Tag: Pat Cash

Sitting Across MT-Desk: Umit Oraloglu, Co-Founder of Gallipoli Youth Cup

Back in 2008, I wrote an article titled ‘Something different to do in 2008’ about tennis tournaments that you will not read much about in the general media, however they are worth attending, because they have separated themselves from many other calendar ITF events. The Gallipoli Youth Cup (GYC) is one such event, and it just kicked off in Melbourne, Australia.

With yesterday’s first round matches, the GYC has entered its sixth year and along the way this tournament has created history in many ways. However in terms of creating ground breaking history, with influential figures supporting GYC, 2014 and 2015 will be very important years for this event.

Pat Cash (1987 Wimbledon Men’s Singles Champion) and Umit Oraloglu (successful businessman and second generation Australian from Turkish parents), are the co-founders of the GYC. I asked the latter several questions regarding the past 6 years and what the future holds for the tournament.

How did the GYC come about and why is it so different from other ITF junior tournaments?

Umit: In Australia, we are all educated at school about the Gallipoli campaign, where during World War 1, Australian and New Zealand soldiers (known as the ANZACs), formed part of an Allied expedition that set out to capture the Gallipoli Peninsula (the European side of Turkey), under a plan to open the way to the Black Sea for the Allies. Even though the Gallipoli campaign failed in its military objectives, the landing at Gallipoli made a profound impact on Australians and New Zealanders at home and 25th of April became the day on which they remembered the sacrifice of those who died in war.

Since sport is inherently a big part of Australia, Pat Cash and I thought (in conjunction with Tennis Australia), what better way to give our youth the opportunity to commemorate our war veterans through ongoing participation and competition in sport by establishing the Gallipoli Youth Cup.

Not only are the junior players commemorating the fallen soldiers, we also created a “School Commemoration Program,” where year 6 students from various primary schools can participate in tennis activities and education programs commemorating the fallen soldiers at Gallipoli.

The GYC is now the only International junior tennis tournament in the world where the tennis players and school students commemorate the fallen soldiers.

Even though the GYC was established in 2008, it took 4 long years to get it off the ground due to unimaginable twists and turns. What were these twists and turns?

Umit: In 2004, Pat Cash and I traveled to Turkey, so we could create a tennis event by commemorating the fallen soldiers at Gallipoli. The event was called ‘Anzac Legends Cup’ (ALC) and the concept was to have two past legend tennis players from two of the countries that lost soldiers at Gallipoli, to play an exhibition match and then the following year, add another two players to the event (from two other countries).

Other than Turkey, Australia and New Zealand, countries such as France, Canada, England, South Africa, Ireland, India etc.. also lost soldiers at Gallipoli. With this being the case, in 2005, Pat Cash (Australia) and Henri Leconte (France), competed against each other in the first ever ALC to be held in Istanbul at the renowned Coliseum Centre.

Unfortunately that was to be the first and last ALC because the Turkish Government thought only the countries that lost soldiers at Gallipoli would be interested in the ALC and they wanted to hold a tennis tournament by attracting interest from all over the world, so they wanted Pat Cash and I to organize a WTA or ATP tournament in Turkey. In that same year, with both of us playing a crucial role, a WTA event was held in Istanbul and it was named after the historical city itself, the ‘Istanbul Cup’.

It was like we awakened the sleeping giant because with the success of the ‘Istanbul Cup’, the Turkish Government went on to hold the end of year WTA Championships held between 2011 and 2013.

That being said, after establishing the Istanbul Cup, Pat Cash and I came back to Australia with an empty sense of feeling. Our initial goal for going to Turkey was to annually commemorate the fallen soldiers through a tennis event, and we didn’t achieve our goal.

After giving it some thought, we noticed that at a senior level, the codes of Australian Rugby League and Australian Rules Football held matches to commemorate our war veterans, however there was no event held at a youth level. After consulting with Craig Tiley, CEO Tennis Australia (then Director of Tennis Australia), I’m proud to say, we eventually created the GYC.

So far in this journey, what has been the highlight of the GYC?

Umit: There have been so many highlights, however if I had to narrow it down to a few, I would have to say, since 2008, we have educated thousands of school kids about the Gallipoli campaign and this will continue for many years to come.

Also in 2013, for the first time we had 12 Turkish junior tennis players compete at the GYC. These kids created long lasting friendships with players from Australia and New Zealand. Last but not least, to celebrate our achievements, last year we invited Mr. Turgut Kacmaz – 77 years old and the son of the last Turkish veteran at Gallipoli – to be the special guest at our Gala Dinner. He also handed out the trophies to the singles and doubles winners of the GYC, which attracted profound media coverage from all over the world.

This year there was a major development with Tennis Australia announcing that the GYC is now one of the major projects of the Australian Tennis Foundation. However, since 2015 will be the 100th anniversary of the Gallipoli landing, what plans are in place to mark this special occasion?

Umit: Yes it was definitely a major development. Just before this year’s Australian Open, the Australian Tennis Foundation held one of its first projects by teaming up with Roger Federer’s Foundation and raising valuable funds for both foundations.

The event was called, “A night with Roger Federer and friends,” which was a televised event and it ended up raising more than $1 million on the night. It just makes me so happy that the GYC has reached a certain level, where it’s now officially going to be run by the Australian Tennis Foundation.

Re 2015, this year will be very special. We have two major objectives. The first is to educate five thousand students during the tournament through our “School Commemoration Program” (which has never been achieved before) and the second is to invite junior tennis players from all the countries that lost soldiers at Gallipoli, so that we can continue promoting the notion of mateship. These countries are Turkey, England, New Zealand, France, Canada, South Africa, Ireland, India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Senegal and Algeria.

Umit, this sounds fantastic! Any last thoughts?

Umit: Yes. Even though Pat Cash and I are the co-founders of the GYC, there are two people that also played a very important role in making the GYC a huge success. From day one, Craig Tiley and Michael Annett (CEO of Victorian RSL Branch) understood the concept of the GYC and I can’t thank both of them enough. For more information on the GYC and to see what we have achieved in the past six years, everyone can log onto www.gallipoliyouthcup.com

Note: Log onto the website to get the latest scores and results, unless you live in Melbourne, in which case, you should attend the tournament and see the future stars.

Q & A with Pat Cash

For most tennis fans, Pat Cash, the 1987 Wimbledon winner, member of multiple Australian Davis Cup teams in the 1980s, and former top-5 player, needs no introduction. Before I ever had the pleasure of meeting the legendary Australian tennis star, I wrote an article back in October of 2004 rating his autobiography entitled “Uncovered” (2002) as the best tennis-related autobiography that I have ever read. Since then, other books have been published, notably those by Tim Henman, James Blake and Andre Agassi. Unfortunately, I have only read a chapter of Agassi’s book, and I am hopelessly falling behind on my tennis literature in the last few years. Nevertheless, I would recommend “Uncovered” to any avid tennis fan. Pat also maintains a blog in which he recently finished a fascinating, 5-part-long “Greatest Tennis Player of All Time” series.

I would like to thank Pat for taking the time to do the following Q & A with me:

Question: Pat, it seems that we had a great era in men’s tennis starting with late 70s, through the 80s, into the early part 90s, one in which you played a part as well. Then, men’s tennis staggered through the rest of the 90s and early 00s. Then Federer and Nadal came around and from that point on men’s tennis found the spotlight again. Now it seems we are in the middle of a golden era again. Logic says that it will go into stagnation again once the top 4 go into decline in a few years. Do you believe that is inevitable? Or does it simply depend on the generation of players? What picture do you see five to ten years into the future in this context?

Pat Cash:
Unfortunately as a purist I see men’s tennis going in to a boring stage. There will always be superb athletes and tough competitors of course but the complete and utter lack of foresight from either the ATP or ITF have inadvertently created tennis players with little or no variety in their game. When Federer leaves the tour there will be only a few players on tour with any style of flash about them with any variety. We already have a tennis world dominated by two handed backhands big forehands following up from big serves. Ventures to the net will be to shake hands and that’s about it. When the Grand Slams started slowing down the game in the mid 90’s by introducing slower courts and balls they had little foresight in making decisions on things such as technology advances or decision on court speeds and surfaces. They changed the game that was initially for the better but as we see it now quickly becoming mundane unfortunately. There must be a committee of ex-top tour players who can discuss the game and what may be the correct decisions as far as technology or court surface speeds and if it is a good decision to change or not change things. String technology must be outlawed if we are ever to see a serve and volley player near the top of the game ever again. You must look at what surfaces favour what styles. Clay and any hard court favours the baseline player no matter what speed the court may be (unless it’s an extremely fast old indoor court). Only grass favours the volleyer or attacking player but over the past 15 years the grass courts at Wimbledon have become so hard that a good volley will bounce high just like a hard court and this again favours the baseliner. Don’t get me wrong I love watching Nadal vs. Federer and some of the other battles we have seen over the last 5 or 6 years as they are just incredible but we must reward good attacking shots and net play as well as baseline battles. It is very clear that the court surfaces balls and strings do not do that at all.

Question: Some of the players from your competitive years have gone into coaching and have had considerable success, including coaching some of the top players on the tour. Let’s imagine for a moment that there is one particular young talent who is succeeding extremely well in the juniors and you feel that he is ready to make the jump to the next level. Let’s also say that one day he comes to you for advice on whom to hire as a coach. Assuming that, for one reason or another, you are unable to be his coach at that particular time, whom would you recommend and why? What sets that particular coach apart from others in your opinion?

Pat Cash:
I think the main thing for a coach is to identify what can be improved and how, but sometimes it means some issue shouldn’t be changed. That could mean technically. For instance I would do some work on Federer’s volley technique which has become a weak point in his game and only works well from time to time. What shouldn’t be touched? I wouldn’t touch much else of any of the top players (other than volleys which are now an afterthought in junior coaching hence the poor volleying) as this may require a period of going backwards and ranking loss so therefore you can work on tactics and /or perhaps the physical part of the player. What would you change in David Ferrer’s game? He has just about maximized his ability. His backhand technique limits his power, but to fix that may require several months perhaps a year to get it better, and at 31 this is not something I would do.

So the question really is, what coach can do all of these? I don’t know any. The best thing a coach can do is to get a team around him as I did in 1986. I had a fitness trainer a sports psychologist and a coach all traveling with me. This was unheard of in 1986 but I realized that no one coach could do everything well, so I got experts from different fields to help make me a better player all over. This is common place now with the Centre Court player’s box full of people. Towards the end of my career I used sport biomechanist Brad Langevad, a body movement specialist, who worked to correct some long-standing technique problems but also to help some existing injuries, and then prevent new ones. This was good timing for me as I had many injuries, so I had time to rebuild my serve in order for it to have more power, and it also helped my back. Last year I served equal to my fastest serve ever at 47 years of age. With some practice I can consistently serve harder than I ever did on tour in the 80’s and 90’s, and it’s not about the strings as I can’t use a full racquet with modern polyester strings as they have no feel on the volley.

Question: It has been over a decade now since your excellent autobiographical book “Uncovered” was published. As you well know, I called it the best tennis book that I have ever read in one of my articles before we ever met. The last chapter is entitled “So what comes next?” and you speculate on many things regarding your future career, possible endeavors and your personal life. Do you ever take a look at that chapter now and smile reading what you were thinking 11 years ago and what has transpired since?

Pat Cash:
I can’t remember what I wrote back then. As you know I decided to be very open about my life outside of the sporting arena which, up to that stage, had not been done in a sports book. I’m glad Andre Agassi did the same thing and I know he enjoyed my book. Perhaps it gave him the confidence to be candid as well. I sometimes wonder how I am managing to play tennis at a good level after all the injuries I have had and I surprise myself when I write ‘tennis player’ in the form at passport control when I arrive in to another country. I don’t really see myself as a tennis player any more though I still do too at some level. I’m more of an entertainer now but in the end that’s what all tennis players are to the public. My life is ever evolving and I think I will move away from just tennis at some stage as there are lots to do beyond tennis. As I continue to enjoy many parts of it still, I will continue to coach, commentate and write.

Question: As you know, Brad Drewett is unfortunately stepping down as ATP’s Executive Chairman to deal with his illness. Is there anyone that you would like to see replace him? If not, what qualities are important for the top position of the ATP? Or do people make too much of it, in other words, at the end of the day, does the ATP Executive Chairman have as much authority on issues as the title would suggest?

Pat Cash:
I have known Brad for many years and played Davis Cup with him. He was a very good player winning events on all surfaces. The difference between him and other CEO’s at the ATP is that he was a player and understands what players need, so that brought a different dimension to the tour. He made sure that after 30 years of debate players finally had extra weeks off, though I did laugh to myself when I saw Federer and Djokovic racing all over the world playing exhibition matches over those new free weeks. Some were charity fund raisers which I admire. The point of having a chairman or CEO is that they lead the company in the right direction, I think given time he would realize that men’s tennis needs some hard issues looked at. It’s easy to get bogged down in politics and finance, but if the product is no good there will be a problem in the end, either that or the marketing better be very good, and this is what tennis is doing well. For instance you watch TV or read magazine and you believe the article of food you see is a good product but in reality it’s just a chewy bit of old cardboard that has been marketed well enough to attract attention and people buy into it, in the end its just cardboard but if cardboard is all you ever had, it’s pretty tasty and that’s what the younger generations are eating. Women’s tennis is much the same. The WTA slogan ‘strong is beautiful’ with shots of the players hitting tennis balls dressed up in night club dresses and ball gowns, what the hell is that all about? It doesn’t exactly promote tennis as a high quality sport does it? It did attract attention so perhaps that’s not a bad thing. The problem arises again when the product isn’t great and at the moment much of that attention goes to two of the top players who are the noisiest grunters in the sport putting spectators off in their thousands.

Question: Outside of Bernard Tomic and Marinko Matosevic, there are no top 100 Australian Men in the ATP. Does Australian Tennis need a change in the system, or an overhaul of the system, or is this simply a phase like one that any other country goes through at times? Where do you see the next 10 years in terms of Australian tennis’ future?

Pat Cash:
That’s a long conversation. The basic reality is that tennis in Australia is a small sport compared to many. It’s hard to believe considering the champions we have had over the years but it has struggled for various reasons to capture the interest of children and families to pick it up as a playing sport. Tennis Australia has done a very poor job of promoting tennis at a grass roots level for many years and is still hiding behind the fact that the Australian Open is a big financial success. The open is a big corporate event that brings needed money in to player development. Where and how the money is spend is spent is up for debate and conjecture. Tennis Australia has aimed to take control over all things in tennis and I do not believe that is a healthy situation to have. It needs some diversity and non-Tennis Australia ideas but they are not welcome and that creates tension amongst coaches, families, and the association.

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