Absence of any elite Irish tennis players is a mystery - and one that needs solving

Irish tennis player Conor Niland reached a career high of 129 in the world on June 12th, 2010. For some years Niland was the face of Irish tennis along with Louk Sorensen, who reached 175 in 2014. Sorensen played in the French Open and Australian Open, while Niland played in the main draws at Wimbledon and the US Open in 2011, famously losing to world number one, Novak Djokovic, in New York having had to retire from the match in the second set because of severe food poisoning.

Since those two bright lights, there have been no Irish tennis players involved in professional tennis at the elite level and it is something of an Irish sporting mystery as to why. Surface, money, coaches, facilities, support, culture have all been used to explain the great Irish tennis deficit at the professional level. But the bottom line is there are no Irish players in Grand Slams any more.

There are none at senior level. There are none in junior competitions and there are none on the horizon threatening to do a Niland and punch into the Grand Slam events.

Tennis in Ireland is thriving as a social sport and perhaps Tennis Ireland sees no need to put vast amounts of resources into positioning a player, male or female in the professional circuit so that Ireland would have regular competitors in the four major events at Melbourne, Paris, London and New York. If that is the view, maybe think again because the return is enormous.

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“Can’t see, can’t be” is a slogan used by women in sport in Ireland to promote the idea that if women are not seen on television, written about in the newspapers and websites and seen as equals to male athletes, then young girls in sport have nothing to relate to. They cannot believe they too can play football or rugby or hockey, or tennis at world level. They do not understand that ordinary boys and girls with talent can reach the pinnacle of their sport because they have never seen it done. There is no role model.

I searched the WTA Tour website this week to see just what Irish women were officially listed as having a world ranking. Just one name came up, Celine Simunyu ranked 992 in the world. Checking Andorra to see what they had, the rankings coughed up Victoria Kasinteva, who won the junior Australian Open in 2020 and is ranked 182 in the world.

Israel has nine ranked players in women’s singles and France have 78 including the world number five Caroline Garcia. Britain has 41 women playing and Denmark has eight including Clara Tauson ranked 92, high enough for her to get an automatic place in the Grand Slam events, which have a starting field of 128 players.

Sifting through most of the mainstream Irish sports and other federations have been able to produce athletes that can compete on the world stage. Kellie Harrington is an Olympic boxing champion, while Amy Broadhurst and Lisa O’Rourke have world championship winners’ medals.

The women’s hockey team made it to a World Cup final in 2018. In golf Leona Maguire, Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry decorate television screens every week. Irish rowers both male and female are top of the world, while our swimmers will compete at the Olympics next year with Daniel Wiffen a serious contender for a medal.

This summer the Irish women’s soccer team plays in a World Cup of 32 teams in Australia, while both the men’s and women’s Irish Sevens rugby squads have qualified to play in the 12-team Olympic Games next summer in Paris. Yet not a male or female player is competing at Wimbledon with 256 singles places available for men and women.

There isn’t an Irish boy or girl listed in the official draw of Wimbledon junior qualified players, a tournament for boys and girls aged between 14 and 18. In fact, short of Fergus Murphy – one of the core professional umpires on the world circuit – there is no significant Irish presence at any of the tennis Grand Slam events.

It is not an issue for anyone to work out other than Tennis Ireland. A personal view is that talented Irish players tend to opt to go to college in the US, while in other countries, especially eastern Europe, they are toughing it out on tour, being baked alive at all sorts of windblown and weather-beaten tournaments.

There is a culture in Ireland, not a bad one, of education first. There is either a reluctance to send kids out into the tough tennis world or Ireland does not have the resources to do it the way it needs to be done. Simon Carr, over the last number of years, knows the difficulty.

Irish players Osgar O’Hoisin, Carr and Michael Agwi are respectively placed at 795, 937 and 1448 in the men’s ATP rankings, well outside qualification by merit for the Grand Slams. They are the only Irish names listed in current men’s rankings.

Look at the transformational effect Katie Taylor had on women’s boxing. What rewards tennis would receive if an Irish player was on television screens each afternoon this fortnight threatening to win something, and imprinting on impressionable minds that there is no good reason why they too should not be able to compete with the best.