Tennis NZ baffled by Venus snub at Halbergs
Tennis New Zealand hasn’t hidden its disappointment at Michael Venus missing out on being a finalist for the Halberg Awards.
The 30-year-old Venus had an incredible 2017, winning the French Open doubles title with American Ryan Harrison, getting to No 12 in the world rankings and reaching the prestigious ATP World Tour finals in London, where he got to the semifinals.
He was also a finalist in the mixed doubles at the US Open and won an ATP tournament in Portugal.
But according to Thursday’s announcement, the judges determined that Brendon Hartley, Beauden Barrett, Ross Taylor and Tom Walsh all had better years.
Tennis NZ high performance director Simon Rea said he was baffled at Venus’ omission.
‘‘I don’t want to speak for Michael and I haven’t been able to catch up with him, but I know he was immensely looking forward to being a part of the night itself,’’
Rea said. ‘‘I would imagine he’d be shattered and disappointed and we’d be disappointed for him.
‘‘There are a high calibre of finalists that have been announced, but we’re disappointed that Michael wasn’t one of the finalists.’’
There are 2000 men’s tennis players with a world ranking and many thousands underneath them.
It’s always difficult to compare success across different codes, but tennis is one of the few truly global
sports in the world.
‘‘You can have the debate about doubles versus singles,’’ Rea said.
‘‘But Mike’s performances at grand slam level, in terms of being New Zealand’s first grand slam champion in 38 years, then being cemented as one of the top 10 doubles pairings in the world over the course of 2017 and finishing with a semifinals run at the yearend world championships, I reckon that’s a hell of a year.
‘‘It’s hard for me to be objective, because I’m a big fan of Mike and he’s made of the right stuff.
‘‘He’s had a year that’s been richly deserving and been a long time in the making. It would have been nice from our perspective for him to be rewarded as such.’’
As well as Venus snubbed for the Halberg Awards, tennis is the only high profile sport that doesn’t get any funding from High Performance Sport NZ.
So is there a pattern here? ‘‘It’s a fair question and once that needs to be posed to the guys at HPSNZ,’’ Rea said. ‘‘All we can do is continue to support our guys, knocking on the door of truly elite levels in our sport.
‘‘Sure, we’d like to be doing better on the singles front than what we’re doing, but it’s undeniable that the guys are achieving at a really high level on the doubles stage.
‘‘We’re proud of them and they should be proud of themselves. Mike in particular, had a career year in 2017 and the recognition would have been richly deserved.’’
● After cleaning up at the New Zealand Rugby Awards, the world champion Black Ferns are represented in three finals.
Black Ferns players Sarah Goss and Portia Woodman make up half the finalists in the sportswoman category, alongside world champion canoe racer Lisa Carrington and golfer Lydia Ko. White Ferns cricketer Amy Satterthwaite and footballer Ali Riley were among those to miss out.
Black Ferns coach Glenn Moore joins softball world champion Mark Sorenson, Carrington’s coach Gordon Walker and rowing’s Gary Hay in the coach of the year finalists.
Among the unlucky ones to miss out in a tough category were Dale Stevenson, coach of South Canterbury’s world shot put champion Tom Walsh, and Anthony Peden, coach of the world champion sprint cycling team.
Team of the year pits the Black Ferns against America’s Cup winners Team New Zealand, the Black Sox softballers and world champion K2 team of Carrington and Caitlin Ryan.
There was no room for motorsport world endurance champions Brendon Hartley and Earl Bamber, the men’s cycling world champion sprint team of Eddie Dawkins, Sam Webster and Ethan Mitchell, and three world champion rowing crews.
Hartley, after breaking into the Formula One ranks, made the sportsman finals alongside Walsh, world men’s rugby player of the year Beauden Barrett and Black Caps batsman Ross Taylor.
All Whites striker Chris Wood and grand tour cyclist George Bennett were also among those to miss the final cut.