Iqbal bin Issack (President of the Sri Lanka Tennis Association)
In terms of talent we have very good players with a lot of potential. The thing is that the number of players is lacking. In every age group we have three or four players and not many other players competing at that level. There are very good players at the top and then there is a very big gap between them and the other players in the division. So the number of players playing the game can be better compared with other countries.
I have been part of the Davis Cup team since 2010 and since then it’s been me, Rajeev (Rajapakse) and Harshana (Godamanne). When I first got into the team I was not a playing member but I was able to work myself upwards and contribute to the Davis Cup team by winning my matches. So we are moving to a point where there is a contribution from all the players rather than depending entirely on Harshana because it’s a team event although we play individually, so everyone has to contribute. So I feel gradually we are beginning to do this.
For a country like Sri Lanka, the main challenge for a player is the financial burden since the competition level in the country is not upto the mark, There are very few players and they know each other’s game in and out so when they keep playing each other sometimes they know exactly what to do. So just to get competition we need to go out of the country and going out of the country is always expensive. And because of that I believe that finance is one major drawback in the game. And again I believe proper programmes to make professional players need to be created. I am not saying we don’t have them or that these ones are not good but they can be better, especially compared with the programmes of other countries I have been to. But I think that our coaches will eventually bring us to that mark. I also think we need more tournaments. I play maybe a maximum of like eight tournaments a year, which is very low compared to other countries. Some other countries, they play tournaments every week so that’s like 50 tournaments a year. So the number of tournaments can be increased for sure. To do so we need to increase the number of players playing. This will happen automatically when we increase the number of tournaments we have.
With regards to international experience, circuit-wise we have the junior circuit and the professional circuit. Sri Lanka is only conducting two junior circuit events for the whole year and no professional circuit events at all. If you take India, it has about 15 to 20 professional circuit tournaments and about 20 junior circuit tournaments every year so the players in India don’t have to travel the world because locally they have all these tournaments. Since the SLTA has facilities, like enough courts, I think they should bring at least three professional circuit tournaments a year so that the local players will benefit and they don’t have to travel outside the country to take part in these tournaments.
I recommend whoever who is doing well in the junior circuit to try the senior circuit for two or three years, because one breakthrough here or there will take you to another level. So three years together with your studies to keep trying the senior circuit and if you breakthrough you can have a good way up the rankings and when you go up the rankings you may start to get a life off tennis.
Where tennis in general and development matters are concerned we are doing quite well. Our players are also doing fairly well and playing good tennis. We have been in the Davis Cup Division Two for the last three years consecutively. This year we are playing with the Philippines, one of the best teams, and we feel we have a 50-50 chance of winning this time so we are going all out to see what could be done with the coaching and the training and our boys are going to Thailand for two weeks’ training with one of our coaches. And then they are coming back on the 18th and then they will go through another two weeks’ training. So all preparations are being done and if luck is on our side we might even have a chance of reaching Division One. Already selection has been done; we had some trial matches and most of our players have being playing abroad.
We have a lot of development programmes in the country right now, in Jaffna and Batticaloa, Ratnapura, Kurunegala, Negombo, Bandarawela, Nuwara Eliya. So like that we have a lot of training programmes right around the island and hopefully we are looking to start in Anuradhapura and Puttalam very soon. We had the Under 10s tournament and we had over 800 students taking part all from the outstations. We have courts and clubs in those areas which are being used for development. We also have a development officer who goes and talks to the schools and gets them to come and play tennis. So the game at the grassroots level is progressing. When they reach a certain standard what happens is we do sponsorship for all the children who have reached this standard. Sometimes racquets are being given to them, balls and even the clothing to a certain extent when some of these players have been sponsored, all those things are provided. And we are starting a new system where all the first-ranked players in each group will be sponsored by one person, a company or something like that, so based on that we have done quite well. Sometime back people used to say that tennis was a rich man’s sport but today our number one, number two and number three are all poor kids and doing well, taking part in lots of tournaments outside of the country. We also have our coaching programmes going on here and a lot of development happening at the association itself. We have just finished three hard courts and that has cost us about 8odd million. So considering all those developments, without funds, I would say that we are doing quite well.
The problems we face are first and foremost related to our financing. We need more sponsorship. But little by little things are changing. We had lot of problems with the municipality and we are sorting out all those things. Then we had a nice restaurant put up here because now if anyone comes here, being the national body, we can entertain them. So there are a lot of developments happening here.
For this year we have 25 tournaments, out of which 16 are ranking tournaments, 8 international tournaments, 3 wheelchair tournaments and we have 80 to 90 foreigners taking part in the junior international tournaments so it’s a full calendar. We are finding it difficult to have more tournaments because it is jam-packed.