one, and it should ensure that the work gets done.
Under the new system, players will be required to complete 10 core modules of the University course inside a year of becoming a Division One player. At the end of it, they will sit an exam to make sure they have learned everything. If they fail to complete all 10 modules, they will lose their ATP membership. Mentors will be assigned to each module - either ATP staff members of former players - to make sure that they do their homework.
So, anyone planning a career as a tennis player to get off school in the future, should perhaps think again.
The ATP Survival Guide
History - The ATP was set up by your forefathers, for you. Try to leave the sport in better condition than you found it.
Rules and Regs - Learn the rules before you get to the court, not during a match. You'll save yourself a lot of headaches and stress with umpires, and probably a little money.
Anti-doping - Don't take any chances, even the labels can be misleading.
Media training - stay in your comfort zone - talk about something you're guaranteed to know about, ie yourself.
Personal Finance - You may be 25 not 65, but the time to save and invest is NOW.
LTA University
The LTA ran their own version of the University for 27 up-and-coming British players in mid-December.
The players, mostly aged between 16 and 19, were put through their paces by a selection of speakers including their former Performance Director Patrice Hagelauer, ironically on the very day that Hagelauer resigned.
They received medical, finance, and media lectures - including a talk from the BBC's Iain Carter. To really get them in the mood for great things, Olympic rowing Gold medallist Simon Dennis gave them a motivational speech on what it takes to be a champion.
Organisers said the sessions had been well received but that they might be better attended in future by moving the date to coincide with the National Championships in October.
WTA University
Women's tennis has had its share of problems with burnout over the years as players like Tracey Austin, Jennifer Capriati and Marian Lucic burst on the scene at an early age only to struggle with the demands placed upon them. It is perhaps fitting then that the WTA run one of the most comprehensive programs to aid the development of young players. For starters, players below the age of 18 these days, are restricted to a certain amount of tournaments that they are able to play.
As well the areas of tutoring found in the ATP University, the WTA's Professional Development features a mentor program called 'Partners For Success',where young protégés (players aged 18 & under and ranked inside the top 100) are paired with a mentor (a recently retired or veteran player), to help them make the transition to becoming a top player.
Recent examples have seen young Daniela Hantuchova paired with mentor Martina Navratilova, Venus Williams with Pam Shriver, and Alexandra Stevenson with Tracy Austin.
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