It’s a mid-morning Monday, a time to be in school. But this is a different kind of classroom. There is no place to hide at the Eddie Taylor Public Courts at 11 o’clock. The heat is raw, the sunshine unrelenting. It’s a tough examination room for the 12 teenage boys and girls on the court.
The subject is tennis and this is the practical exam: the IBM ITF Junior Circuit 2009. This is a grade four event, not the highest level. But it is one way to gain points in the world junior rankings. It’s a means to an end, the end being pro status, ATP and WTA circuit play, US, French, Australian Open participation, Wimbledon glory.
At least those were the goals of the 150 players who took part in the event that concluded two weeks ago.
They came from all over the globe for the ’IBM’, young people with their parents/coaches etc.
On ’stadium’ court that Monday morn was one of the local hopes, 17-year-old Vaughn Wilson of Scarborough, Tobago. He was up against a French youngster by the name of Jeoffrey Noblecourt.
They were toughing it out in a match in which Wilson eventually prevailed in straight sets.
Over on court five, the groundstrokes were crisper as Frizzie Bschorer of Germany and Serbian Sara Stosljevic went at it long past the end of the Wilson/Noblecourt match.
In the walkway between stadium court and the other courts were other expectant youngsters waiting for their turns. They were all hoping to use this tournament to move up that long, unsteady ladder to the pro game.
This is where so many started, in events like this one.
French pro Gael Monfils actually played at the ’IBM’. And this year’s edition had in it one Daria Sharapova, cousin of Russian former Wimbledon champ Maria Sharapova. Daria is just 13. But she and her father have come to the Caribbean to compete.
They start them young in this game. They have to.
Like gymnastics, there are not very many late-blooming stars. To master the court, you have to be in the right place at the right time as soon as possible.
The father of Alexander Sendegya recognised this. He brought his 13-year-old out from Great Britain and school to play here. Young Alexander lost early in singles. He stayed on to try his hand in doubles. It was not the best of trips.
Alexander is already well-travelled, having played junior tournaments across Europe as well. His father told me his son’s aim is to be world No.1. And he is backing that ambition.
But what a great sacrifice to make for what is, for so many, merely a dream. There’s the retention of a coach, the expense of air travel, not to mention expenses on island, like the US$10 the Sendegyas were being charged to travel from the Ambassdor Hotel in Long Circular to the courts in St Clair.
Alexander had school work to keep up with as well.
This is the life of a would-be pro.
How many of these youngsters will make it? How far will they get?
It’s difficult to see how one can even begin to have a chance without solid financial backing.
In Trinidad and Tobago, the game is now more widespread nowadays, so Wilson, unlike countryman Larry Yearwood long before him (now a coach watching the day’s action), is not the only player from the sister isle on the local circuit. He’s been good enough, too, to win one of these ITF tourneys. But at 17 already, the climb out of grade four will be steep.
Sendegya Senior does not expect his son to still be playing at this level in a year’s time. The Sharapovas will also be expecting to make rapid progress.
But the Wilsons of T&T don’t have a Nick Bollettieri Academy to enter, or one like it. In their formative years, they’re not exposed to the pace and intensity of play their international peers must contend with at a similar stage.
Wilson has already come to appreciate the difference in tennis upbringing.
’They play all the time, they know what to do. They play every week, every day,’ he says.
It is almost as if he and his colleagues here are playing a different game.
Very few Trinidad and Tobago players have made it to even the top 300 in juniors, Tyler Mayers, Shane Stone and Olivia Bennett being exceptions.
But the Soca Warriors finally made a World Cup. So what’s impossible?
Young Vaughn is not one for many words. But he seems the quiet, determined type who is not going to limit his ambitions.
’I’m trying to move up the rankings at the end of the year, see how far I reach,’ he says simply.
’I improved a lot. Year before last year, I used to get licks from these fellows. But when I came back (home), I started to train harder, so I start to beat them now.’
Wilson has already played in ten ITF events this year. Velda Wilson has not seen all of them. But that morning, she took a chance to watch.
’I live in Tobago, and I would come down and still don’t come and watch him play,’ Vaughn’s mother tells me. ’I would walk around the Savannah or walk on the street, and then I would come (and ask) ’what is the score, what is the score?’ They tell me the score, I go back again and then come back. I am nervous.’
But that morning, she was courtside throughout.
Like Sendegya Senior, she has invested in her son’s dream.
’It is a grave, grave sacrifice financially, emotionally,’ she says, even while acknowledging the help the Tobago House of Assembly provides. ’His education is set back a bit, too, because...we are sacrificing everything for him to go pro. We hope that when he goes to a tennis academy abroad that his educational side would pick up. But right now, we are trying to see if we can get to a standard maybe in the top 300, top 200, maybe top 100 in the world.’
Top 200, top 100...
Ma Wilson does not dare go higher. Any Federer or Nadal ambitions have to wait for the moment.
But I admire the courage of both mother and son for trying to ace their obstacles. Maybe it will take several more Vaughn Wilsons and Dawoud Kablis of today to blaze a trail before the path tomorrow is clear for a Trini top-ranker to break through.
