I 

Got 

Into 

Tennis 

Photography 

by Pure Chance

An interview with Ray Giubilo 

As I make my way through the leafy suburbs of Wimbledon, approaching the meeting point at the Tennis Gallery, I spot Ray crouched in front of the entrance. He’s taking a photo of a small dog. Phone in hand, he’s twisting around to find the perfect angle. “He’s peering inside the shop. Look at how curious he is,” Ray says pointing at the dog as he notices me. “I think this is going to be a nice photo.”

When Ray Giubilo stands up, he unfolds his 6 ft, broad-shouldered frame, and as his amiable, Buddha-like face draws level with mine, it breaks open into a warm smile. We bump elbows and start down the road towards one of the many coffee shops that populate this quiet area of Wimbledon. It’s the middle Sunday of the Championships, a break day, his last one as far as Ray is concerned. Next year, the tournament plans to move away from its long-standing tradition of a day off, and Ray has agreed to spend this afternoon talking to me about his life on the tennis tour as a professional photographer. He’s dressed in casual tones, wearing thin-rimmed glasses, a faded-navy safari jacket, and blue jeans. The sky, ominous and cloudy, and threatening rain all morning, suddenly opens up and lashes us with a warm, summery drizzle. Ray opens his umbrella and invites me under. I ask about the dog photo and Ray offers me an impromptu lesson in photography. “You know,” he says in a raspy yet friendly voice, “To take a perfect photo you need the perfect light, the perfect exposure, and the perfect subject. But the perfect photo could also happen unexpectedly.” He takes out his phone and starts scrolling through the vast library of photos, finally stopping at one of a butterfly hovering around Rafa Nadal mid-play. “This is a great one I took. He was about to serve and got hypnotised by the butterfly.” Ray’s tone switches from that of a professor lecturing students to a veteran recounting his adventures. “I took a great photo of Venus Williams once. It was on film, so I wasn’t sure at the time. I was with two friends and I said to them, ‘I think I’ve got a great picture. I think.’ I didn’t know until the next day. I was lucky.”

“There is one that I particularly love, one of the first good photos I took. It was Sampras at Wimbledon centre court in 1996, and it became this famous photo because Wilson used it for advertising. It became iconic,” he pauses for a moment, then a big smile lights up his face. “But my favourite is the Venus Williams one.” We take a table away from the noise and Ray orders an espresso macchiato. When it arrives, he inspects the cup with the eye of a connoisseur. “When I travel for work, I always bring my own coffee maker. You know, the old type where you put the water, the coffee, and the filter. I bring my own tin of coffee, too,” he says, taking a sip. Ray Giubilo is a born raconteur. Being a photographer, it is safe to assume that he subscribes to the adage that a picture is worth a thousand words. And it probably is, but he won’t risk it. “I always take my coffee with me. That and my music,” he continues. “I listen to a lot of music – blues, jazz, jazz fusion, progressive – mostly from the 60s and 70s. Over the years, I saw a lot of concerts. I still do. I saw Roger Waters in Paris, during the Us+Them tour, which was very good and very political. Very strong against the Trump administration. And then in Hyde Park, I saw, on the same day, Steve Winwood, Carlos Santana, Eric Clapton, and Gary Clark Jr.,” he says with pride.

Ray Giubilo’s work as a tennis photographer means he is always on the move. The pages in his passport are crammed with stamps: over 100 Grand Slam tournaments, a myriad ATP and WTA events, Davis Cup and Fed Cup ties, four Olympics – in total over 300 events, 14 to 16 tennis tournaments a year. His first camera was a gift for First Communion. “It was this tiny thing and I couldn’t believe that it could take photographs,” he recalls with a smile. “That was my first experience with photography. Later, when I was studying, I took photography as one of the elective subjects, and that’s how I started.” Ray takes another sip of coffee and settles into a slow, measured tone of a storyteller. “I got into tennis photography by pure chance. I used to do fashion photography, and it was really tough because in Australia, in the mid-80s, there was a boom in fashion photography. A lot of locals started getting into fashion, and other photographers, young ones, started coming from New York and Paris,” he recounts. “They were much more experienced and had a list of contacts in magazines that they were using for work,” Ray continues. “So, it was very hard to get into that kind of photography because there were very few magazines and lots of photographers. But I still learned a lot.” To say that Ray’s eyes grow vacant as he navigates the foggy past of his memory would make for a decent line but it would also be a lie. When he tells his story, Ray is alert and lively. His teeth often flash in a grin and he accentuates his narrative with frequent bursts of laughter.

“My family moved to Italy when I was 7 years old but I was born in Australia. When we moved, I suddenly found myself in a country with a completely different culture and a different way of thinking,” he continues. “When I was 20 years old, I travelled to England to study. I wanted to learn the language. I studied marketing for two years in Essex before moving back to Italy and finishing it there. After that, I decided to go to Australia. But before I did, in 1981, I went to visit a good friend of mine who worked for Sergio Tacchini. I was planning to stay with him for a few days. One evening, when I was visiting him at the office, Sergio Tacchini gave us a lift,” Ray says. “So, I’m in his car, and he makes small talk. ‘What do you do?’ he asks me, and I go, ‘Well, I’m moving to Australia soon, but I don’t know what I’m going to do. I don’t have a job there, but I’ll find something,’” he remembers. “Then, he asks me, ‘What have you studied?’ and I tell him, ‘Marketing,’ and so he says, ‘How about if I give you two suitcases of sports clothes, and you try to see if you can start a market for me there.’ We organised all that, and I went to Australia. When I arrived in Sydney, I went for a walk through the city centre, and had a look at all the sports stores and department stores to see if they were selling any tennis clothes. There was a little bit of local stock, but nothing international. I looked up who was distributing what, scheduled some calls, and after about a month, I found somebody willing to be the importer. In the end, we managed to get 100 shops selling Sergio Tacchini clothes in Australia,” Ray says. 

“As I was selling clothes, another friend of mine started the Sergio Tacchini magazine. He was a lawyer and a journalist, and he started putting the magazine together three to four times a year. He was also writing for Matchball which, at the time, was the best tennis magazine in Italy. In 1989, my friend said to me, ‘I’m coming to the Australian Open for the Matchball magazine. Do you want to come with me?’ And I thought, ‘Okay, but how do I get in?’ I was already working as a fashion photographer and working for Sergio Tacchini at the same time. ‘I’ll get you an accreditation,’ he said. We drove to Melbourne from Sydney, and it was a long trip. We blew the head gasket halfway and had to put the car in the garage, but we managed to get to Melbourne. We got to the tournament, and I started shooting photos for the magazine, but I had no idea what the rules are and what I’m supposed to do. So, I would observe the other photographers and what they were doing. In the end, I managed to get more than 100 photos published. And I thought, ‘Wow, this is great. This is what I want to be doing.’”

“From 1989 to 1994, I was photographing the Australian tournaments during the summer season. I’d done the Sydney Open, the Davis Cup, and the Fed Cup. Through that, I’d met a lot of the local greats like Ken Rosewall, John Alexander, John Newcombe, Lew Hoad, Kim Warwick, and such. In between tournaments, they would call and ask me to photograph corporate days that they were involved in. These were usually held at the White City in Sydney, the famous tennis club. You’d have executives from different companies, and all these coaches who were people such as John Alexander, Lesley Turner Bowrey, Kim Warwick, and Helena Anliot,” Ray says with a smile. “Remember her? A blonde girl. She was top-20 – Borg’s first girlfriend.” A mischievous grin appears on Ray’s face as he recalls a particular memory. “I’d get introduced as ‘Ray Giubilo, one of the world’s greatest tennis photographers’ and everyone was immediately impressed,” he laughs. “In the morning I’d take pictures of their lessons and drills, and at lunchtime, I’d go to the lab to develop the photos. In the afternoon, they’d play a tournament, and again, I’d take a motherlode of photos. Then back to the lab to develop them in time for the charity gala in the evening where I’d donate the photos. There would be an auction, and some of my photos would go for $5000. And I thought, ‘Wow’. I wouldn’t get the money, but that showed me the value of my work.”

“I’d decided that I needed to focus on photography full time so I told Sergio Tacchini that I’m done with the clothes because I wanted to be taking photos. And he said, ‘Okay, the clothes are selling. How about if you take photos for us?’ And I said, ‘Wow, that is great. I’d love to.’ And he said, ‘Okay, so you would have to move to Italy, and you would need to be here in time for the French Open. We will give you two weeks to think about it.’ I said, ‘You don’t understand. I’m doing it.’ I got rid of everything in Australia. I sold the house, got everything sorted, caught a plane over to Italy and started doing the tournaments for Sergio Tacchini. Eventually, Sergio sold the business to a Chinese company and I moved on to begin a new adventure with FILA. They have always been my favourite tennis brand, and we’ve been working together since – over 27 years.

The conversation turns to tennis and, inevitably, to Wimbledon. As an accredited photographer, Ray has a first-row view of some of the best tennis in the world. I ask him about his personal favourites. “For me, Roger Federer will always be number one. I don’t think he’ll go too far here because Sonego will give him a good run [in fact, Federer would ease past Sonego without much trouble, but then suffer his worst Wimbledon defeat at the hands of 14th seed, Hubert Hurkacz]. And I saw yesterday [against Cameron Norrie] that after four steady backhands, he would mishit the fifth one. So he doesn’t have that confidence, probably, or maybe it’s even physical,” Ray says, and as he finishes the sentence, his eyes light up, and I know he has another anecdote for me. “One of the four photography books I wrote is about Federer, ‘Roger Federer, Il N.1 di Sempre’ (Roger Federer, Number One Forever),” Ray tells me. “And I met him when he was a junior. He was in Miami playing the junior tournaments, and he came into the press room where I was waiting for somebody else, so we were the only ones there. And so, this kid arrives – and I saw him lose in New York to David Nalbandian (US Open Boy’s Singles, 1998), the first time I saw him – so he walks in and he has bleached hair and a lot of pimples. He’s wearing a hat,” Ray recalls with a big grin on his face. “I took one picture of him and asked, ‘Can you take off your hat?’ and he goes, ‘Nah uh’. ‘Come on, just one picture.’ So, he takes off his hat, and I took a picture of him with pimples and bleached hair. It’s in the book,” Ray says beaming. “After that, he started to recognise my face slowly. I was there when he won his first ATP Finals in Houston. We were boarding the same plane, and I said to him, ‘You know, one thing I would like in the whole world is to have your backhand. How do you do it?’ And he looked at me very seriously, he thought about it, and said ’How do I do it? Well, I take the racquet back like this,’ and he started explaining it to me!” Ray laughs. “He had to think about it because it’s all so natural to him. He’s a fantastic player. I thought he would have retired after the 2012 Olympics. I was sure. But he didn’t. He started winning again, and went on to win two more Australian Open trophies. We had to revise the book and add another chapter,” Ray laughs.

We step out back onto the street. The rain has stopped, and we start along the wet pavement towards the Underground station. Tomorrow, Ray will be back on the grounds of Wimbledon to cover the so-called Manic Monday – the entire fourth round of both men’s and women’s draw in one day, a knock-on effect of the middle-Sunday – for the last time. Ray Giubilo has been photographing tennis players for over 30 years. A few years ago, he purchased a photo archive from one of his mentors, Angelo Tonelli. His combined collection now contains over a million photos from hundreds of different events. “I have drawers full of hard drives. I don’t even know what’s in there,” he admits. For Ray, photography is more art than craft. When he talks about it, he talks about passion. And yet, his interests are far more encompassing. Throughout his life, he has sought beauty on both sides of the lens – he is an avid music fan, enjoys soccer, plays tennis with his trusty Volkl racquet, and rides a motorcycle. 

Before we say our goodbyes, I ask Ray about his plans. “After Wimbledon, I’m going to cover the Olympics in Tokyo. Then the US Open and the Laver Cup in Boston. I’d do the Masters in Cincinnati but the timing isn’t right – it won’t work with the quarantine,” says Ray. “But that’s in the future. Now, I’m heading to the Victoria and Albert Museum. They have an exhibition with the world’s oldest carpet – the Ardabil Carpet. Did you know that?” 

 

Story published in Courts no. 2, autumn 2021.

QUIZ GILLES SIMON

Serendipity

The whole thrill of the ride is how slowly it starts.

 

When Leylah Fernandez entered this year’s US Open, 19-years-old and ranked 73 in the world, few tennis fanatics were paying attention. But as the tournament went on, heads turned, and butts moved closer to the edge of the seat. Naomi Osaka, Angelique Kerber, Elina Svitolina, Aryna Sabalenka – over the course of the fortnight, the WTA heavyweights came wearing the mantle of favourites only to leave vanquished at the hands of the talented teenager. Fernandez’s dream run eventually ended in the final against equally talented Emma Raducanu (and an arguably bigger Cinderella story), but the young Canadian’s stock nevertheless continues to rise. 

As Leylah Fernandez continues her impressive season, with each performance a cry of belonging, one man is not surprised. 

“From the start, I saw that she could be a very special player,” says Francisco Sanchez. “Here, in Canada, not many people believed in her – it’s all about height and power – and she was a small lefty. But I come from Europe,” he smiles. 

For the fans of chaos theory, the butterfly of Leylah’s story flapped its wings in December 2012. Francisco Sanchez’s move from his hometown of Brussels to Montreal, set in motion a chain of events that could very well have put Leylah Fernandez on the road to stardom. “I was born in Brussels, but my parents are from Spain, so I speak both languages,” Francisco Sanchez explains. “After my junior playing career, I started coaching at a young age – I must have been about 18-years-old. I coached at clubs in Brussels, and I also knew Justine Henin’s coach very well, so, from time to time, I worked as her sparring partner.” 

Years later, when Sanchez and his fiancé had been looking for a change of scenery, they decided to move to Canada. “The first person I met when I arrived in Montreal was Jorge Fernandez, Leylah’s father,” Francisco Sanchez recalls. “I had just arrived from Brussels and, by instinct, went for a walk to the nearest tennis club. I even remember the date – it was the 3rd January 2013.”

On the courts of the National Tennis Centre, Sanchez’s attention was drawn to a burly South American man coaching a young girl. He could hear snippets of a familiar language and stopped to watch. “I could see that he didn’t know a lot about tennis [coaching], but he showed a lot of passion,” Sanchez says. The men started talking and hit it off quickly, their love for tennis and shared language a bonding factor. Jorge Fernandez introduced Sanchez to his daughter, Bianca, and after a short conversation, mentioned that he also has an older daughter, Leylah, who was practising a few courts over. He asked Sanchez for his professional opinion. 

“From the very first sight, Leylah reminded me of Justine [Henin] – small stature, good hands, determination, and very courageous,” Francisco Sanchez recalls with a smile. “She was so keen, always early for practice. You didn’t have to prod her to collect the tennis balls, either. It was crazy. You’d tell her to drop down and do 35 push-ups, and she’ll go, ‘Ok, Ok’.”

Both men agreed that Leylah had the potential to become a very good player – the words ’number one’ hanging in the air like a mirage. Jorge Fernandez was looking for a Spanish speaking coach for Leylah. Francisco Sanchez, freshly arrived in Montreal, was looking for something to do. As the men spoke, the shuffling of the stars could almost be heard above their heads. There was only one problem – Sanchez was in Canada on a 6-month visitor’s visa which he would then have to renew. This made the longevity of the agreement uncertain. Not only that, but being ‘a tourist’, Sanchez was not technically allowed to work. The pair agreed to trial the partnership on a 6-month basis, with Sanchez working for free while he tried to sort out his legal status. What started as a simple favour turned into a six-year-long partnership. 

Sanchez became Leylah Fernandez’s full-time coach. Spending long hours on the court for six days a week, the two grew very close. Although Leylah was training at the National Tennis Centre in Montreal, she wasn’t part of Tennis Canada’s junior programme which meant that securing sponsorship proved challenging. Money being tight, Sanchez served as both the girl’s coach and a sparring partner. 

“Jorge didn’t want to go to Tennis Canada. He didn’t like the way they trained,” Sanchez says. “At the time, in Canada, training was all about power. A lot of [feeding from] baskets. We did none of that. We played from the baseline, from inside the court, taking the ball on early. We practised a lot of volleys, slices, dropshots even – a lot of angles. Jorge loved it, but people told us that we were crazy,” Sanchez laughs. 

“The progress was fast,” he says. “We had no money for sparring partners, so I hit with her myself. It was easy, she soaked up every little bit of information. From the start, I explained to Jorge the way I wanted to teach Leylah play – the way I thought she should play.”

Despite the guidance of a committed coach, Leylah Fernandez’s young career followed a serpentine path, having to dodge one obstacle after another. Most of them were caused by the lack of funds. As any parent of an aspiring tennis star will know, the price of raising a professional player quickly spirals into hundreds of thousands of dollars. Jorge Fernandez had two on his hands. Even with a coach who worked pro bono, the cost of travel, accommodation, equipment, and the myriad  tiny cogs that go into the machinery of a player, put him under a heavy strain. In fact, there were times when Jorge Fernandez was close to giving up. 

“In Europe, you have a lot of tournaments and a lot of clubs,” Francisco Sanchez says of their struggles. “In Canada, it’s not that easy to play tennis. The summers are fine because you can play in parks. But during winter, we only had the National Tennis Centre, and they were not giving us many hours on court. Initially, when Leylah was 12-years-old, we were only given two hours a week.” The alternative was a private club, the cost of which Sanchez estimates to be around $60,000 a year. “It’s just not something that we could afford to do,” he says. 

Looking after his young charge, Francisco Sanchez fought many battles with a friend of his, Louis Borfiga, who served as the vice president of Tennis Canada. “Over time, we started getting more court time. From one hour a week to two, then four, then six, and so on.” 

Louis Borfiga is a retired player and coach who, during his time at the Monte-Carlo Country Club, worked as a sparring partner for Björn Borg. After ending his playing career, he joined the French Tennis Federation as a performance coach and had a pivotal role in the rise of many of today’s stars such as Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Gaël Monfils, Gilles Simon, and Nicolas Mahut. After coming to Canada in 2006, he joined the National Tennis Centre in Montreal as the Vice President of High Performance and established an elite tennis programme for young athletes. Over the next 15 years, he had a hand in the development of some of Canada’s brightest tennis stars – he overlooked the progress of the country’s first wave of talent in Milos Raonic, Eugénie Bouchard, and Rebecca Marino, as well as their more recent products, Félix Auger-Aliassime and Bianca Andreescu. 

“It’s interesting. During our time at the National Tennis Centre, we saw Félix everyday training on a court next to us,” Francisco says. “Very humble guy. His hard work and attitude were a huge inspiration.” Although Leylah had the federation’s curiosity from a very young age, it wasn’t until she turned 15 that she had their attention. “Tennis Canada liked Leylah,” Sanchez explains. “They always believed she could be a good player, but they didn’t think she could be a great one. They wanted her to play in a particular style that Jorge disagreed with.” 

The breakthrough came in 2018. Leylah Fernandez was finally enjoying a good season – years of hard work started to pay off, uncovering glimpses of the fierce player she is today. “She made the semi-finals of the Junior Roland Garros,” Francisco Sanchez remembers. “She lost to Coco Gauff. It was a good match. That’s when Tennis Canada realised, ‘Okay, there is something special here.’”

A few months later, Jorge Fernandez moved his family to Miami. The lifestyle, weather, and tennis facilities on offer make it the perfect training base for many tennis players – it made sense from a career point of view. Francisco Sanchez was offered to move, too, but he couldn’t justify uprooting his two children. And thus, a journey of six years, while not technically over, took on a new chapter. Although no longer working together, Sanchez stayed in touch with Jorge and Leylah. “We grew very close,” he says of their six years together. “We’re like a family.”

In August this year, Jorge Fernandez called on Francisco Sanchez once again. “They needed a coach for the Rogers Cup in August,” Sanchez says. “They asked me to come and train with Leylah. It was good to be back.” 

Less than two weeks later, Leylah Fernandez was holding the runner-up’s plate of the 2021 US Open – an incredible achievement only momentarily soured by the sting of defeat. 

“I was with Leylah at Junior Wimbledon in 2018, and she played Emma [Raducanu] in the round of 32,” Francisco Sanchez remembers. “Leylah lost in the very same fashion. Every match, I always tell her, ‘You are the boss, remember.’” he continues. “Both in that match and in the US Open final, Emma was the boss.” 

But when Leylah Fernandez was carving her way through the US Open’s main draw, Francisco Sanchez watched from his home in Montreal with a deep sense of pride. As she punched through her opponents, one after another, gone was the 10-year-old girl he first met on that cold January day – the young woman before his eyes was bursting with power, guile, and unbreakable spirit. 

Francisco Sanchez’s voice softens when he recalls the time spent on the court with Leylah – the drills, the exercises, the thousands of hours of repetition. None of it had to be forced. “Leylah is crazy about tennis,” Sanchez says. “Absolutely crazy. She remembers every winner of every tournament. She’s also superstitious. If you watch her play, you will notice that her tennis bag is always closed. Always ready to go.”

After the end of the adventure, Francisco Sanchez’s career pivoted in a different direction, but tennis is never far from his thoughts. Asked if he sees himself coaching Leylah again, he responds with a diplomatic smile, “You never know. I’m in real estate now, but I’m still helping Tennis Canada from time to time. I’m always involved in tennis. It’s impossible to stop.” 

 

Story published in Courts no. 2, autumn 2021.

La soustraction des possibles

« Noir c’est noir, il n’y a plus d’espoir »

Premier ressenti de lecture

« Oui gris c’est gris

Et c’est fini, oh, oh,oh,oh »

La musique de Johnny chasse l’écriture

ça me rend fou, 

j’ai cru à ton amour

et je perds tout…

Un mélange de genres surprenant!

 

 

La soustraction des possibles. Du noir polar intense, des arômes de tragédie. Un roman pur et dur signé Joseph Incardona. Prix Relay. Pocket 2021. (7,95€)

 

Très vite, on est dedans. Happés par la fin des années 80, ce second souffle de l’ultralibéralisme où l’argent est roi et coule à flots, quitte à disparaître très vite pour ressusciter intact et à la vue de tous, sous forme de biens et d’objets convoités, propriétés, bijoux, maisons, voitures ou oeuvres d’art… Ce sont les années Thatcher et Reagan, celles de l’argent fou décrié par Alain Minc. Mondialisation heureuse et arnaques en tout genre. Le scénario est helvétique. Genève 1989. 

Aldo Bianchi, trente-huit ans, rital, gigolo et prof de tennis veut jouer dans la cour des grands et ramasser vite fait un paquet d’oseille, quitte à basculer dans l’illégalité. Odile, en proie à la cinquantaine, riche, soumise et humiliée par maître Aldo, est prête à tout sacrifier pour le garder. Elle lui met le pied à l’étrier. Façon de parler. Les dés sont jetés et l’aventure peut commencer. 

Aldo en porte-valises. Les billets se multiplient pour mieux disparaître sans faire de vagues. Un ballet soft, bien orchestré. Tout baigne. Trop vite, trop bien. Le maestro ne voit rien venir. Il déguste vilain sur une aire d’autoroute. En prend plein la gueule. La valse des billets reprend. Sans lui. Cette fois, l’argent part dans les airs, à bord d’un deltaplane orange. Risqué, oui. Mais ingénieux. Sauf qu’il ne faut pas avoir froid aux yeux pour le transporter. 

Svetlana, une jeune louve affamée survient. Pas question de se contenter des restes d’un festin. Trente cinq millions de dollars sont à portée de main. Elle rejoint Aldo dans une quête d’absolu. L’amour, l’argent, le pouvoir. Ou rien.

Prenez du Bonnie and Clyde, ajoutez un peu de Charles Bukowsky, une touche de James Hadley Chase et un soupçon de vérité. Glaçons, shaker, menthe poivrée et citron vert. Agiter avant de servir. A boire avant ou après les repas. Ne favorise pas toujours le sommeil. Déconseillé en cas de troubles hépathiques.

Bonnie and Clyde, la base. Dure à souhait. Tragique, romantique, violente. Une histoire d’amour, d’argent et de plomb.

Bukowsky pour le langage cru, la gueule de bois avant, pendant, et après l’amour. Et puis parce qu’il aime sourire à la lune et pas aux étoiles, surtout quand il est bourré d’écriture, d’alcool et de poésie.

Et Chase, incontournable. Parce que tous ses livres ou presque, commencent bien et se terminent mal à cause d’une femme, à cause de combines foireuses, à force d’en vouloir plus, toujours et encore plus. Plus d’argent, plus d’amour, plus de pouvoir, plus de reconnaissance. Mais terminé les rupins et voyous des années 60 qui peuplent les casinos de Paradise City ou de Miami. Joseph Incardona voyage un peu à Lyon et beaucoup à Genève. Du coup, ses personnages sont des financiers de haut vol, des femmes riches et esseulées, des criminels endurcis, des Albanais, des enfants d’enfoirés de Corses. Des demi pointures, des gigolos, des truands, des redoutables prostituées. Des filles de maquerelle qui manient mieux le couteau que la fourchette. 

Lyon, la France. Province, bourges et gangsters. Délinquants et criminels en tout genre. L’heure est à l’intégration. Pas si sûr. Genève, ville de passage par excellence, haut lieu de la finance en transit. Opulence feutrée et rassurante. Indifférence, neutralité. Banques, chocolats. 

L’écriture est sèche, troublante, actuelle. Très tendance, malgré les sources classiques d’inspiration. Les mots durs, jaillissent comme des frappes. Plates, profondes, en fond de court. La balle d’Aldo, le prof de tennis est bien touchée, centrée dans sa raquette de pro. Le poids est en tête. Elle semble parfois un peu lourde. On respire l’air du temps. La fin de ces années 80. Celle de tous les possibles. On devine celui des années à venir, le début des nouvelles technologies. Une menace pour certains. Sauf qu’on travaille encore en manipulant le flux des devises étrangères. L’ère du Web est à l’horizon. Il faut se dépêcher d’agir. S’enrichir à l’ancienne, version classique, dans l’urgence. Avant que le métier ne change définitivement de mains. Tout le monde ne s’improvise pas, et les reconversions peuvent s’avérer pénibles dans un monde économique en pleine transformation. 

Malveillance, malversation, mal tout court. L’écrivain dénonce. Le système politique et social, le capitalisme dur et pur, ses contraintes, ses contradictions. Le miroir inversé de la richesse. Un miroir aux alouettes. Le leurre est légion. Les pauvres d’un côté, les blindés de l’autre. La dynamique d’une économie moderne n’exige pas forcément des inégalités de patrimoine insupportables. Nul besoin de revendiquer une légitimité pour contester. Ecrire peut suffire, à condition de savoir s’y prendre, où commencer et quand s’arrêter. Incardona sait incontestablement. Il maîtrise lieu, temps et action. Venu d’ailleurs, il surgit au milieu du roman pour interpeller le lecteur et disparaître au profit de l’histoire. Ses fenêtres s’ouvrent et se referment doucement, sans bruit ni volets électriques. Un rythme déconcertant en play off. Les accords se superposent, se plaquent avec violence dans les lumières grises de l’aube. La musique disparaît dans l’obscurité d’un jour nouveau. 

Le sexe catalyseur. Moteur à la fois pudique et trivial chez Incardona. Le levier du désir, l’ivresse des préliminaires, la jouissance brutale, la force et le pouvoir sont au rendez vous. L’orgasme, l’extase. Toute la poésie du banquier. Une évidence, comme l’argent. Mais aussi, surtout, et bienheureusement, l’amour. L’amour rédempteur, l’amour du Grand Pardon, l’amour fou, passionné, celui qui n’arrive qu’une fois dans la vie et que l’on recherche ensuite en vain jusqu’à la mort :“Le sexe est difficile à pratiquer et à écrire, son approche, sa complétude, ses connexions. Mais quand il se fait bien, quand Aldo et Svetlana se regardent dans les yeux tandis que leurs corps s’agitent, se cherchent et se trouvent, quand ils écarquillent leurs yeux comme s’ils voyaient le monde pour la première fois, et qu’ils viennent, jouissent ensemble comme on irait au bout du monde (…) et qu’ils fécondent la terre et que leurs gémissements traversent la campagne, les champs, la vie, alors, oui, le sexe est beau, le sexe est très beau”. 

Voilà pour le lyrisme, côté jardin. Côté cour, c’est autre chose. Tout y est possible ou presque. Même un brin d’espoir. Reste à soustraire le bonheur et recompter l’addition. Elle risque d’être salée. 

Joseph Incardona, classe 1969, père sicilien, mère suisse. Ecrivain, scénariste et réalisateur, il s’inspire avec succès du roman noir et de la littérature nord-américaine du XXe siècle. Auteur d’une quinzaine de livres, il remporte en 2015 le Grand Prix de Littérature policière pour Derrière les panneaux, il y a des hommes.

Un samedi au club

A cheval entre récit et roman, fiction et réalité, Laurent Schlittler choisit un environnement paisible et agricole pour construire son histoire. Rien d’étonnant, ça se passe très probablement en Suisse. Sans les montagnes cette fois. Oui, mais pour le même prix (16,00€), ça aurait tout aussi bien pu se passer ailleurs. En France, en Italie, en Allemagne ou en Grande Bretagne.

Un petit village comme tant d’autres. Un club de tennis bien pensant, en marge d’un lotissement de villas de périphérie. Petit village, petit club, joueurs amateurs. Jusqu’ici, tout semble normal. Sauf l’ambiance qui s’y dégage. Violence, mépris, envie, agressivité. Le sport revisité à l’échelle lambda, avec tous ses maux et ses contradictions. Un univers désagréable et hostile à souhait. Les membres du club : des notables à deux balles, des anciens du sport. Méchants, médiocres et ratés. Sans parler du président. Personnages de guignol. Tous. A l’image de la société qui nous entoure.

Reste une belle touche d’humour pour dénoncer ce malaise sportif et social. Brian Gollo, quadragénaire relooké cool, rayures Fila, chaussé par Oakley, rêve de gagner le tournoi des non classés. Il affronte le jeune Tobias Mann. Mais Brian ne joue pas simplement au tennis, il joue sa vie, ses émotions, ses frustrations, ses ambitions. Le tout enveloppé dans du papier cadeau. Tirez m’en deux, c’est pour offrir. Ça fera des beaux souvenirs sur le mur du clubhouse.

– Out, la balle est out

  Tu te moques de moi ou quoi?

– Non pourquoi?

  La marque pleine ligne, je la vois d’ici

  (…)

  Qu’est-ce que tu viens de dire?!…Allez répète!

– La balle m’a abusé,

  Non, Trou de balle, mal baisé, c’est ça que t’as dit!

Abusé, mal baisé ? Le monde est soudain contre Brian Gollo. Comment lutter ? Schlittler lui fait perdre huit jeux d’affilée. Ça fait mal, très mal. Et le massacre ne fait que commencer. Tout est dans la tête, ailleurs aussi parfois. L’important c’est d’en être conscient. Parce que dans la vraie vie, Brian est contrôleur de transport. Il a droit à l’uniforme et au respect. Ça ne lui donne pas pour autant tous les droits. Par exemple, celui de peloter une jolie étrangère en infraction. Anglo-Saxonne de surcroît. Oui, les Anglo-Saxonnes se laissent toucher plus facilement. Enfin, c’est ce qu’il croit Brian. Pauvre Gollo. T’as pas fini de trinquer. Le meilleur, on le garde au frais, on se le réserve pour la fin. La fin d’un pantin désarticulé, nu comme un ver de terre (battue), couvert de jaune. Heureusement, Gisela est là pour toi, Brian. On dirait même qu’elle t’attendait depuis longtemps, avec ses beaux pieds nus. Alors oui, parle lui gentiment, comme il faut. Rassure la, et puis laisse toi prendre doucement par la main. Jusqu’à la chambre au lit refait.

Suspense psycho sportif dans un conflit social de génération décliné en trois sets. Malaise au Tennis Club, mais aussi :‘Malaise dans la civilisation’ (Sigmund Freud 1930.)  Un antagonisme éternel de pulsions dominantes où deux forces habitent l’homme dans un combat vital sans fin : l’amour et la mort. Eros et Thanatos. Brian en est témoin, un peu malgré lui. 

Un récit épique et émouvant signé Laurent Schlittler. Surprenant et facile à lire. Couverture rouge à lèvres, sur fond de teint en noir et blanc. Pochette surprise. Editeur Hélice Hélas : ça cartonne chic.

Après On est pas des guignols (Navarino, 2004), et Séjour à la nuit, publié en 2010, Un samedi au club, est le troisième roman de Laurent Schlittler. Né en 1966 à Londres, auteur multidisciplinaire et journaliste de formation, Schlittler vit et travaille en Suisse.

NIKE 

Four Decades of Smashing Ads

Nike is currently the largest sports equipment supplier in the world. They entered the tennis scene officially in 1973. Few remember this, but Nike’s first professional athlete endorser was a Romanian tennis player, Ilie Năstase (now more remembered for an Adidas shoe that wears his name). The company soon broke ground with bold and distinctive design, textile innovation, and iconic shoe models. It’s almost impossible to compile a complete list of all top tennis players they endorsed during the years, but we can name a few who had climbed to the top of the rankings: John McEnroe, Andre Agassi, Pete Sampras, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Serena Williams, Maria Sharapova…

Nike is a combination of the American spirit, iconic products, and bold personalities – a mix of all-time champions and charismatic young talents with attitude such as Nick Kyrgios, Denis Shapovalov, and Emma Raducanu.

What’s the winning recipe of Nike’s advertising history? Strong and high quality photos and powerful, inspiring words – all served with striking simplicity, a brutally honest and motivating tone with, sometimes, a twist of irreverence. And above all, the highly recognisable swoosh emblem with memorable, right-to-the-point, and simple slogan that everyone remembers: Just do it. Quite possibly the best known tagline in the world, from the beginning, it fit the brand’s every message.t

Nike’s creative advertising history is also full of memorable, high budget films (with such superstars as Andre Agassi, John McEnroe, and Serena Williams) and groundbreaking events (famously playing tennis on the streets of New York or creating a tennis court in an abandoned swimming pool in Paris), but as this is a magazine, I am privileged to showcase some of the graphic prints and projects. For your eyes only…

’80s

1986 

Rebel with a cause. At that time Nike produced a lot of great posters for teenage tennis fans to pin in their rooms. This one became an instant classic.

1988 

Air Ace showing the famous denim tennis shorts. Promising young American star, Andre Agassi, signed with Nike in 1986.

1988 

Air Play shoe with a spectacular angle. You can imagine someone jumping with both feet in the air. Air is coming to tennis shoes and it is a revolutionary innovation from Nike at that time.

1987

Air Trainer. One of the iconic Nike shoes suitable for several sports, including tennis.

’90s

1990

Challenge Court Collection. Uncommon fluorescent apparel, with crazy patterns, stripes, and denim bright Lycra under regular shorts. Never seen before!

1990 

Ace of Hearts with Andre Agassi. He was so well-known at that time that there was no need to put his name on the poster!

1990 

Air Tech challenge. Probably one of the most iconic and uncommon tennis shoes of all times. It looked almost like a
basketball shoe.

1990

Air Tech Challenge II. An irreverent comparison with the classic ‘all white’ tennis of the last century.

1998

Carlos Moya tattoo. The almighty forehand protects me. 

1991 

Challenge Court with a rock’n’roll graphic design. A collection that spread throughout the entire world (except at Wimbledon).

1996

Andre Agassi and Mary Pierce on a wall near Roland Garros in Paris. Simple graphic approach with no words needed. The swoosh is enough. Nike didn’t even need to write down their name – a privilege few brands can afford.

1998

Air Assailant Shoe. Andre Agassi was so fast at that time, it’s like he was at the 4 corners of the court at the same time and this very graphic ad expresses it very well. 

1995 

Advantage Sampras. This poster echoes the Big Mac and the flaming ball from more than ten years earlier. Pistol Pete in full action. He joined the Nike team in 1993.

’00s

2002 

No excuses. Playful drawings that make fun of the excuses that players find to justify their losses.

2001

Air Zoom. Andre Agassi is hitting the ball so hard that he’s sending his opponent directly to the hospital. 

2006 

Playing with John McEnroe’s imaginary quotes for a reissue of his famous shoes.

2009

V is for Victory. Rafael Nadal smeared with red clay.

2000 

Amélie Mauresmo, French player (and future world number one) in action on a giant wall near Roland Garros.

2005

Rafael Nadal and Carlos Moya. No friends on the court. 

2007 

Maria Sharapova. 65 thousand serves ago I was a beginner.

2007 

Nike Women. Stars a provocative Serena Williams who joined Nike in 2004.

’10s

2013 

Where I play. Print and social campaign inviting people to showcase their own tennis court.

2013 

Serena Williams becomes the oldest female world number one, breaking a record set in 1985.

2010 

Homage to John Isner and the longest match in the history of the sport that he played against Nicolas Mahut. A match compared to a marathon.

2014 

Be the bird that sticks out. Nike pay tribute to Li Na through the icon of a phoenix spreading its wings. She is the first Asian woman to win a Slam title. Nike launched a China-exclusive collection.

2015 

Eugénie Bouchard. One of the few examples of athletes sponsored by Nike who have not fulfilled their expectations.

2017 

Get off my lawn. Irreverent and funny commemoration for Roger Federer’s 8th Wimbledon title.

2017 

Nick Kyrgios, the Canberra-born ‘bad boy’, and the new, irreverent, and controversial face of Nike tennis. 

2016

Serena Williams Greatest female athlete ever. The claim seems to be a reference to a Wimbledon press conference in which a reporter asked Serena how it felt to be “one of the greatest female athletes of all time”. “I prefer the word ‘one of the greatest athletes of all time,'” she replied.

2018 

Posters that are part of a campaign to celebrate the 30 years of the Just do it slogan.

’10s

2021 

Emma Raducanu. Arrive Unknown. Leave Unforgettable. This ad was produced and shown on British walls just a few hours after her epic US Open win.

 

Story published in Courts no. 2, autumn 2021.

King Richard

It was an honour to be invited by Warner Bros and Organic Publicity, as part of an intimate audience, to watch on 12 October 2021 at Warner House, Warner Bros HQ, London a private screening of the much-awaited film King Richard – a biopic of Richard Williams, the father and coach of Venus and Serena Williams. The film premiered at the London Film Festival on 15 October 2021 and is out on worldwide release from 19 November 2021. Now that the worldwide embargo has been lifted, I’m delighted to share my review of this film.

It has been three days since I watched the film, and I am still replaying some of the scenes in my head. It is simply captivating. Will Smith is masterfully mesmerising in the title role, and I couldn’t take my eyes off his nuanced performance – the expressions, voice, and stooped gait are pure genius and Oscar-worthy. Having read Richard Williams’s autobiography, I recognised some of the re-enacted scenes in the film. Richard Williams wrote a 78-page manifesto before Venus and Serena were born, setting out how he was going to raise two champions. Smith manages to add humour to the intensity in scenes such as when he visits tennis coaches at exclusive country clubs, telling them about his manifesto and how his daughters are going to be the best tennis players of all time. Any actor playing this role needed to have bucketloads of the Richard Williams charisma, and Will Smith certainly delivers! 

The film’s executive producers – none other than Isha Price, Venus, and Serena – lend it further gravitas so this is as close to the real story as we can get! It is truly a family affair. Sister Lyndrea Price has contributed via costume design (it must have been fabulous to source those colourful tennis outfits from the 90s – my favourite tennis era!). For me, the slightly bittersweet moment was realising that the late eldest sister Yetunde would undoubtedly also have been in these credits were she alive today. 

Saniyya Sidney and Demi Singleton are also perfectly cast as young Venus and Serena respectively. The resemblance is uncanny, and no detail is overlooked, including the tennis technicalities. As a lifelong fan of Venus and Serena, I’ve observed and admired their distinctive strokes that set them apart from any other player I’ve seen. I was therefore awestruck to notice that even mechanical details, like Venus’s characteristic tucked-in take-back on her double-handed backhand, Serena’s serve toss, and those trademark drive volleys, have been replicated by the actors. This must have taken some serious training! Oracene Price’s position in this story is emblematic, and credit must go to her for bringing much needed balance and calm in ushering these two girls into the world, not least for helping Serena with that famous serve toss. Yes, it was Oracene who helped with this, not Richard, as we learn!

Rick Macci is played by Jon Bernthal – the charming, energetic tennis coach who Richard Williams negotiated a contract with to coach his daughters – first Venus, then Venus and Serena. There is good chemistry betwteen Bernthal’s and Smith’s characters, who re- enact various pivotal moments of the story, which are as funny as they are heart-warming. One such moment happens when Richard Williams invites Rick Macci to the “Compton Country Club” to watch his daughters for the first time. Macci soon discovers that he is, in fact, entering a gang-ridden public park in Compton, with Richard Williams allegedly promising him that he won’t let Macci get shot! Other scenes provide insight into the inevitable coaching clashes between both men. During Venus’s coaching sessions with Macci, Williams doesn’t hold back on expressing his views and insisting on the open stance. 

The tennis cinematography is immersive. I found myself cheering during Venus Williams’s professional debut match against Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario, before realising that I was in a private screening room watching a film, and not a tournament in sunny California! Other cleverly shot pieces include a scene showing Richard Williams and family entering an exclusive Florida country club. The camera pans across to show us the juxtaposition of a black family from Compton, California, entering a lily-white world – a scene accentuated by blonde tennis protégés dressed in tennis whites. Just a few seconds of this camerawork provides an immediate sense of what exactly the Williamses were up against as a black family entering a predominantly white, middle class environment. In another scene, a 1994 version of Venus, with the iconic beaded hair, emerges from a dramatic dark tunnel to enter a court. This gave me goose pimples, as this is the Venus that I remember first seeing, the Venus that, together with Serena, made me a lifelong fan. This film is their legacy.

When the film ended, I overhead two women behind me. One told her companion, “I didn’t expect to watch so much tennis, there was more tennis in this movie than I expected. I don’t usually watch tennis but watching this film and understanding this story has made me realise I need to start playing tennis!” If everyone who watched the film felt this way, Richard, Venus, and Serena Williams have surely accomplished one of their missions – to inspire everyone to play, regardless of who they are and where they come from.

The sheer beauty of the film is that this story hasn’t ended yet. This is a story that will continue long after the celluloid reel has ended, and one in which the main characters continue to reap the rewards of their hard work to this very day. 

Venus and Serena, I eagerly await your next chapter, both on and off court. 

 

Story published in Courts no. 2, autumn 2021.

Elias Bene

cordage tendre et raquette en bois

Difficile de le rater sur un court de tennis avec sa tenue qui pourrait appartenir à un membre éminent du All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club, son outil de travail qui semble venu d’un autre âge et sa technique aussi immaculée que le palmarès d’un adversaire de Félix Auger-Aliassime en finale. C’est par contre tout en discrétion que cet ancien espoir du tennis africain débarque un soir d’octobre dans un café lausannois où il a ses habitudes, pass sanitaire en main. C’est là, autour d’un verre after work, qu’il a accepté de passer près de deux heures à nous raconter ses mille et une vies. Deux tours d’horloge avec Elias Bene, c’est aussi passionnant et improbable qu’un Gaston-Alcaraz rythmé par force amorties, contres et facéties plus ou moins acceptables d’un public parisien en manque d’émotions fortes et parfois de savoir vivre. Du Mozambique à Fribourg en passant par le Portugal et le circuit ITF, la carrière académico-tennistico-militante de notre placide interlocuteur est au moins aussi éclectique que le panel des participants à Squid Game. Si le fracas de la vaisselle, le brouhaha ambiant et le sifflement du percolateur local ont parfois menacé de prendre le dessus sur le son de sa voix, son contenu, lui, nous a tenu en haleine presque aussi intensément que la lutte pour le dernier ticket disponible pour le Masters de Turin. Promis, on a essayé de ne pas trop l’interrompre avec nos questions.

 

Courts : On croit savoir que tu es originaire du Mozambique et du Portugal. Peux-tu nous en dire plus sur ton lieu de naissance et ton lien avec la Suisse ?

Elias Bene : Je suis né au Mozambique en 1975, j’ai 46 ans. Quand je suis né, le Mozambique faisait partie du territoire portugais. Je suis né en avril et le pays est devenu indépendant en juin de la même année. Ma mère, qui était infirmière, a migré vers le Portugal directement après l’indépendance. J’ai fait toutes mes études au Portugal. J’ai étudié le génie informatique et la psychologie une année chacun, abandonné les deux et finalement opté pour les sciences politiques à l’Université de Minho, au nord du Portugal, parce que cela correspondait mieux à mon profil international. J’ai ensuite fait un stage d’une année à Lisbonne dans le but de me spécialiser en sécurité internationale et géopolitique avant de décrocher un job dans un domaine qui n’avait pas grand-chose à voir avec mes études : l’immobilier. J’y suis resté pendant deux ans. A côté, je donnais des cours de tennis. Lors de la saison 2007/2008, j’étais chargé d’organiser les colonies de vacances de l’école de tennis dans laquelle je travaillais. Cette année-là, j’étais un peu gourmand et j’ai décidé d’aller au-delà des pays limitrophes pour trouver un club un peu exotique et je suis tombé en Suisse, au TC Aiglon, à Fribourg. J’ai contacté le président, il était assez enthousiaste, mais ce n’était pas possible de faire un échange à ce moment-là car ils partaient eux-mêmes en Turquie dans le cadre du même programme. On a tout de même gardé contact. Entre-temps j’ai quitté la société où je travaillais et quelques mois plus tard, le président du TC Aiglon m’a relancé et invité à venir visiter la Suisse en décembre 2007. J’y ai passé une semaine et ai notamment visité le Moléson et d’autres sites touristiques. Je suis ensuite retourné au Portugal dans un contexte de début de crise économique. Je me suis donc dit que c’était l’occasion de trouver une alternative. J’avais réussi le concours pour un poste diplomatique au Mozambique cette année-là et j’y suis allé pour prendre mes fonctions dans le département du protocole pour les affaires d’Asie Centrale et du Moyen-Orient. J’y suis resté un mois et demi et je suis parti parce que je trouvais le job trop prévisible, je voyais déjà comment les choses allaient se dérouler sur les cinq prochaines années, et ça c’était horrible. J’ai repris mon ancien poste au Portugal et dans le même temps, le président du TC Aiglon m’a recontacté car l’entreprise de sa mère à Zurich cherchait un gestionnaire de portefeuille qui correspondait à mes compétences linguistiques et de gestion. Une semaine plus tard, j’étais à Zurich.

 

C: Ton lien avec la Suisse est donc purement tennistique ?

EB : Oui et non. Ma mère a fait son école primaire à la mission suisse au Mozambique. Historiquement, les Suisses étaient très impliqués en Afrique subsaharienne, notamment au Mozambique et en Afrique du Sud. Il y a donc beaucoup de Suisses établis là-bas encore aujourd’hui. C’est très courant de voir des Suisses avec la double nationalité.

 

C : Dont un joueur assez peu connu sous nos latitudes…

EB : Voilà. A l’époque de l’Apartheid, la Suisse était assez active dans le commerce des matières premières, de l’industrie horlogère, pharmaceutique et de l’armement et faisait de bonnes affaires sur place. Le père de Roger Federer travaillait d’ailleurs dans la pharma en Afrique du Sud, dans une entreprise qui s’appelle aujourd’hui Novartis. C’est en partie grâce à ce job qu’il a pu donner l’opportunité à son fils de devenir ce qu’il est et qu’il a rencontré Lynette, qui est sud-africaine. La reconnaissance de Roger Federer s’exprime aujourd’hui à travers sa fondation pour les enfants en Afrique subsaharienne. Ma relation avec la Suisse commence donc avec ma mère et se termine avec le tennis.

 

C : Pour en revenir au tennis, tu as commencé à jouer à l’âge de 4 ans, et ensuite ?

EB : Je suis le dernier d’une famille de cinq enfants. Toute ma famille jouait au tennis. Le tennis était une discipline scolaire au même titre que le cricket et le rugby. Ma sœur aînée était une très bonne joueuse, bien meilleure que moi. Je suis né sur un court de tennis. La semaine on jouait au tennis, le week-end on allait au club en famille. Je ne sais même pas comment j’ai appris à jouer car j’ai l’impression que le tennis a toujours fait partie de moi, était toujours présent à la maison.

 

C : En ce qui concerne ta carrière professionnelle, que s’est-il passé ?

EB : J’ai dû arrêter pour des raisons financières. Le talent, je l’avais, on m’avait toujours dit que j’avais une certaine facilité. Mais comme mes parents sont divorcés, ma mère devait élever cinq enfants seule. Donc lorsque j’ai atteint l’âge de 17 ans, on s’est tous mis autour de la table et on est arrivés à la conclusion que cela ne valait pas la peine de passer à la vitesse supérieure. Quand on est junior, c’est relativement facile de jouer en Afrique, contrairement à l’Europe, car l’ITF nous subventionne. Je n’ai jamais rien payé en termes de cotisation ou de matériel quand j’étais junior. J’ai joué quelques Futures, mais cela coûtait déjà trop cher, du coup j’ai arrêté. Par contre j’ai continué à enseigner le tennis, j’étais le coach de mon université et j’ai eu l’occasion de représenter le Portugal aux premiers Jeux interuniversitaires en Grèce en 2002. Encore aujourd’hui, je conseille régulièrement des jeunes joueurs de niveau N2 ou N3 (n.d.l.r. entre -15 et 1/6 environ en France) ici en Suisse. Quand je suis arrivé, j’ai fait pas mal de tournois pendant 4-5 ans, mon meilleur classement était R1, tout près de N4 (n.d.l.r. entre 2/6 et 15 environ en France). J’étais déjà « vieux » pour le tennis. En ce moment je ne fais plus de tournois, ma licence est en suspens, je dois être R7 (n.d.l.r. entre 30/5 et 40 en France). J’ai joué en interclubs de ligue C jusqu’en 2017 et j’ai toujours gagné mes matches, un vieux de 40 ans et sa raquette en bois face à des jeunes R1 ou R2 (n.d.l.r. entre 4/6 et 15/2 environ en France).

« Je joue avec moins de technologie, mais la précision, le toucher, la technique, rien n’a changé. »

 

C : Justement, cette fameuse raquette en bois, tu joues avec depuis combien de temps ?

EB : Je fais partie d’une génération de joueurs qui ont commencé le tennis avec une raquette en bois. J’ai d’abord eu une Slazenger, ensuite une Donnay, une Dunlop Max Play, une première Wilson en aluminium, Le Coq Sportif et finalement j’ai joué pendant 25 ans avec la Wilson Pete Sampras. En 2014, Wilson a fêté ses 100 ans et sorti une édition spéciale de sa première raquette, la Jack Kramer, éditée à 500 exemplaires. J’ai acheté les numéros 349 et 350 et je me suis dit que c’était le moment de revenir aux sources. Comme je ne suis plus dans la performance, mais plutôt dans le loisir, j’ai créé ma marque de fabrique à partir de cette raquette en bois. Cela me va très bien, c’est une raquette normale avec la seule particularité qu’elle a un petit tamis. La Pro Staff Sampras était aussi une raquette très exigeante, avec un petit tamis 85 pouces, donc pour moi c’est normal. Je joue avec moins de technologie, mais la précision, le toucher, la technique, rien n’a changé.

 

C : Ce n’est donc pas du tout un désavantage ?

EB : Non. Le seul inconvénient est au niveau de la puissance surtout. Comme il n’y a aucune technologie, la puissance est entièrement créée par le joueur et la technique doit être éprouvée. Cela demande également un peu plus de physique car il n’y a aucune aide.

 

C : Et au niveau des blessures au coude ou à l’épaule ? Le risque n’est-il pas accru ?

EB : Non parce que contrairement à ce que les gens pensent, on risque plus de se blesser avec un gros tamis parce que c’est difficile de centrer la balle, la frappe se disperse plus que sur un petit tamis qui force le joueur à centrer par rapport à sa taille. Le grand tamis compense et donne l’impression d’être plus précis, mais ce n’est pas le cas. Dans le tennis moderne, ça va très bien, car les joueurs actuels sont plus axés sur la puissance que sur la technique. Comme tout le monde joue en fond de court, il n’y a pas forcément besoin du toucher que nécessiteraient des coups comme l’amortie ou la volée, donc cela n’a aucun impact. Les raquettes sont conçues pour jouer du fond et à la rigueur venir finir un point au filet de temps en temps. Il ne reste plus beaucoup de joueurs qui savent monter au filet en-dehors de ces coups de finition. Federer évidemment, qui peut changer de rythme à n’importe quel moment. L’évolution de ses raquettes en est d’ailleurs une illustration. Dimitrov, Kyrgios dans un bon jour, le jeune Alcaraz. Il joue du fond, mais a une main assez facile qui peut lui permettre de jouer comme cela. Tsitsipas en est aussi capable. En ce qui me concerne, si je joue avec un tamis énorme, je me sens au contraire limité. Je dis souvent à des jeunes joueurs de passer plus de temps à jouer au mini tennis qu’à frapper des balles du fond du court. Au fond du court, n’importe qui peut renvoyer des balles, mais jouer dans les petits carrés, c’est dur, cela donne plus de mobilité au niveau des jambes parce que la balle est plus proche de soi, cela donne plus de toucher et vous apprenez plus de choses, à être un joueur complet qui peut économiser de l’énergie en match.

 

C : En plus du matériel, l’uniformisation des surfaces et leur relative lenteur ne contribue pas non plus à encourager le jeu vers l’avant…

EB : Oui, mais encore une fois, il y a toujours des façons de compenser. Jouer sur une surface lente veut dire qu’il faut raccourcir le terrain, il faut rentrer plus au lieu de rester trop derrière. En regardant jouer le Big 3, on peut voir clairement les trois zones sensibles du terrain. Nadal joue vraiment loin derrière, ce qui lui permet d’avoir suffisamment de temps pour voir venir et aller chercher n’importe quelle balle. Djokovic, c’est l’intermédiaire. Il est à un mètre cinquante de la ligne de fond, mais il bouge en extension latéralement, ce qui lui donne également une grande couverture de terrain. Et il y a le cas exceptionnel, Federer, qui raccourcit le terrain, joue collé à la ligne de fond et a tendance à avancer. Et ça, ça gêne n’importe quel joueur. Il dicte le jeu et met l’adversaire sous pression en économisant pas mal d’énergie, même s’il va prendre plus de risques et rater plus de balles. Il y a peu de shot makers qui agressent sans arrêt aujourd’hui. L’équipement joue un rôle prépondérant dans cette réalité. Les raquettes de Djokovic et Nadal ne permettent pas ce petit jeu, ce sont des raquettes très profilées qui ont été conçues pour jouer du fond.

 

« La base, c’est le mini tennis »

 

C : Es-tu en train de nous dire qu’il faudrait que les pros jouent avec des raquettes en bois ?

EB : Non, mais pour avoir un tennis plus épuré et diversifié, il faudrait jouer avec une raquette moins profilée et un tamis plus petit. 98 pouces, c’est acceptable, mais idéalement c’est 95 ou 90. C’est comme la différence entre la technologie d’un appareil photo numérique et la beauté, la technique et le savoir faire d’un appareil manuel. A ski, tout le monde sait glisser, parce que le matériel est ultra léger et high tech. Mais quand on rentre dans les détails des freinages et des virages, c’est là qu’on définit un skieur. Beaucoup de gens savent glisser, mais peu savent skier. Au tennis c’est pareil. Beaucoup de joueurs savent renvoyer en puissance, mais il manque l’essentiel. Les écoles forment des joueurs standard. Mettre un joueur dans le top 100, ce n’est pas si compliqué. Le faire durer à ce niveau est une autre histoire. Pour moi, un joueur comme Stan Wawrinka est prévisible. On sait ce qu’il va faire, il va renvoyer la balle, il a son revers magique, mais il a peu d’autres resources. Oui, il a beaucoup de mérite, il a gagné trois Grands Chelems. Un pro qui travaille 8 heures par jour, ça paie. Ça paie une fois. Mais la constance, rester à ce niveau toute l’année, c’est autre chose. Federer a eu cette facilité grâce à ses variations. Il peut faire ce qu’il veut. Et ça, en termes d’économies d’énergie et de longévité, c’est énorme. Les joueurs n’apprennent pas cela aujourd’hui. Il faut solidifier les bases avant de passer à la suite. Et la base, c’est le mini tennis.

 

« On a une série de 200-300 gamins qui jouent tous de la même manière. Le joueur qui va arriver au sommet dans les prochaines années sera le joueur qui est capable de faire la différence. »

 

C : Tu as l’air de suivre encore énormément le circuit…

EB : Oui. Par exemple je trouve ce jeune Carlos Alcaraz impressionnant. C’est une version avancée de Nadal avec plus de resources, avec plus de souplesse. Avec son mental, on arrive à voir un peu Nadal, mais c’est un type qui a plus de resources, c’est extraordinaire ce qu’il fait sur le terrain à 18 ans. C’est un mec qui a tout ce qu’il faut. Chez les Américains, malgré leur relative faiblesse à l’heure actuelle, il y a Taylor Fritz qui pourrait avoir ses chances de monter dans le top 10, même si son coup droit est encore trop faible pour le top niveau, un peu comme celui de Zverev. Derrière il y a encore Frances Tiafoe, Tony Paul, j’aime bien Reilly Opelka, qui a su adapter son tennis à sa physionomie. Le tennis aux Etats-Unis est devenu moins intéressant qu’il l’était il y a une quinzaine d’années pour une raison très simple : le basket et le football américain paient mille fois plus et les sportifs américains ont cette facilité de ne pas avoir à se déplacer pour les sports collectifs majeurs, on peut tout faire en Amérique, de janvier à décembre. Le tennis pour moi, l’après [Big 3], c’est de ne pas tenter d’uniformiser, même si c’est le discours que j’entends partout dans les écoles et les académies. On a une série de 200-300 gamins qui jouent tous de la même manière. Le joueur qui va arriver au sommet dans les prochaines années sera le joueur qui est capable de faire la différence. C’est pareil pour les stars du tennis féminin. On a par exemple Timea Bacsinszky, qui est une très grande joueuse, une bosseuse, mais elle est plus réactive qu’active. Je ne l’ai jamais vue en position de dicter pour pouvoir s’imposer sur le long terme. A ce niveau, il faut une arme, quelque chose de définitif.

C : Tu as cité pas mal de joueurs. As-tu eu l’occasion de croiser quelques grands noms sur le circuit ITF à l’époque ?

EB : Oui. J’ai été sparring de Wayne Ferreira. J’ai eu l’occasion aussi de taper avec les frères et sœur Wayne, Byron et Cara Black. J’ai suivi l’ascension de Lloyd Harris, j’étais sur place quand il a gagné le Future de Maputo en 2015 (n.d.l.r. l’actuel 33^ème mondial, alors classé 1011^ème, y avait gagné son premier tournoi de cette catégorie). J’ai aussi vu Nadal, Safin et Robredo, notamment, tout jeunes sur un circuit très important qui a lancé pas mal de joueurs à Lisbonne. 

 

C : On a parlé de raquettes, de technique et de tactique, il reste encore à aborder les balles. Peux-tu nous parler de ton projet de recyclage ?

EB : L’idée est apparue en 2016. J’avais quitté mon poste à Genève à la mission permanente de l’Union européenne auprès de l’OMC où j’avais travaillé 6 ans. J’étais hyper fatigué et j’ai commencé à penser à ce qu’on pouvait faire avec les balles de tennis. J’ai commencé à sonder les clubs en Suisse et il s’est avéré que les gens ne savaient pas quoi faire des balles de tennis usagées et cherchaient une solution. J’ai participé à un atelier d’entrepreneuriat au cours duquel j’ai commencé à construire mon business model. En 2020, j’ai commencé à travailler avec des associés, desquels je me suis séparé l’été dernier après avoir compris qu’ils voulaient s’approprier le concept. 

 

C : Et ce concept justement, il consiste en quoi ? Quel est le processus que doit suivre le joueur de tennis lambda pour se débarrasser de ses balles usagées ?

EB : Il y a un circuit de ramassage. Le but est d’installer des cartons recyclables dans chaque club, vous y mettez les balles usagées et dès que le contenant est plein, j’envoie un QR code au club pour l’expédier à un endroit que je vais lui indiquer. Ensuite une partie des balles sont expédiées au Portugal pour la fabrication de chaussures. Seulement une partie car les balles sont faites d’une matière qui est un polymère assez spécifique dont on ne peut utiliser que 10 à 15% pour fabriquer une paire de chaussures. J’attends les résultats d’un institut de polymères de Lisbonne qui me donnera d’autres alternatives de valorisation, notamment en faire des bracelets pour les montres ou des tapis de salles de sport. Idéalement, il faudrait trouver une solution locale pour cette partie, histoire d’avoir un circuit court et un meilleur bilan écologique. Il y a aussi une dimension sociale au projet. Une partie des revenus seront versés à des projets sociaux concernant les enfants issus de communautés migrantes en Suisse, pour financer les cotisations dans les clubs, pour qu’ils pratiquent le sport, que ce soit le tennis ou un autre sport. Une autre partie sera investie en Afrique dans des projets de développement. L’association est créée et je suis en contact avec les différentes entreprises responsables des différentes étapes. Swiss Tennis attend que le projet se concrétise pour l’agréer. Il me reste à lancer une campagne de crowdfunding pour assumer les coûts du projet et démarrer les activités. Il y aura une phase de test dans quelques clubs pour simuler le projet, suivie d’une phase d’implémentation et d’une phase d’expansion jusqu’à la clôture du projet dans quelques années au bout desquelles on pourrait estimer que le taux de recyclage de balles de tennis en Suisse est de 70 à 80%.

 

« On n’a pas besoin de dire qu’il faut être blanc et riche pour jouer au tennis, mais c’est une évidence. On ne voit pas de jeunes immigrants qui n’ont jamais touché de raquette dans les clubs. Sauf s’ils ont appris ailleurs. »

 

C : Il ne nous reste plus que la dernière de tes mille et une vies à aborder : l’inclusion par le sport et tes visites d’écoles et de clubs pour parler de ton expérience personnelle à ce sujet. Comment cela se passe-t-il en pratique ?

EB : J’ai été abordé par Swiss Sports History (n.d.l.r. une plateforme numérique dont le but est de faciliter l’accès à l’histoire du sport suisse au grand public) pour parler de racisme dans le sport. Dans le foot par exemple, on sait très bien que le racisme est omniprésent malgré tous les efforts. Au tennis, est-ce qu’il y a du racisme ? Aux Etats-Unis, les pionnières étaient les sœurs Williams, qui ont brisé les codes et qui ont souffert de pas mal de discrimination. Jusqu’à il y a une dizaine d’années, Serena et Venus n’avaient pas accès à certains country clubs, dû au fait qu’elles étaient noires. Le tennis reste un sport dans lequel les Noirs sont minoritaires. Dans la nouvelle génération il y a Frances Tiafoe, Coco Gauff, deux ou trois autres, mais ils restent minoritaires. En Suisse, il ne me semble pas que le racisme à proprement parler soit très présent. La problématique est davantage socio-économique. Les gens qui pratiquent le tennis sont des gens qui viennent de couches de la société qui sont aisées. On n’a pas besoin de dire qu’il faut être blanc et riche pour jouer au tennis, mais c’est une évidence. On ne voit pas de jeunes immigrants qui n’ont jamais touché de raquette dans les clubs. Sauf s’ils ont appris ailleurs. Je me demande ce qu’il serait advenu de moi si j’étais né en Suisse. Je n’aurais pas eu accès au tennis. Ma mère étant infirmière, elle m’aurait peut-être dit de faire du foot, n’ayant pas les moyens pour le tennis. Les coûts sont exhorbitants pour un jeune qui fait des déplacements pour des tournois par exemple. Le facteur budget élimine tout de suite pas mal de monde. Et il y a le facteur « indignation ». Quand je suis arrivé à Lausanne, j’ai parfois eu droit à des commentaires déplacés. Je suis allé dans un petit club de la ville et je me suis renseigné sur la procédure pour m’inscrire. On m’a posé beaucoup de questions : « Vous êtes sûr de vouloir jouer ici ? Vous avez déjà joué ? Vous savez jouer ? » Ce que je remarque aussi, quand il s’agit de donner des conseils aux gens en termes de tennis, quand je donne un avis différent, les gens ont toujours du mal à croire ce que je raconte. J’ai souvent dû confirmer, démontrer que j’avais raison pour gagner une certaine légitimité et la confiance des gens. 

Si la société était un peu plus ouverte par rapport à la différence, on pourrait aller chercher un prochain Federer. Tous les vendredis, je suis écrivain public pour l’association Point d’Appui. J’aide les communautés migrantes gratuitement. Je traite toutes sortes de dossiers, du CV jusqu’au type qui est à deux doigts d’être expulsé. La richesse de ces gens, l’envie de ces gens de percer, de faire tout ce qu’ils peuvent pour réussir est impressionnante. Dans le cadre de cette association, j’ai créé un projet qui s’appelle Sport et Intégration. On reçoit beaucoup de parents qui nous disent qu’ils aimeraient inscrire leur enfant au sport, mais les cotisations sont trop chères, ce qui restreint l’accès. On sait très bien l’impact positif que le sport a dans la vie des gens, d’autant plus à Lausanne, capitale olympique. Moi aussi, si je suis ici, c’est grâce au sport. J’ai donc créé un fonds solidaire, trois associations collaborent avec nous, et chaque fois qu’une famille vient nous parler de cette problématique, on finance la cotisation en collaboration avec la Ville de Lausanne. Tout ça pour dire qu’avec un peu plus d’ouverture et de subventions, on pourrait avoir d’excellents joueurs, mais pas forcément le Suisse comme toi auquel on s’attend. L’Histoire a montré que cela se passait souvent comme ça, même si on l’oublie parfois. Sampras est fils d’immigrés grecs, Agassi est fils d’immigrés iraniens. Dans la musique, George Michael s’appelle en fait Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou, ses parents se sont adaptés, ils ont même changé de nom. Freddie Mercury est en fait Farrokh Bulsara et il vient de Zanzibar, au nord du Mozambique. Tous ces gens avaient suffisamment de rage, d’envie, pour concrétiser les opportunités qui leur ont été données et ils ont fait la différence dans notre patrimoine culturel. Donc c’est dommage qu’en Suisse cela reste un peu carré et très élitiste, très fermé par rapport à cela. Par rapport à la France et à la FFT notamment, il y a très peu de subventions en Suisse. En Espagne, c’est pareil qu’en France. Chaque décennie, ils sortent une trentaine de joueurs, dont 5-6 dans le top 10. Ce n’est pas grâce à la taille du pays, mais bien à l’investissement. En Suisse, une partie non négligeable de la population pratique le tennis, mais pour trouver un nouveau Federer, il faut avoir un parent qui gagne beaucoup d’argent et soit prêt à l’investir. Son enfant n’est pas issu de la fédération suisse de tennis. Le succès de Federer vient de Peter Carter, puis de Peter Lundgren, ensuite il a travaillé avec José Higueras (certes sans grand succès), Tony Roche, Paul Annacone, Stefan Edberg, Ivan Ljubicic. Severin Lüthi a un autre rôle, beaucoup plus complexe et invisible, difficile à expliquer. On comprendra un jour… Tout cela montre qu’on devrait écouter et donner des opportunités à des étrangers qui pourraient apporter d’autres méthodes visant à la fabrication d’un nouveau Federer. Mais il y a encore du travail, et les a priori dont je parlais participent à ce côté élitiste. Le fait de pouvoir en parler, d’éveiller les gens à cette problématique, c’est bien. De la même manière, on parle des femmes aujourd’hui non plus comme un tabou, mais comme un sujet qu’il faut affronter. Aujourd’hui on se bat pour les droits des femmes de façon explicite. Le fait d’en parler permet de désamorcer la chose et de se débarrasser des tabous. Et il y en a encore beaucoup au niveau racial, mais ça évolue.

EDGE

Serving young talent

Translated by Marc Woodward

Today’s sporting era is marked by abundant money and the lifestyle that goes with it, and tennis is no exception to the rule. And like the stars of the circuit, a fierce battle is waged behind the scenes between the world’s sports agencies. Their goal is to find the next Sharapova or Federer and win the jackpot. In this long-distance horse race, one stable distinguishes itself from its counterparts: EDGE. Mainly made up of tennis enthusiasts, the agency founded in 2018 stands out in this ruthless world thanks to its modern and humane philosophy. 

Propelled to the forefront of the media scene thanks to her New York fairytale, Emma Raducanu is not only a phenomenon on the court, she is also one off the court. While her downfall was painful when she lost her first match at Indian Wells to world #100 Aliaksandra Sasnovitch, the publicity hysteria that followed her US Open title is not about to fade away. Courted by numerous sponsors eager to snatch her up, the player who has already signed a big cheque with the jewelry brand Tiffany & Co. has a marketing potential as promising as her tennis career. 

Clément & Daniel-Sacha: The “Strat-EDGE” Duo

Finding the next Sharapova or Raducanu is the ultimate fantasy for any sports agency. While many of them are quick to send their best talent scouts to the world’s most prestigious junior tournaments in order to sign as many youngsters as possible, EDGE’s strategy is radically different. But before examining it in detail, let’s turn our attention for a moment to one of its two founders, Daniel-Sacha Fradkoff, a resident of Geneva since his youth who lives today in Nassau for professional reasons. There is little doubt that tennis is an integral part of his life. A good amateur player of about 3/6 in France, this young man in his early forties has been captain for more than twenty years of his team at the Bonmont Golf Club, which has three tennis courts. “It’s a funny story. There are barely ten of us in my club, which is mainly made up of golfers. Nevertheless, we play against the country’s most prominent tennis clubs with thousands of members and we manage to beat them,” he says with amusement. 

While this handful of players is reminiscent of the indomitable Gaulish village in Armorica still resisting the Roman invaders, the secret of their magic potion lies in a well-oiled team. “We’re a bunch of friends, most of whom have known each other since we were teenagers. There are even friendships that go back 30 years,” explains Daniel-Sacha, before giving a second key to this success: “We are a team of eight players, including several ex-pros. There is George Bastl, a former Davis Cup team member for Switzerland and ATP-Top-100 who, among other achievements, managed to beat Sampras at Wimbledon in 2002. We also have in our ranks Stéphane Robert, who was ATP-Top-50 less than five years ago. Both of them have been friends with many of the guys on the team for as long as I can remember.” Ever since all of the team members passed the 35-year-old mark, the merry band has been wreaking havoc in their interclub age group on the national scene. “When we joined the over-35 category in 2017, we became second division champions, then runners-up in the first division the following season, before winning the Swiss national championship trophy in the last two editions, 2019 and 2021,” boasts the proud captain. 

Passionate about tennis, Daniel-Sacha practices as often as possible despite his busy professional life. Working in the finance industry for over twenty years, the man who spends most of his time in Nassau, is used to “navigating between Paris, Geneva, London and the US.” A hard worker, the businessman decided in August 2017, a fairly quiet period for him, to take a week off with his close buddy and tennis partner Clément Ducasse, also in the world of finance, and who has managed to build from scratch an international group over the past decade. “Each in our own field, we really work hard. We never or only rarely take a vacation. This was the perfect opportunity for Clément and I to focus on tennis. We were both between Europe and the Bahamas. We decided to go to Florida, only a thirty-minute flight from Nassau, to hit a few balls,” he explains. 

Rick Macci: The Tennis Grandmaster 

The choice of destination is anything but trivial. Thanks to his Florida-based family, Daniel-Sacha reconnected with Rick Macci, a legendary coach in the US. Based in Boca Raton, Rick is an absolute legend in Uncle Sam’s country, but he is little known on the Old Continent. “Nobody talks about him in Europe. That’s because, unlike the more mediatic coaches, he doesn’t go to tournaments, doesn’t travel and never leaves his courts. But in the US, Rick is an icon. In the tennis world, he’s more highly thought of than Nick Bollettieri, in particular for the technical aspects of the game. He’s an incredible guy. I could talk about him for hours,” exclaims a laudatory Daniel-Sacha. The general public will be able to discover this phenomenon when the film King Richard is released on 19th November in the US and 1st December in Europe. It depicts the rise of the Williams sisters through the prism of their father Richard, played by the legendary Will Smith. The stellar casting doesn’t stop there as the charismatic Jon Bernthal, a central character of The Punisher and The Walking Dead series, will play Rick Macci. “This gives you an idea of the man,” says the co-founder of EDGE, who is closely acquainted with the American genius named seven times US Coach of the Year. “He has trained many of the biggest names in this sport.”

After “building from the ground up” Jennifer Capriati, a precocious phenomenon who “won the U18 title at the age of 12, became a WTA-Top-10 and a semifinalist at the French Open at the age of 14,” Rick also shaped Andy Roddick’s iconic serve, took Maria Sharapova under his wing for a while and more recently helped Sofia Kenin, winner of the Australian Open in 2020, progress at a rapid pace. But above all, he was the very first coach of the Williams sisters. The American turned them into war machines, as Daniel-Sacha points out in an amazing anecdote: “He shaped them from the age of 9 to 14 in his academy where the girls moved to be with him. During all those years, Serena and Venus did not play a single match in junior, or in any other category for that matter. They just trained with Rick for over four hours a day. When Venus turned 14, the WTA decided to implement a rule to limit the participation of young players in main tour events. Just before that rule was put into effect, Venus turned pro to play one of the most prominent tournaments of the time. She travelled with Rick and her dad to California to take part in what would be now a Masters 1000 event thanks to a wild card Rick got her. In the first round, she beat a girl ranked 50th in the world in two straight sets. In the second round, she faced Arantxa Sanchez Vicario, who was world #1 at the time. Venus led 6-2, 3-1, and had a chance to go up 4-1. She finally lost the match in three sets. But the result is anecdotal. Rick did a phenomenal job with Venus and Serena. People can’t even begin to imagine what went on.”

At 66, the man who has dedicated his life to tennis is far from having given up. “He’s out of bed every day around 4 a.m. He goes to his academy, only five minutes from his home, checks his emails, makes several phone calls… Then, from 6:30 a.m. until 5 p.m., he is non-stop on the courts, including on weekends, regardless of the weather,” admires the man who was his student for a week, adding in passing that “I learned more with him in a few days under a blazing sun than in the rest of my tennis life, past and future.” The mercury in Boca Raton isn’t the only thing that’s showing extreme degrees. At the time, the renowned coach charged $400 an hour for his sessions. Now he demands $750, but that doesn’t stop him from being booked up weeks in advance. “Whether it’s Christmas, Thanksgiving, a birthday or New Year’s, he doesn’t care, he’s always on the court. His life is about being the best tennis coach he can be, no matter what age or level his students are,” says Daniel-Sacha reverently. 

EDGE: A Collective Passion and Organization 

It was this obsession with tennis that brought the three men together after their stay in the Florida heat. “We stayed in touch after that incredible week, regularly texting and calling each other. We talked about tennis of course, but also about his projects,” says the French-Swiss globetrotter. During one of their discussions, Rick had the brainchild of creating a tennis agency different from any other. He would be in charge of the sports side, on the sole condition that his two friends join the project to manage everything else. Enthused by this prospect, Daniel-Sacha Fradkoff and his partner Clément Ducasse rolled up their sleeves to turn this brilliant idea into a reality. Relying on their personal networks, the two accomplices succeeded in gathering a one-of-a-kind team with multiple skills. The résumés of each management team member are impressive. That of lawyer and agent Frank C. Salzano, the only member of the team outside the world of tennis, will convince even the most skeptical. “He handles Ezekiel Elliot, the Dallas Cowboys’ running back, the American football equivalent of Neymar. He negotiated the biggest contract in history for a player in that position, around $100 million over six years to give an order of magnitude. Frank is a certified agent, but he is a lawyer first and foremost. He has also represented Connor McGregor and Mike Tyson in the past. Moreover, he handled the music rights of Prince and Michael Jackson, and has been a lawyer for many other artists. In short, he has a foot in both entertainment and sport,” explains Daniel-Sacha. Former accomplished  player-turned-academic Gabriella Ferraz, who spent a season on the ITF circuit at the beginning of the EDGE adventure to get to know all the ins and outs of the trade; Thierry Légeret, a legend of the sports industry where he innovated and acted as a key player in several fields; and finally, bringing his background and network, one-of-a-kind lawyer-cum-entrepreneur Asanka Pathiraja, complete this prestigious cast. Of the seven members of this luxury crew, six are fanatic tennis players. From this meeting of enthusiasts was born EDGE. “We have a group of people who are quite unique. Each one, in his or her area of expertise, brings a stone to the edifice. The objective is to accompany the players as best as possible in their ascension, without them owing us anything in return if they fail to reach the highest level,” summarizes the co-founder of the company. 

A quality environment for the youngsters and a significant human and financial investment made available throughout their career, these are the leitmotifs of this sports agency like no other. A philosophy that contrasts with the other behemoths in the business: “Agencies like Octagon, Topnotch or IMG sign a maximum of young players who seem promising. In the batch, there will inevitably be some who will generate a return. They bring them some sponsoring deals and usually get a 20% commission. But in terms of support and accompaniment of the players, it is very limited, and that’s normal: these are big companies that must maximize their P&L vis-à-vis their shareholders, it’s a business,” says Daniel-Sacha while continuing his insight. “On their way, some youngsters may attract the attention of a Russian oligarch who will advance a lot of money. Except that, for this investor, it’s like buying a company and he ‘owns’ a part of those players forever. If they don’t rise to the top of the rankings or if their trajectory deviates from tennis, the youngsters will be asked to pay back the money with interest.” The man with a speech rate as fast as John Isner’s serve pauses before continuing: “At EDGE, players would not owe us anything in this case. Even if we hope that in a few years it will be a success, both human and financial, this agency is not our livelihood, and obviously not for any of the members of the management, who on the contrary invest their time, sweat and money in this adventure. And so, if for X or Y reason a player interrupts her career to devote herself to something else (having children, going to college, choosing a different path…), it’s her own choice and she is free to do it, and it simply stops there. That is fully our own risk.” Even better, EDGE subscribes an insurance policy in favor of each player to allow them to change their career path should the need arise. “Our relationship is to be partners. We take out insurance so that our protégés are not left out in the cold if they have an accident or an illness that forces them to stop playing tennis permanently. If such a problem occurs, they receive a large sum of money that allows them to bounce back in their next project. It’s part of the deal.” 

Conversely, if young talents explode onto the scene, EDGE receives almost nothing initially but has an incentive later on. “Our ‘upside’ is that we can receive a percentage of the players’ winnings, but only after a certain stage, and only in major tournaments. For example, if they are eliminated in the second round of the French Open, they keep the entire $100,000 prize money. The players need this money to reinvest in their future career. If they reach the final rounds and earn much more, only then do our ‘bonuses’ come into play. We don’t want to be just agents or investors, but partners.”

Hard to believe? A habit for Daniel-Sacha who is amused: “I have a typical example with a player from an Eastern European country. When we talked to her parents, they assumed initially they didn’t really understand what we were saying or thought there was maybe a scam. They couldn’t believe it was possible.” 

Women’s Tennis: A Conscious Choice 

EDGE has currently twelve players on its roster, all of whom come from diverse backgrounds and are carefully vetted by Rick Macci. Eleven of those youngsters are girls, and that’s no coincidence. “There are several reasons for this. The first, and this is a reality, is that women’s tennis is less competitive than the men’s game because girls don’t have the same opportunities,” explains Daniel-Sacha, who also believes that coaching is one of the biggest issues for girls. “Unlike boys, it’s usually the fathers who takes care of girls, with all that implies in terms of relationships, and who often don’t have the necessary skills or perspective. It is also important to understand that many coaches are reluctant to train young girls. There are several reasons for this, one of which is related to #MeToo. Many coaches see the reputational risk as daunting and without recourse, no matter what precautions are taken. And in the case where the coach accepts, the cost for a female player to travel with her coach is much higher than for a male player, who is for example able to share a hotel room with his coach.” In a world where young female talent often enjoys less backing that their male counterparts, EDGE believes that its strategy will increase the chance of a girl to succeed. “We want to offer them the opportunity to have the best possible coaching from a technical, physical and mental standpoint. We want to give them the best chances possible, which can make a difference, because not all the other girls get these opportunities.”

In addition to a meticulously selected, tailor-made staff, EDGE does its utmost to solve the logistical, legal and financial hurdles that can hamper the players’ progress. By reducing as much as possible the external factors that could interfere with their mindset, the future champions and their entourage only have to worry about purely tennis aspects on the court. “As with the Black Hussars of the Third Republic, our role is to accompany each of our players to the top of their abilities, whether it be Top-100 for some or Top-10 for others, depending on the potential of each individual,” explains Daniel-Sacha.

A Method That Is Already Bearing Fruit 

Although a newcomer among sports agencies, EDGE has reaped more than encouraging initial results. One of its young protégées, 17-year-old Belarusian Kristina Dmitruk, won Wimbledon in the junior doubles in 2021, and a few months later reached the singles final at the US Open in the same category. These achievements would never have been possible without the support of EDGE: “Her family didn’t have the financial means, it was a complex situation and her future was in jeopardy. Until last year, she had only played ITF tournaments in Eastern Europe, the most ‘western’ one being Prague. The Belarusian Federation would not help her to play in the Orange Bowl as they have limited resources being to share between various players. She had never taken part in a Grand Slam and was given different coaches to share with the other players. Following our agreement, the former coach of two world #1 players, Victoria Azarenka in singles and Max Mirnyi in doubles, agreed to become her full-time exclusive coach,” recounts Daniel-Sacha. 

Among the more fortunate youngsters, Frenchwoman Carole Monnet was also lucky enough to cross paths with EDGE on her way. Born in Ukraine and placed in an orphanage, the young girl was adopted as a child by a family from Toulouse. Bitten by the tennis bug which she discovered at the age of 9, she quickly swore allegiance to the sport. “Her amazing potential soon exploded. She enjoyed a meteoric rise as a teenager. She won Tennis Europe at 16 and was 30th in the junior rankings. In the last two years, she received a wild card from the French Federation to play the qualies at Roland Garros and went through the 1st round each time,” recalls Daniel-Sacha. But at the dawn of her 18th birthday, Carole went through a very difficult time. Her parents wanted to take control of her career by dictating their own choices. Stifled by this heavy climate, Carole had no choice but to leave her family and live her tennis project to the full. She and her long-time coach Hervé Romain set off on an adventure, scouring the tournaments with meager financial means. A life of hardship forced them to sleep several times in their car or on airport benches. “We heard about her situation through several French coaches based in Florida who knew Rick and his team. We were put in touch quickly and then drafted an agreement with them. At the end of 2019, we arranged a full stay in the US for their off-season. Rick Macci spent quite a bit of time with Carole and Hervé in his academy. Then we signed the final version of the contract all together. Everyone was delighted. Helping someone like her, who is so worthy and grateful, was a real honor. That’s what EDGE is all about,” says Daniel-Sacha. 

The next step for EDGE’s strategists is to chart the ideal path for Carole, Kristina and the other players in their wake to the world’s elite. With a carefully crafted schedule for each player and wild card opportunities, Daniel-Sacha and his partners have a clear understanding of the best ingredients for boosting a career. “For example, we have partnered with several tournaments around the world (France, Switzerland, US…), of different ranks in both ITF and WTA.” 

With its network of coaches and training bases, EDGE allows its residents to hone their skills on all surfaces and adapt to different weather conditions. “Our headquarters are in Florida at Rick Macci’s academy. Our full-time fitness expert, Julien Borduge, who supervises the preparation of each girl with her own coach, travels between France and the US to organize block training sessions. He also accompanies the youngsters to some tournaments. We are present in various strategic locations around the world thanks to the agreements we have signed locally. In Europe, we are based in Heidelberg (home to one of the most renowned German clubs) via an exclusive partnership with two amazing former WTA-Top-50s whose company offers dedicated services to our players and used to sponsor Les Petits As. We are also established in several locations in France and Switzerland. And then, there are more exotic destinations such as Costa Rica, Brazil or the Bahamas, where my friend Clément and I spend most of our time.” 

In an era dictated by financial interests from which tennis does not escape, EDGE’s approach is surprisingly unique. A bet full of hope for those budding champions who are deprived of the necessary human and financial support to accomplish their dreams.

The Tennis Bookshelf

Two long-awaited publications about two much-loved icons

As the September sun sets on Arthur Ashe stadium after a bewitching US Open 2021, and the net is put to bed until 2022, two long-awaited new books have arisen to curl up with as the autumn nights draw in. Both are fresh off the press at the time of writing this piece, having been written and completed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Both subjects, Billie Jean King and Roger Federer, are icons of their time. They are rewriting history and breaking records; both have played into their forties, crediting diversity in their lives for their longevity and motivation; and both have been plagued with the same questions about retirement, although decades apart. 

These are the stories of Billie Jean King and Roger Federer.

I spotted Billie Jean King at Wimbledon in 2018, surprisingly with no entourage. She was standing inconspicuously with a friend between Courts 5 and 6, doing what the rest of us die-hard fans were doing: catching any remaining matches on a warm summer evening, after most spectators had left. The grounds looked hallowed under the glow of the evening sun, the church steeple in the distance, and notably the charismatic presence of the queen of Wimbledon herself. I was too starstruck to approach her even though I was within volleying distance. What would I say? I regret it now, especially after reading this book. Billie Jean King is undoubtedly one of the greatest tennis players of all time, having won 39 grand slam titles between the 1960s and 1970s. But her achievements as a pioneering history-maker go beyond tennis.

King’s autobiography is written in her distinctively frank, no-nonsense prose and dedicated “to everyone who continues to fight for equity, inclusion and freedom”. ¹ Her enthusiasm is infectious, leaving us to question whether we are doing enough to make the world a better place. Although this is by no means King’s first autobiography, it is the latest and includes key political events such as LGBT, Me Too, and Black Lives Matter movements through to the present day. 

King’s childhood epiphany became her raison d’être: she would use tennis and sport as an equalizer to do good. She recounts the cultural and historical backdrop which shaped her views: the civil rights movement, the 1963 Equal Pay Act, the Vietnam War, and President Kennedy’s assassination amongst others. These influences inspired King to make a long-term change for tennis to be equitable for all sections of society: “I want things to be better fifty years from now, one hundred years from now. I want to create change that lasts.²”

As one of the Original 9 pioneers, who created the professional women’s tennis tour, King fought for equal prize money, so that “tennis would never be the same again” ³. She highlights two notable facts. Firstly, she did not want to separate from the men’s tour. She tried to convince male players that they would be stronger as one body. At the time, the male and female players toured and enjoyed the fraternity as one tennis family. She fondly reminisces about her friendships with Arthur Ashe and Rod Laver. Secondly, women played the best of five sets between 1984 and 1998 to settle the equal pay debate. She stresses that the equal pay fight was less about money, and more about the message that women’s sport should have an equal platform to men. Thanks to King’s negotiation, the US Open became the first major to pay men and women equal prize money.

Arguably, King is most famously known for her participation in the 1973 “Battle of the Sexes” match against male player Bobby Riggs, watched by an estimated 90 million people. Her dramatic point-by-point commentary and resulting win helps us relive the match, including its build up and lasting political impact, which was transformative. Chris Evert commented that, as a result, King had become a “mother to millions” ⁴ with examples showing how King’s influence helped change people’s lives.

Racism is high on her agenda, championing the black athletes of her time like Althea Gibson. There are many examples throughout the book, but one stands out. She once threatened to withdraw from a tournament after discovering that a group of black female players were told to enter the stadium through the service entrance and were refused accommodation. She ensured tournament officials provided suitable accommodation. 

As evidenced throughout the book, King is universally admired both in and outside the tennis world, and by past and present presidents – she is the first female athlete to have won the prestigious Presidential Medal of Freedom. President Obama informed her that she inspired him both as a child and later when he raised his daughters.

Alongside the accolades and achievements, King’s candid accounts of her personal dilemmas are humanising. Whilst she may be a superhero, she is not superhuman. She expresses her innermost guilt and struggle with the hypocrisy she felt when she was refusing to admit her own sexual identity for years, yet publicly encouraging people to be themselves, and to be open and honest. Further personal setbacks are revealed: sexual abuse, her on-court temper, abortion, her eating disorder including details of her therapy sessions, financial and health issues including multiple knee surgeries, and finally being outed in the media during a time when being gay was widely unaccepted. She lost most of her sponsorship deals as a result.

This autobiography is money well spent because like King herself, it is not one-dimensional. King kept many plates spinning even whilst at the peak of her tennis career. Although at times this was to her detriment, leading to health issues and exhaustion, it is those very spinning plates which have continued to reap rewards and bring diversity and purpose to her life, long after her professional tennis playing days were over. The world needs more superheroes like Billie Jean King, and as she emphasizes: “we are not done yet”. ⁵ 

Writing a book about Roger Federer is a brave feat. Federer books are a saturated market, yet publications of Federer books continue. But Clarey rightfully stresses that this is not a Federer encyclopedia – there are plenty of those. Only months before this book was published, two others were released, and he hasn’t even hung up his Wilson Pro Staff yet! So, is there anything new in there that will satiate the Federer fanatics? Until Mr Federer pens his own biography, this fascinating insight by Christopher Clarey is certainly worth the read. 

Clarey is a tennis correspondent who has covered tennis since 1990 for the International Herald Tribune and the New York Times. He has interviewed Federer many times over the past twenty years. The book stands out because of his privileged access to both the man himself and his inner circle, having developed a trusting rapport over decades. When Federer had glandular fever in 2007, it was Clarey he first entrusted with the news. In this book, 82 people were interviewed, including past and present coaches, family, and rivals. It, therefore, comes with serious street cred. 

The author’s worldwide meetings with Federer have taken place in the most diverse locations: Federer’s chauffeur-driven car, a court at Wimbledon, Times Square, restaurants in Switzerland, a van ride with Federer and Nadal after Laver Cup, Federer’s Parisian suite at the Hôtel de Crillon whilst Mirka tried on designer outfits. And most glamorously, a private jet: “that I had been invited to report from one of his sanctums was a sign that Federer and I had a good working relationship.”⁶

Clarey’s exploration of the topics that whet the appetite of every Federer fan does not disappoint. The evolution of that backhand and the secret to Federer’s career longevity and motivation are all discussed. By interviewing trusted sources like Federer’s coaches, agents, and physiotherapists, several combining factors to his longevity and motivation are discussed in detail with much credit given to wife Mirka. Pierre Paganini, Federer’s fitness trainer is credited for keeping him (until recently), fairly injury free. Andy Roddick distinguishes that Federer has preserved his body through “body control”, involving less body moves for each action, compared to players like Nadal. 

Clarey focuses on Federer’s legacy-defining billion dollar empire. The virtuoso has shown prowess both in the boardroom and on court, and this combination of tennis and business is also explored, thanks to Clarey’s access to key tennis agents. The origins of the “RF” monogram were fortuitous, as they were adapted from the failed Roger Federer perfume brand. Although that fragrance investment was futile, the sweet scent of success certainly permeated through to his sponsors, Nike and now Uniqlo. But this success was slow, as Federer initially avoided appointing an agent, informing Clarey that he enjoyed the independence of handling his own business. 

The delay in appointing an agent notably cost Federer millions in sponsorship negotiations. Clarey discusses and compares this with Roddick’s and Sharapova’s significantly higher off-court earnings in 2005, both of whom had agents (Ken Meyerson and Max Eisenbud respectively). 

Federer’s hiring of Tony Godsick more than tripled his earnings thanks to Godsick’s shrewd negotiations with the Nike “RF” brand, followed by many more lucrative contracts. This earned Godsick a reputation for being one of the leading tennis agents.

The intricacies behind the Nike renegotiation versus Uniqlo contracts are explored, thanks to Clarey’s ‘little black book’. The Uniqlo contract catapulted Federer to becoming one of the world’s highest paid athletes. But Eisenbud informs Clarey that there is more to the formula. Federer presents the complete package, untarnished by Tiger Woods-like personal indiscretions causing reputational damage. Former Nike director, Mike Nakajima left Nike before the attempted renegotiation. He reveals to Clarey that although the deal fell through because Nike were reportedly unwilling to meet Federer’s fee, Nike may regret this if Federer’s post-tennis career is successful. The Laver Cup is an example of this legacy.

As “peRFect”⁷ as Federer’s public profile is, we learn that, off camera, he is less polished, often goofy, and enjoys pranking friends, colleagues, even sponsors. He is an extrovert and an empath, getting his energy from others, making lifelong friends through his travels. Clarey interviews Federer’s host family from his early touring days, where a teenage Federer’s daily diet consisted of bowls of cornflakes and pasta. His bedroom was so messy that it was difficult to decipher whether he was in or out! Mirka is credited throughout the book with bringing much-needed order to his life. Another revelation is that for the man who looks like he was born and bred on grass and averse to clay, clay was Federer’s original surface – a common indoor surface in Switzerland.

Federer’s memorable matches are analysed in detail. Clarey has had in-depth conversations with rivals like Agassi, Sampras, Roddick, Nadal, Djokovic, as recently as 2020. Early Hewitt versus Federer matches paralleling their temper tantrums are intriguing, as is the comparison of play and personality between Federer (extrovert) and Sampras (introvert), including their blossoming friendship during a 2007 exhibition match in Asia, and a private dinner conversation in Beverly Hills, where Sampras grilled Paul Annacone and Federer about the decline of ‘serve and volley’ tennis. 

 

In his 1992 essay How Tracy Austin Broke My Heart, David Foster Wallace discusses the mass market appeal of athletes’ memoirs, expressing his disappointment in a humorous yet damning critique of Austin’s autobiography, because despite the promise, “these autobiographies rarely deliver” ⁸ as they fail to reveal much. These two books are proof that much has changed since then. 

King and Federer have a mutual admiration for each other. King told Clarey that Federer is “the most beautiful and balletic player I’ve ever seen”. ⁹ Both icons have recently supported each other publicly in favouring the merging of the WTA and ATP tours, wanting tennis to evolve and be more equitable. Federer revived the idea in 2020 in a tweet, calling King a “trailblazer”. The two allegedly had a private conversation following the tweet. Whether this merge comes to fruition remains to be seen. If it does, the two will rewrite the history books, once again. 

¹ King, B.J., All In: An Autobiography, opening dedication page.

^2-5 King, B.J., All In: An Autobiography, pg. 274, pg. 166, pg. 262, pg. 428.

⁶ Clarey, C., The Master: The Brilliant Career of Roger Federer, pg. 350.

⁷ Reference to Roger Federer’s RF logo, initially started with sponsor Nike.

⁸ Wallace, DF., String Theory, pg. 28.

⁹ Clarey, C., The Master: The Brilliant Career of Roger Federer, pg. 8.

 

Story published in Courts no. 2, autumn 2021.