Minister to meet tennis officials today
A crucial meeting today between Sports Minister Dayasiri Jayasekara and officials of the Sri Lanka Tennis Association (SLTA) could decide the future of the national tennis coach Eric Pietersz and end a long drawn out impasse between the association and a group of parents of aspiring tennis players.
The SLTA had decided to terminate the services of the Dutch coach eight months into his two-year contract last October, but following protests by parents the Sports Minister intervened, and offered to foot almost a quarter of the coach’s salary for six months.
With that six-month window ending this week, the SLTA is eager to end a programme which they claim is wasting valuable resources. Pietersz is paid around Rs. 800,000 monthly, with the Sports Minister paying Rs. 200,000 of that from his monthly ministry budget and parents contributing 60 per cent, leaving the SLTA with a cost of around Rs. 200,000 to bear.
There are conflicting views regarding the success of Pietersz’s programme with the SLTA.
The tennis association claimed that it is not finances, or rather the inability to finance the programme, that is an issue but it was a question of performance that had led to their decision to terminate the coach.
“The number of participants in this programme has reduced from 63 to 29, and we have had to reassign him to coach Under 10 and Under 12 age category players. Our top players are not training with him,” Vice President of the SLTA Sohan Patrick told the media last week addressing this issue.
“It is a group of self-interested parents who are raising this issue, even though the programme is not in SLTA’S best interest,” he also said. The SLTA also claim there were disciplinary issues with Pietersz – as stated in the coach’s performance appraisal for 2016 – after an ATF tournament referee had lodged a complaint with the association regarding his conduct during an ATF Under 14 tournament last October.
The appraisal also claimed that after two stints with senior players the SLTA had received negative feedback regarding his coaching, which compelled the association to remove him from working with the country’s top talent.
The parents, who want the programme to continue, are of a completely different opinion.
One parent, speaking to the Daily Mirror on behalf of that group, claimed that the coach was ‘excellent’ and that results at national tournaments this year alone spoke to that point, and attributed the drop in numbers to the continued uncertainty caused by the SLTA’S repeated attempts to end the programme.
The parents claim that a fair number of Pietersz’s current students have performed well at national ranking tournaments, demonstrating the calibre of his coaching.
Amongst the players coached by Pietersz, they also claimed, is a member of the Junior Federation Cup team, a reservist for the World Tennis Juniors and currently five trialists for the ITF Under 12 tournament in Nepal.
“We (the group of parents) are willing to even pay 25 per cent more of the fees, so that this programme will be sustained. However the SLTA is determined to end the program, without substantive reasons and without taking into account the willingness of the parents to make further financial contribution to sustain it,” the parent added.