Talented Levova must choose her targets

On Tennis:There was a headline in this paper yesterday regarding Ireland's best golfer, Padraig Harrington. Colin Byrne, who for several years has been full-time caddy to the major winner Retief Goosen, was commenting on the issues Harrington must now consider following his win at the British Open at Carnoustie 10 days ago. The headline read: Harrington must deal with major decisions.

Byrne dealt with how Harrington paid attention to detail, how his preparation was intense and unwavering, how his discipline was flawless and geared toward achieving just one result. It was about how his management of everything off course as well as on course was developed in order to give him the best possible chance of winning.

It is a formula Harrington has always applied to his game, one that has now brought his dream to life. It is also one he must continue to apply as his earning power - a potential 20 million - makes greater demands on his time.

He must manage his career correctly and in all likelihood pass over many of the opportunities that present themselves. For the good of his golf, Harrington will have to refuse lucrative offers.

The point is that elite competitors should always take the long view because there is sense in it. While it easier for a multi-millionaire to pass over more millions than for a struggling athlete to pass over less, the same robust and occasionally Spartan view is equally important to both.

In that light, Ireland's young Bulgarian talent, Maryiana Levova, will probably reconsider her decision-making process next time she takes part in an International Tennis Federation (ITF) under-18 event. And at 16 years of age she clearly still has more time to do just that.

The teenager last week blew the chance of the winning the ITF tournament at Donnybrook largely because she played in her club's senior open championship in the same week.

In other words, she played two competitions, side by side in one week, on occasion playing three matches in one day - two singles and a doubles.

It says much for the youngster that she reached both finals. As top seed in Donnybrook, she was defeated by the British player Lisa Whybourn in the final of the ITF event and at Castleknock she lost to Ann Marie Hogan in the West Dublin Senior Open.

Tennis Ireland - who are hoping she will gain citizenship soon so they can immediately recruit her into the Federation Cup squad - were unaware she was playing in parallel tournaments, but they did see that in the international event the normally busy number-one seed looked jaded when she stepped on to the court at Donnybrook against the unseeded Whybourn and lost 6-2, 6-3. She sacrificed the ITF event for her club tournament.

Applying Harrington's logic, that was a bad decision and one she may learn from in the coming years. Her compromise left her falling between two stools. Given her youth and the various stresses inherent in trying to play two tournaments in one week, she should have been advised by more experienced people around her not to play in both.

While it is no disaster, it is a concern that dodgy calls are being made at such an early stage of her career. Levova has already taken a 240-ranked senior WTA player to three sets (losing 6-4 in the third), when she played in France in a European Club competition, so there is no question she is a genuine talent.

Very shortly she will begin to compete more routinely against seniors when she enters the €7,000 tour events on the regular WTA tour.

"Those $10,000 events are the tournaments she will be starting to play more often," said national technical director Garry Cahill.

"That route is the main priority now for Maryiana."

As they say, the school of experience takes very few holidays. But the school of inexperience does take the occasional day off.

Still on Ireland's possible future players (and we all know the pitfalls along the road to senior tennis), the Greystones youngster Amy Bowtell qualified for the last eight in Rushbrooke, Co Cork yesterday in the under-18 ITF tournament.

Bowtell is still only 14 and has recently begun to deliver on her obvious talent. The schoolgirl is now competing against full-time players, which makes any decision on what to do next fraught with uncertainty.

As always, the ultimate choice is whether her talent is more important than, or less important than, or of equal importance with, her academic education. Most of the world's top players have put the talent first and taken on education along the way. Venus Williams can speak passable French, Roger Federer speaks five languages fluently. Most other elite players speak two or three languages.

Then again, maybe that's not enough.