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Friday, February 11, 2005

Canada's Wozniak wants to finish junior tennis career with a Grand Slam (CP)

Yahoo! News - Canada's Wozniak wants to finish junior tennis career with a Grand Slam
Instead of yet another story about Donald Young, how about one on Aleksandra Wozniak of Canada, who shared the winner's platform with him at the Casablanca Cup, and did him one better by winning the girls doubles title too?

Now ranked third in the world after reaching the semifinals in Australia, Wozniak is looking for a tennis angel. The details in this story aren't unusual, but in these cases, I always find myself asking where is the (insert country name here) Tennis Federation and why aren't they helping this junior? I realize they can't help everyone, but once a player wins a Grade A event and has reached the Top Five in the world, I've got to believe it makes her one of the best juniors in Canada. If she's gotten to her current level training in Quebec with her father as her coach, you'd expect a semester at a tennis academy in Florida to be worth the cost of the tuition.

Though "no money" is often not the sum total of reasons a junior fails, it shouldn't even be in the equation in developed countries with tennis federations and Olympic sponsors. Am I missing something here?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

great junior web site! congrats!

Alot of tennis federations help for awhile. The problem seems to be when the parents who coach their own children will not givi certin federations complete control of the junior tennis player. This I know from first hand experence. The federation who help my junior for awhile ,didn't like the fact that we didn't give them control over his career.
this happens quite often. Keep up the great work with your site

Colette Lewis said...

Thanks for chiming in, Ed. I suspected that she didn't pay for her own airfare to Australia. Is there no process for individual grants based on accomplishments? The USTA High Performance website has (very specific) grant application criteria. I give them credit for providing a system, even though the money seems to come after it's needed. And congratulations on your tennis-related blog. I'd link to the Montreal Gazette story you mentioned, but it is a paid subscription.

Colette Lewis said...

Yesterday I was unable to get to the link Ed Toombs provided, but today I was successful and posted it above. It is a huge improvement on this story.
Don't miss it.