August—September 2017 President Des Shaw [email protected] January Morning Tea Notice Council AGM Hon Treasurer Paul Thomson [email protected] SEED ...Jade Lewis News from Ron Dutton Hon Sec. Angela Hart [email protected] Peter Doohan & Mervyn Rose Editor Cecilie McIntyre [email protected] Blast From the Past Fed Cup Link to IC Council website www.ictennis.net Wimbledon Snippets Drop Shots Our Annual Morning Tea Notice. Last week all members on email were sent details of how to reserve your FREE ticket and gate passes to the morning teas held on both Mondays of the International Tournaments in Auckland in early January. (Women to the ASB Classic Women’s week on Monday 1st January, and Men to the ASB Classic Men’s week on Monday 8th January.. We must stress that although there is no charge, and you can ask for a ground pass for a partner to come with you to both the morning teas, if they want to sit in the stand with you, you must pay for those tickets. The cut off date for requests is 29th September and forms, with or without extra ticket payments MUST be returned to Angela before then. Every year since we have been doing this there have been last minute requests….but no late applications will be accepted this year. In the past the return forms have gone to Tennis Auckland but now, although payment is still made out to Tennis Auckland they need to be sent to Angela. DON’T leave it till the last days. Work out now whether you will be able to join us for one or both days and any ground passes needed. The original order form and details are attached with this newsletter . Catching up ! A couple of photos from the second morning tea in January this year. David Mustard, David Lewis, Malcolm Elley Roger Harvey, Greg Long, Brian Woolf, John Barry 1 . John Mills represented our committee at the recent IC Council AGM held on the middle Sunday of Wimbledon. He is on the right of the second row. At another function held during Wimbledon Rod Laver, Mark Cox and Ken Rosewall enjoyed a catch up. Members of the ICNZ team which played in the IC75 event held at Wimbledon in 1999 will recognise Mark’s tie! A special one to commemorate 75 years since the Interna- tional Clubs were started with the Great British one. SEED Supports a promising NZ Player. The headlines said, on January 5th this year, “Rising Kiwi tennis player Jade Lewis needs cash not compliments” This was after her very strong display as the NZ Women’s Champion and a wild card into the ASB Classic. There were enough signs in Jade’s 7-6 6-2 loss to Williams to be optimistic about her future, especially as she had a set point in the first set. Lewis showed she's a fighter and her emotions after the match demonstrated that she was not satisfied just to be competitive against Williams. Venus meanwhile, was full of praise after making hard work of disposing of Kiwi wildcard Lewis, an effort that produced an arm injury to curtail her latest stay here. Venus reckons Lewis has a future in the game. "I loved her intensity," Williams said of teenager Lewis. "She wanted to win and she expected a lot from herself. Those are all the things you want to see from a young person. I think she could do a lot in this game. She loves it and she wants more and I was happy to see that." The reality is it's going to be very tough for Jade to get anywhere near the status of either of the Williams sisters unless she gets some help. As a result of this the SEED Foundation has decided to assist Jade over the next 3 years to enable her to play tournaments around the world without the full stress of worrying about many of the costs. The 18-year-old is the recipient of significant investment from SEED an independent organisation set up to fund promising tennis players from this country. After her January efforts in Auckland Jade spent five months back at Louisiana State University where she excelled, making the All American singles team and finished the college season ranked 17. The SEED Foundation's money comes from private benefactors, keen to see New Zealand have high ranked players again. Jade will not receive money but having many of her travelling and coaching expenses covered should make it so much easier for her to give 100% in chasing her dream. Jade came to our morning tea with her father David in 2015 and here shaking hands with Venus Williams . 2 Ron Dutton is an Overseas ICNZ Member and has written this for our newsletter. I am very happy to say I am returning to New Zealand next year with my wife Marcela and my two children Angelina aged 9 and Michael aged 7. We will be moving to the North Shore, Browns Bay where I have been given the chance to be the Head coach at BBR tennis club. In Feb this year while visiting Auckland with my family I was able to meet up with old friends that I haven't seen in over 25 years, Greg and Kevin Long and Brian Fairlie who I hadn't seen in 35 years. I have been teaching tennis since 1984 and have been living in Zurich Switzerland since 1999 and since 2006 I have had my own Tennis School. During my time in Switzerland I have grown and developed my coaching skills, gained extensive experience and qualifications, especially the 9 courses I have done with Swiss Tennis and very proud to have received highest marks for Tennislehrer mit Eidg Fachausweis Swiss Tennis which is the highest state recognized Tennis Diplome. I have been privileged here in Switzerland being involved with Swiss Tennis, State Tennis, and club tennis. It all begins at a club level for young players and for me it’s very important that I can offer my experience and knowledge to all. I believe BBR will set an example as a club that is moving forwards in a direction that is only positive. Over the last 17 years living in this beautiful country I have learned so much about Tennis and life. I believe tennis coaches should mix more with each other and even those coaches who think they know it all should attend courses on coaching. Having spent years learning about being a better coach, every day I learn about being a better coach, mixing with other coaches, exchanging ideas which I feel could be done more everywhere. New Zealand Tennis was very good to me when I was a young boy and supported me which helped me to win many New Zealand and Australian titles. Browns Bay is a wonderful area for me and my family to settle. The whole family love tennis, especially my son, he loves tennis like ice cream. I am currently No 1 ranked singles player in Switzerland for my age but coaching tennis is my number one priority, tennis I say is schooling for life, it teaches one so much about themselves, respect, discipline, health, fitness, coordination and so on. Everybody is different and so a coach needs to feel everybody's needs that will help them in a positive way. I think New Zealand tennis can improve much more on top of the wonderful success they have had over the years and are currently having. Appointing Simon Rea is one big step in the right direction. Meeting Roger Federer, being around him when he has trained and talking with him has been one of my tennis high lights in Switzerland. My children look at him as if he is God, after me of course:-) Swiss Tennis has great fitness trainers which shows especially with Roger and Stan and I work with a fantastic trainer who works with Swiss Tennis and Federer’s trainer. This is magic what they do and has given me insight to what these great players are doing to stay so fit for so long. All in all I am so passionate about returning to Browns Bay with my family and striking the fine balance between creating the ultimate family orientated tennis club and producing top performing tennis players of the highest level. Tennis is my life and I love everything about tennis. So, I’m looking forward to meeting everybody and being involved with the IC of New Zealand and with New Zealand Tennis. I have been privileged that through my tennis it has really created for me so much. Regards Ron With Greg & Kevin Long 3 The last IC Newsletter was sent just as Wimbledon was starting. As it is our winter there is not a lot of local news, but we hope you find some of the articles and photos here of interest. Some refer to events from the time there was a distinction between the amateur and professional players….. some of these players were the trail blazers who fought to have tennis ‘open’ to all. The All England committees of the late 1960’s deserve praise for their decision to end the ‘sham’ under the table payments and make Wimbledon 1968 the first Grand Slam open to all. In only 3 days in July Australian Tennis lost two very prominent former players : Peter Doohan who died on July 21 at the age of 56 and Mervyn Rose who passed away on July 23 at the age of 87.