Woodie is still having a ball
Todd Woodbridge, the one half of Australia’s famous “Woodies” doubles act (the other was Mark Woodforde), now works for Tennis Australia. caught up with him at TA’s headquarters in Melbourne recently
After falling off the pace Australia has six players in the ATP’s top 100; how have they done it and what lessons can South Africa learn from that? It’s being prepared to set some ground rules for your development programme, a blueprint you can stick to so that young kids coming along can see a pathway. Ten-yearold kids need to know how they’re going to move from their district programme to the Davis Cup or Fed Cup teams.
The other key area of focus is places to play. Places I’ve been to like Ellis Park and Durban are a lot like what happened here. They are big, thriving clubs with many courts that have begun to get run down. We’ve approached a lot of councils and communities to invest with them to get the facilities back up again because then you’ve got places where kids can play, tournaments can be played and people come back to the game. As a fan of Davis Cup tennis, what do you make of Kevin Anderson’s reluctance to play for South Africa? I can sympathise with Kevin in that I think he’s certainly not intending to offend anyone in South Africa.
It’s a competition that costs most countries money. They lose the money and the players lose money, too. I actually see it as a bigger problem for the International Tennis Federation to make sure that the competition remains relevant. Speaking of Anderson, he has dragged himself to his highest ever ranking this year (16th); what are your thoughts on his game? He’s one of the great workers of the tour. From this current era of players he’s probably the one player who’s got the utmost out of his game. Obviously he’s got the advantage of a huge serve with his height, but he’s so disciplined and dedicated.
His decision not to play Davis Cup is to put everything into getting (ranked) as high as he possibly can. Other than the top four, he’s the guy I’d say has achieved just about everything he could. Where do you stand on the greatest player of all time debate with regards to Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal? I was fortunate to play across a few eras; I played (John) McEnroe in doubles, I played (Ivan) Lendl and (Jimmy) Connors in singles and I played the (Jim) Couriers and (Pete) Samprases. I never played Roger and Rafa in singles, I played them both in doubles. Roger for me is the best player.
His record against Rafa is debatable but his longevity has been better than Rafa’s in terms of injuries and maintaining his body because of the smooth silkiness of his play and his movement. If Rafa wasn’t there he would have won four or five French Opens. Ifs and buts don’t count, but he would have because he’s a fine clay court player.
They’re very hard to separate, but the reason it goes to Roger for me from a personal perspective is because he’s the more classical player like myself who loves grass. If I could choose the colour of a court, it would be green. Who poses the biggest threat to the so-called Big Four from the coming men on tour?
Over the past 12 to 18 months the one guy I feel has made a decision to be as good as he can is (Grigor) Dimitrov. Working with (Australian) Roger Rasheed has instilled a totally different discipline and focus and I think he’s certainly got the potential to get there.
[But] I don’t see a player there who’s going to dominate — it’s an open season coming along.
Those guys have still got so much to prove, like can they actually handle the stresses and the pressures of expectations of being No 1, of playing well every week, turning up to slams, coping with the body . . . If the Big Four could do it, why can’t the next crop? The most interesting part about watching sport, particularly young sports people, is that talent is a word thrown around easily. Tennis, particularly, is such a whole-package game — it’s not just having great hands and great stroke production.
It’s what you do mentally. It’s how you handle stress and pressure, dealing with press day in and day out, dealing with sponsor commitments, with parents, with girlfriends, and all the life changes that happen almost in front of a camera. Not everybody’s able to handle that. What exactly do you do at Tennis Australia? I spent four years working on our high-performance programmes for Tennis Australia from the age of 16 right through to the Davis Cup and Fed Cup teams.
The last 12 months I have been working with our media and communications team where I’ve been promoting tennis and all aspects of the game. So I work across the gamut of the game, which for me has been fascinating because I love the game and now I’ve got this opportunity to see how it’s all put together.
The other thing I do is commentate for six weeks a year as the lead commentator here in Australia for the summer of tennis and for Wimbledon. And the family life? I have two kids, my daughter Zara (13) and my son Beau (12). Both aren’t into tennis at all. My son said to my wife (Natasha, the sister of former Australian tennis player Nicole Bradtke): ‘Mom, I don’t want to play tennis. That’s dad’s thing, and I don’t want to do dad’s thing’.
So he’s gone into music, the arts and theatre. My daughter’s picked up the golf bug. People ask why I didn’t put my kids into tennis and my answer is “I wasn’t put into tennis”.
Xabanisa was in Australia courtesy of the Australian High Commission.