Doubles Partners: South Africa and Israel - a tennis saga of enriching contribution
port is the best bridge,” says Israel Tennis Centers Director of Coaches and Manager of Israel’s Davis Cup team Ronen Morelli, who spent two weeks in March 2014 coaching tennis to children at the Arthur Ash Stadium in Soweto.
Following that “opening set” in South Africa, these same children, together with their coach Moses Nthuping, spent two enriching weeks this January in Israel at the invitation of the ITC, where they not only continued intense training but met and played with Israeli tennis players of the same age. For most of these young South African and Israelis, it was their first exposure on tennis courts to players from outside their country.
“I fell in love with these Sowetan kids from the moment the balls were skimming over the net,” says Morelli, who has coached some of Israel’s finest players, including Grand Slam doubles title winner Andy Ram when he was in his early teens.
What this recent exchange reflects is a long enriching tennis relationship between South Africa and Israel.
“South Africans have made a huge contribution to tennis in Israel,” says Danny Gelley, the CEO of the ITC. “Now we in Israel are proud to contribute to the development of tennis in South Africa, particularly to the less advantaged.”
The value of this exchange was well expressed by the president of the South African Tennis Association, Bongani Zondi, who said: “These kids in Soweto come from poor families and we need all the professional help we can get. There is the bigger picture here of taking our kids off the streets and offering them meaningful and inspirational alternatives and this is where the Israel Tennis Centers come in. They are experts in this field and we want to learn from their rich experience.”
Underlying this project in South Africa – as it was in Israel’s early years – is the desire to ensure that youngsters from disadvantaged neighborhoods appear on today’s tennis courts rather than in tomorrow’s criminal courts.
“My name being Moses,” said Nthuping, Soweto’s top coach in Israel. “I feel like I have come home.”
Actually, he achieved more than his biblical namesake, who never made it into “the Promised Land.” Now Nthuping’s dream is that these players “make it into South Africa’s Davis Cup team and play in top rank ATP tournaments.”
And if that happens, Israel will be proud of its part in making dreams come true.
When it comes to contribution to tennis in Israel, South Africans have been amongst the “top seeds.”
While the Gelley’s wife, Janine, is originally from Johannesburg and his predecessor as CEO was Janine Strauss, who hailed from Durban, the South African who most contributed to tennis in Israel was Dr. Ian Froman, who would later receive Israel’s most prestigious civilian award – the Israel Prize.
Representing South Africa at the 1963 Maccabiah Games in tennis – having competed in the men’s singles at Wimbledon in 1955 – Froman, a young graduate in dentistry, fell in love with Israel and made the decision to make aliya.
After arriving in Israel with his wife, Ruth, Froman “thought I would slot into the local game, only to discover [Israeli] tennis in those days was something out of the Jurassic age. I used to run around like a madman just to find a place to train. There were no facilities and we often used to furtively sneak onto private courts to practice.” ONLY ONE of two South Africans to ever receive Israel’s most prestigious civilian award, Dr. Ian Froman (right) – one of six founding members of Israel Tennis Centers – receives the Israel Prize in 1989 from president Chaim Herzog.
Apart from private courts, pretty much all of the tennis playing in Israel was taking place by tourists at beach hotels.
This motivated Froman, who together with Freddie Krivine, Joseph Shane, Harold Landesberg, Rubin Josephs and Dr. William H. Lippy, began fund-raising to launch tennis as a sport in Israel by building a national tennis center.
This was achieved on an old strawberry patch in Ramat Hasharon, donated to the ITC by the state, and on April 25, 1976, Leah Rabin, wife of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, cut the ribbon to the center, and 250 children immediately signed up to participate.
The Israel Tennis Centers, under Froman’s direction, grew over the years from strength to strength, as tennis centers opened up from Kiryat Shmona in the North to Beersheba in the South.
It was little wonder that this chapter in the history of tennis in Israel is referred to as the “Froman revolution.”
In 1989, Froman received the Israel Price, the country’s most prestigious civilian award.
“Tennis should not be an elitist game and we set out from the beginning to make it accessible to kids from outlaying areas,” asserts Froman. “We included children from all backgrounds and religion, providing them with a lifetime sport in an educational environment.”
The ITC has proved an enriching sporting mechanism where Jews and Arabs can meet and play from a young age and foster better understanding.
Recognizing the immense contribution beyond sport, president Chaim Hertzog said in presenting the prize to Froman: “You have created a virtual social revolution throughout Israel.”
Apart from being one of the largest social service organizations for children in Israel and the largest tennis program for children in the world, the ITC has over the years produced outstanding players who have made their mark on the most prestigious courts around the world.
While its graduates have included greats like Sholmo Glickstein, Amos Mansdorf and more recently Dudi Sela, all top-30 ranked players at one point, it was the double players of Andy Ram and Yoni Erlich who made history for Israel by winning Grand Slam titles.
In 2006, Ram became the first Israeli tennis player to win a major when he captured the mixed doubles title at Wimbledon with his Russian partner, Vera Zvonareva. Then in 2008, with Erlich, the duo became the first Israeli doubles tennis team to win a Grand Slam title in winning the Australian Open in Melbourne.
While most Israeli fans know that the highest rank Israeli tennis player of all time has been in women’s tennis, with Shahar Pe’er being ranked world No. 11 in 2011, few know of her South African roots.
Pe’er’s father, Dovik, hails from Germiston in the former Transvaal, moving to Israel in 1961.
During January’s visit of the young Sowetan youngsters to Israel, workshops with their Israeli peers were held at a number of the ITC facilities offering the opportunity to meet Israelis from different parts of the country.
“We train much harder here than in Soweto,” said 14-year-old Jansmith Moseng.
If his dream before arriving in Israel was to be No. 1 in South Africa, now it is to be No. 1 in the world.
Asked what the best advice has been, Moseng replied without hesitation: “I must be positive every time I step on the court.”
Israeli Ambassador to South Africa Arthur Lenk is extremely excited about the project.
“We’re talking about Israeli coaches coming to South Africa and young South African players going to Israel. Imagine if in the future if we can get the top team players from Israel to practice and train together with South African players – either in Soweto or in Israel – I don’t know, maybe we can nurture the next Serena Williams or Shahar Pe’er!”
Just as the ITC – which has helped over 400,000 children in its 14 centers since being established in 1976 – was primarily created in developing areas for youngsters from underprivileged neighborhoods, tennis in South Africa today is working hard to shed the image of being reserved for the once privileged white community. There is much that the two countries can contribute to each other in tennis. At present the off-court running score between the two countries is “love all.”
(Soul Sport)