Mark Keil, former professional tennis player and now tennis coach writes on his experiences playing the qualies of Wimby. Wimbledon qualifying is played at the Bank of England, Roehampton. It’s about a twelve minute drive to the site of the hallowed grounds of Wimbledon. The courts are cricket fields with tennis lines drawn on them. There’s nothing really special about the place at all. There is prize money in the qualifying, so it is beneficial to play. Usually the first 104 ranked male and female players are accepted straight into the main draw if Wimbledon. Then the next 128 or so best players on the ATP/WTA computer ranking lists play for the 16 open main draw spots.
I played Wimbledon qualifying a few times, and it was not that big of a deal. You are so far removed from thinking that if you win three singles matches, you will be in the greatest tournament on earth. One year, in the first round I played the 1985 US Open junior champion Tim Triguero, and won 8-6 in the third set. “I thought we played a breaker in the third, so when I realized we had to play it out, it screwed me up a bit,” recalled Tim on that occasion in ’91. I also played Bryan Shelton, a former All American out of Georgia Tech and class act. He won two grass court titles in Newport and one year, beat former Wimbledon champion Michael Stich at the All England Club in 1994. I barely beat him, and it was one of my best singles wins come to think of it now. Another year, I lost to Todd Woodbridge in qualifying 6-4 in the third. Todd would go on to win a record nine Wimbledon doubles titles and get to the semis of singles once. In the final round of qualifying, the men play three-out-of-five sets. I qualified one year by beating Cyril Suk of the Czech Republic. The second and only time I qualified I played Fabio Silberberg of Brazil in the final round. I warmed up for the match with Elena Bovina, the tall Russian player. That put me in good spirits heading into the match!
The weather had been so bad that week that we were forced to play only two out of three sets. I lost the first set, and it started to rain. We got postponed until the next day. That night, Pat Cash’s annual Wimbledon Hard Rock Party was going on. I went, thinking I had no chance to win. I met another nameless, faceless many that evening. The next day, I came out and won 6-4 in the third set. I was very happy, and excited to get in.
Until the main draw begins next week, have a cold one on me.
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The Day I Beat Pete Sampras On Grass
It was on this day in tennis history, June 11, 1991 when Mark Keil, ranked No. 224 playing in only his second career ATP tour event, staged a staggering upset of future seven-times Wimbledon champion Pete Sampras 6-2, 7-6 in the first round of the Stella Artois Championships at Queen’s Club in London. Following the win over the No. 8 ranked player in the world, Keil entered the post-match press conference and asked reporters, “Is this where I am supposed to sit. I have never done this before.” Asked what his previous claim to fame had been prior to beating Sampras, Keil responded, “Nothing.” Keil, the producer and star of the tennis documentary “The Journeymen” (click here to order), takes readers back to that occasion in this week’s blog.
After losing early in the French Open, I headed to play a Challenger in Surbiton, England the second week of the French. I partnered with Doug Flach, the former All American out of the University of Tennesse, and brother of former U.S. Davis Cup doubles standout Ken Flach. We lost first round to James Blake’s nutritionist Mark Merklein and the soft spoken Michael Sell, 6-2 in the third.
The next week – who would have thunk it – but I beat the greatest player ever to play the game, Pete Sampras. Yes, I am still milking this occasion, and until a better moment in my life shows up, it has to be done. When I arrived that day in June in 1991, I stayed at a bed and breakfast in Wimbledon village. I was travelling with Craig Boynton, an American who now coach’s Mardy Fish. He got sick that week, and was watching movies from dusk till dawn. The day before I played Pete, I hung out with a friend Allysa Rappaport. She was backpacking around Europe. She was a nice girl. Her dad started the Outback chain of restaurants. What a great flavor of the week. I tried to resume a relationship with her when I got back to my homebase of Tampa, but to no avail. The morning of my match was a glorious one, and I warmed up with Brad Pearce, a Mormon from Utah who was a quarterfinalist at Wimbledon once. He told me I had a chance. That was all I needed. I proceeded to play lights out on the best grass court in the world still to this day. The only moment of the match I regret was not looking him in the eyes when I shoke his hand. I must admit the match changed my life, some for the good, some for the bad. I let my ego get in the way of my career, and subsequently did not break into the top 100 in singles. The next few months I felt like since I had beaten the No. 8 player in the world, I didn’t need any help. I was main draw of ten challengers in singles after that. I should have had my coach at the time Allen Webb come with me, to get past that last hurdle. When you break into the top 100 in singles, it’s like getting invited to the best dance. After a celebratory dinner with my pal and fellow player T.J. Middleton and Allysa and her friend Marybeth, I had the huge challenge of playing Malivai Washington the next day. The former star from the University of Michigan couldn’t handle my aggressive play in the first set. I won 7-6. “I’m going to win the tournament now” That’s what I thought and I’m sure everyone in the crowd read my mind. He then beat me 6-3, 6-2. It’s a week I won’t forget.
Enjoy Wimbledon!
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The Journeyman: Vive La France
The French Open is coming upon us, and that is a beautiful thing. I think it is the second hardest major tournament to win after the US Open – being in shape is a must.
The player’s receive a per diem, so many stay in various hotels or apartments around the city, instead of the usual main player residence. I played doubles a few times there, and just like my career, had mediocre results. In ’92 and ’93, I partnered with Dave Randall – the best player ever to come out of Missisippi.
He used to play the deuce side with me, and he would return serve by holding the racket like he was riding a motorcycle, the racket being parallel to the net. He was a nice church going fella, and we broke into the doubles ranks together. Unlike now, where a player’s singles ranking can be used to gain entry into the 64 team draw, it was strictly done by a player’s individual doubles ranking. While Dave was going to bed early, you could catch me a few times at the La Banduche nightclub some evenings.
It was a fun place to go, always packed with girls who were in magazines around the world.
The Saturday before the tourney would start, they would use to have the Bennie Berthet Day. This was when players would play a practice set against each other, to get used to the courts. It was free of charge, and a lot of kids would show up and watch the pros play. I use to play the legendary Mansour Bahrami in an exhibition. When I played him, I always felt like I was the Washington Generals playing against the Harlem Globetrotters.
The tournament used to have a great deal for the players, where we could eat for free at the Hard Rock Cafe by showing our player badge. I must admit I ate a lot of burger’s that week.
The first week of a Grand Slam is always packed with people – I rarely made it to the second week so I wouldn’t know what the feeling was like being in an empty lockerroom. We would tune up our games before our matches at the Racing Club of Paris – a beautiful club nestled in the heart of the city. The locker room was cool in that they had a loft where they have TVs lined up next to each other showing the matches on every court. It was great to sit there and watch the action, but it could be very draining. Roland Garros is a historic tennis palace, and I miss playing there tremendously.
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The Journeyman: Hamburg Memories
This week’s Masters Series tournament at the Tennis Club am Rothenbaum in Hamburg brings back some awfully good memories for me. I arrived there in May of 1994 from sunny Roma, ready to compete in the singles qualifying and the main draw of the doubles.
I signed in for the singles on a wet and rainy late Friday afternoon, and went back to the hotel, driven by a very pretty young German driver. Checking the draw out that evening, I found out that I had to play the tough and well-experienced former French Davis Cup player Thierry Champion. We played the qualies at a different club than the main site, and we played in the early afternoon, and I was dismantled rather easily in straight sets by the clay court specialist. (Incidentally, Champion is currently a well respected coach of the young upstart French player Gael Monfils.) To cool off my sorrows, I headed to a local tavern and had a bratwurst and a Heffeweisen beer.
What made Hamburg a tough tournament was the heavy and often wet conditions. At that time of year, Spring is in its very early stages in northern Germany and the weather can be horrendous. When the weather was nice, I always enjoyed my morning runs around the beautiful lake that is close to the tournament hotel.
During this memorable week, I had the pleasure of practicing with Boris Becker at one of the practice courts. We played a few baseline games to eleven, and I was very nervous throughout. I remember waiting for him to come to the courts, and when he arrived, it was like the Pope coming for a visit. He was very amiable, and it was a sheer pleasure.
In the doubles, I signed up with South Africa’s John-Laffnie De Jager. He was an experienced doubles player, and I felt our chances were good. He has gone on to become the South African Davis Cup coach and he runs some great charity events in his homeland. We drew the German team of Dirk Dier and Torben Theine in the first round. We played well, and won 6-2,6-2. Dirk was a funny German guy, who loved the Fantasiche Vier band. I would later play German club tennis with him for TC Mannheim a few years later.
In the next round, we battled against the South African David “Chewy” Adams. He was nicknamed this due to his resemblance to the Star Wars character Chewbacca. He would team up with the Russian Andrei
Olhovskiy, a very stern looking KGB agent-lookalike, who starred on the Russian Davis Cup team. We went down 6-2, 7-6 on one of the back courts at the club. Overall, it was a great week on the tour, and one that I will never forget.
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The Journeyman: Player Spotlight on Jeff Coetzee
Jeff Coetzee is slowly becoming one of the biggest sporting icons in the history of South Africa. The black right-handed professional tennis player from the town of Okiep in the northern cape of South Africa began playing tennis when he was nine years old. He is currently ranked No. 18 in the world in doubles and is in fourth place with his partner Wesley Moodie in the race for the eight-team year-end doubles championships in Shanghai. He is the anchor along with Moodie for the South African Davis Cup team.
The 31-year-old was first introduced to tennis by his brother Dennis. His idols growing up were the tennis players Boris Becker and Kevin Curren. He was a rather proficient soccer player, but quit at the age of twelve to concentrate on tennis. When he was eleven he moved to Johannesburg and stayed with a family, to improve his game. He realized when he was training in Joburg that he had the potential to be a travelling touring pro. He tried the singles tour and got to No. 184 in December of ’99. He then started to concentrate solely on doubles after sustaining some injuries.
“Apartheid was tough on me, but I only got the last bit of it,” says Jeff. He went on to say, “I could not enter into some tournaments because of my color and had a tough time in the beginning. But my mom always said, just let my racket do the talking.”
One other example of racism was when his manager Bruce Davidson’s car was spray painted with the slogan “kaffir lover.” Mr. Davidson would then sneak him into his apartment when he was visiting.
His best moments playing tennis are when he plays Davis Cup and his mixed doubles match against Steffi Graf and John McEnroe at Wimbledon a few years back. His worst moment came when he was playing Davis Cup and twisted his ankle against Slovakia. They were down two matches to none, and he continued to play but lost the match. A more traumatic experience happened when he was in a car accident with his girlfriend Mauricia Leukes, which put him on the injured reserve list for awhile.
To jumpstart his career he obtained financing from a boxing promoter named Rodney Berman. He resides in London now and is coached by former tour player Piet Norval. He visits and works with his coach in Capetown at the Spier Tennis Academy.He sometimes travels with Norval, and also his girlfriend will come along to a few tourneys during the year.
Some of his closest friends are former tour player Robbie Koenig and his Davis Cup teammates. His favorite tournament is the Australian Open, and his favorite hotel on tour is the Monte Carlo Bay and Casino Hotel. His goal is to win a gold medal at the Olympics in doubles, and to achieve the No. 1 ranking as well. He runs a charity with his doctor in South Africa to help kids and Jeff and his brother also run a tournament every September which main focus is to fight violence and crime, sponsored by Dunlop rackets and Oakley sunwear.
The Journeyman: Bud Schultz, A Retrospective
Bud Schultz can arguably be considered the second best male player ever to come out of Connecticut, after James Blake. He was a mainstay on the tour in the 80’s, and achieved a high singles ranking of #39 in the world. His path to professional tennis began when he picked up a racket at the age of 13, considered quite late by today’s standards, but just goes to show his athletic prowness. He chose Bates College in Maine for its academics, and also it enabled him to play two sports: basketball and tennis.There is no question that he is considered the best Division III male tennis player ever.
He idolized tennis’s Vitas Gerulaitis and basketball’s Walt Frazier and John Havilicek, growing up in Meriden, Conn.While growing up, he really didn’t have any formal coaching until college, and while on the tour he chose Bill Drake as his mentor because of Drake’s resume with working with players like Tim Mayotte and Barbra Potter.He would get coaching for free in exchange for working at Drake’s summer junior program.
He decided to give the tour a shot when after playing John James, a top 100 singles player from Australia, in a money tournament right after college. After their tough three-set match, James told Bud, “You need to get out there.” Bud responded with a quizzical look, and replied, “Out where?” James then explained to him that it would be wise to give the tour a shot. A friend of Bud’s named Carl Greenman put together a syndicate of money together to give him an opportunity to go out the circuit.Within three years, Bud had paid them back and doubled their money, and then was able to sustain himself on the tour, on his own.
If he could bring back one point from his career, he says he would like to have it when he played Yannick Noah at the Aussie Open when he was up two sets to love, and ended up going down in five tough sets. Another interesting moment happened at his third round match on Labor Day weekend against John McEnroe at the US Open. Bud lost in straight sets, and after the match his college buddy who he was staying with in NYC Rob Kramer came up to him and said to him, “We got to go now.” Bud was a little perplexed, and asked, “Where are we going?” Rob said, “I got your bags, we are going to the airport, we got to get back to Boston, and go to this party!” So within a half an hour of the match, they were on the shuttle back to Boston, and on the lake waterskiing within two hours. All of his friends were oblivious to him having just played a legend on Louis Armstrong Stadium.
“My friends really kept me grounded when I was playing,” said Bud, thinking back on his career.
At the age of 29, Bud decided to hang it up on the tour, due to stress factures that developed in his legs and back. He immediately applied to the Longwood Cricket Club in Boston to be their head pro, and got the job. He also began to coach Ivan Lendl, who he had befriended on the tour. Tony Roche was Lendl’s official coach, but Bud would stay at Ivan’s house in Connecticut on weekend’s and help him out. At that time, Lendl was really making a go of trying to win Wimbledon, and Bud’s serve and volley game attracted Ivan to him to get some pointers.He also worked with Pam Shriver and Greg Rusedski. He also started along with Ned Eames a organization called “Tenacity,” that creates thousands of junior tennis players, along with teaching them life skills in the Boston area.
Bud now has three kid’s with his wife Elaine; Christo, Luke and Haley. He says they all couldnt be more different, with one son Christo being the top-ranked eighteen-year-old junior tennis player in New England. He now spends most of his time running a tennis facility he owns in Cohasset, Mass.
Have a great weekend and enjoy the tennis in Monte Carlo!
The Journeyman
The Journeyman Talks Tennis Foundations
Mark Keil, the director/producer of the cult classic “The Journeymen”, and now tennis coach, writes about two very positive tennis foundations.
Brian Vahaly, the former academic and three-time All-American from the University of Virginia, started a foundation in 2003. The main goal of his Brighter Future Foundation is to provide funding and assistance for programs managed by Community Tennis Associations in Georgia. It will provide financial assistance to promising junior competitive players, and each year the Foundation will award a $2,500 scholarship to an outstanding high school senior. For more information, go to www.brianvahaly.com. An Atlanta native and former top 100 player, Vahaly currently is working for UBS Financial.
Levar Harper Griffith, a native of Brooklyn, and former top American junior, has started the Global Tennis Foundation. His goal is also to provide financial assistance to young American’s who need help with training, traveling, and related tournament expenses. His foundation is currently at the fundraising stage, and more information can be sought out at www.globaltennisfoundation.org. Levar is currently trying to keep his professional tennis dreams alive, and will start competing this summer in Futures in Europe. He is coached by Jim Lewis, and is based out of Santa Clarita, California. His goal is to get back into the US Open qualifying by the end of the summer. The twenty six year old says, “I still have gas in the tank, so I am still going to do it. Injuries have kept miles off of me, so I’m ready to compete again.” Two American’s giving back to the game they love. Great to see. Until next week, keep on playing!
The Journeyman: Eric Butorac Snapshot
Eric Butorac, the American doubles specialist currently ranked No. 45 in the world, has made a few visits to Bosse Sports, my club in Boston, where I have taught over the past few months.
When he came to Boston to see his girlfriend, I had the pleasure of giving him a few pointers on his ever-expanding doubles game. The nimble six-foot-three-inch southpaw from Rochester, Minnesota sparred with a few of our juniors; it was great for our club and area for a player of his caliber to come by.
We worked on his returns and volleys, which are parts of his game that Butorac feels he needs to work on to crack the top 20 in the doubles rankings. The NCAA Division III singles and doubles champion in 2003, Butorac grew up playing at his dad’s club in a town an hour and a half from Minneapolis. He partnered with Kevin Whipple to take that collegiate doubles title. He feels that the head coach of his team at Gustavus Adolphus, Steve Wilkinson, is the main reason for his success and why he has been able to make a living playing doubles on the tour. He has won three ATP Tour doubles titles, all with Britain’s Jamie Murray.
Butorac’s career high doubles ranking was No. 30 in February of this year. He recently enjoyed playing doubles with top singles player Andy Murray in Indian Wells. He felt his practices were more intense due to the amount of the fans watching them hit. However, it wasn’t always big stadiums and large crowds for him. He remembers early in his career when traveling included sleeping on park benches, the locker room, and even in his car, all for the chance to pick up ATP ranking points.
“I feel if a player is questioning his doubts on trying to make it on the tour, [he should] go to France and play their money tourneys. That’s how I got started,” said Eric.
He started his career without much sponsorship, also coaching on the side to supplement his traveling expenses.
“I never take this life on the tour for granted, it’s very surreal,” said Eric. He is looking forward to playing doubles with the Australian Ashley Fisher. They originally were set to start the year as a team, but Fisher got injured. They plan on starting their partnership at a challenger in Puerto Rico, then with tour stops in Houston and in Munich and then all the way through Wimbledon. You can follow them on their website, www.bootyandfish.com.
Have a great week and enjoy the tennis in Miami.
The Journeyman
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The Journeyman's Column: Player Spotlight on Yves Allegro
Yves Allegro, the Swiss doubles specialist, grew up in the small town of Grone, Switzerland. His father built a tennis club, and that’s where Allegro was introduced to the sport as a toddler. His father never coached him; instead, they had a very healthy relationaship and Allegro worked with another of his father’s club’s teaching pros. He stayed in Grone until the age of fifteen when he moved to Lausanne to train at the Swiss Federation Tennis School. He would go to school from 8am until 2pm, then he would train in the afternoons. His roommate for two years at the academy was none other than Roger Federer. Upon graduating at the age of 19, the Swiss Tennis Federation abandoned Allegro because they felt his tennis potential was not good enough.
He was forced to move to Halle, Germany, where he played German club tennis and joined the Breakpoint Team, which supported his tennis playing aspirations. Playing as a professional, he started to have success on the doubles tour and has won three ATP tiles, two with Federer
and one with Germany’s Michael Kohlmann.
In 2004, he was picked to play Davis Cup for Switzerland and has been a member of the team since then. He played doubles at the 2004 Athens Olympics. His highest doubles ranking has been No. 31, and he attributes much of his success to his Spanish coach, Juan Barcelo.
His favorite tournaments are Wimbledon and Munich.
In his downtime away the tour, he is pursuing a degree in sports management from a school in Switzerland over the internet.
One of the highlights of the year for him is when he runs a junior tennis camp in Verbier, Switzerland in mid-July. “I love working with kids, and it’s nice to help out some of my country’s youngsters,” says Allegro. He plans on starting a partnership soon with the Romanian upstart Davis Cup player Horia Tecau soon. At the moment, you can catch the Swiss player playing with Paul-Henri Mathieu at the Sony Ericsson Open in Miami.
Until next week, enjoy your tennis!
Before Murray, There was BUSTER!
In the 1970s and early 1890s, there was an outstanding British player with a great name who was truly a character. Buster Mottram was once ranked as high as number fourteen in the world and reached the round of sixteen at Wimbledon in 1982. He also had a stellar Davis Cup singles record of 27-8 and doubles record of 4-2.
Mottram was the son of a world class player of the 1950s, Tony Mottram. He was a controversial figure who was supportive of Britain’s political National Front before he joined Britain’s Conservative Party. He was a staunch supporter of Enoch Powell, a Conservative Party Member of Parliament in Britain from the 1950s to the 1970s, who was removed from the Shadow Cabinet in England due to his opposition to immigration to Britain. Mottram once said of Enoch, “I hope Enoch Powell will never die, just as his namesake in the Bible never died.” I don’t know much what that much means, but it is an interesting quote.
His association with the National Front’s party led to protesters picketing Wimbledon in 1978 and disturbing his matches. Several unsuccessful attempts to achieve selection as an official British Tory party candidate followed. He also was a journalist and wrote in the 1998 Spectator Magazine:
“Feminity and Wimbledon were once like two peas in a pod, but this seems to have been lost forever if we are to judge by prevailing attitudes. The majority of today’s players revel in displaying an aggresive masculinity with all its associated features: shorts or skirts as distinct from dresses (you can count on one hand the number of players who don dresses,) short cropped hair, bad language and mannerisms traditionally linked with men. I suppose we should not be too surprised. It is a case of sport imitating society. If ladylike qualities don’t exist in policticians, film stars and the like, why should the position in tennis be any different.”
He went on to say, “Being a part of modern womens tennis is imcompatible with traditional feminine virtues and graces. Perhaps one can excuse the modern female tennis player for pursuing physical performance to gain advantage in the demanding world of professional tennis, where the difference between winning and losing at the top of the sport hinges on a knife edge. But what one can’t forgive or excuse is the attitude of mind associated with this new masculine professionalism.” Granted, this was Mottram speaking over ten years ago, and I wonder if his views have changed.
On the creative side, he had a songwriting partnership with the British black comedian Kenny Lynch. Mottram is undoubtedly one of tennis’s true characters, past and present. You got to love it.
Until next week, take care.
The Journeyman