Finally a junior player from Malaysia is on his way to make a debut at the Australian Junior Open.
Juan Antonio Los Santos will make his grand slam debut in the junior ranks on Jan 25-31 at Melbourne Park. The 17-year-old will be the first Malaysian in almost 20 years (!) to compete in a grand slam junior event.Los Santos is currently ranked at no. 139 in the junior ranking, will compete in the qualifying rounds. If you think why Los Santos's name doesn't sound Malaysian, it's because he's of mixed Spanish-Chinese parentage.
He is currently competing in the ITF Grade One Loy Yang Power Traralgon International and will later play in the Optus Notting Hill International (Jan 16-23), both in Melbourne.National coach Rahizam Rahim said Juan's acceptance into the Australian Open marks a new beginning for Malaysian tennis."It's an indication that local tennis is progressing. However, his parents should be given credit for supporting him," said Rahizam yesterday.
Los Santos, in an recent interview, said he hopes to become a successful professional player one day.His mother, Gabby, is a former international who played in the Junior Wimbledon in 1981.Los Santos has been making steady progress since he was 13 when he won several ATF Under-14 championships and also held the Asian no. 1 ranking in this category.In 2007, he become the youngest Malaysian winner of the ITF junior circuit when he won the Grade Four Brunei event. Updates:
His mom Gabby still haven't reply my email which request for Los Santos photos and updates. However I managed to find one photo online.
Cute, eh?
Los Santos, who will be making his Australian Junior Open debut on Sunday, failed to make an impact in two recent ITF Grade One Junior events.
At the Loy Yong Power International, Los Santos fell 6-2, 6-3 to Australia's Jason Murry Kubler in the first round in Traralgon.
In Melbourne, Los Santos, the World No 139 in the junior ranking, was beaten 6-4, 6-1 by Italy' Alessandro Colella in the Optus Nottinghill International. (Via NST)
Herald Tribune reported a major restructuring is going on at the top of IMG Academies, the world renowned sports training facility.
The deepest impact has come at the Bollettieri Tennis Academy, leaving some of the facility’s founders jobless.
Four top executives were either fired or encouraged to resign since December. They include tennis academy director Gabriel Jaramillo, VPs Ted Meekma and Greg Breunich and CFO Jeff McNeil were asked to leave.
Each man was given severance pay, according to Jaramillo‘s attorney, and signed nondisclosure and no-compete contracts that prohibit them from coaching tennis or speaking publicly about the changes.
As this makes room for people to move up the corporate ladder, this could also mean there will be some entry level positions available for recent graduates from sports management colleges. IMG officials refused to comment yet.
Meekma and Bruenich started as tennis instructors who worked side-by-side with Bollettieri since the early years of the academy.
Jaramillo also started as an instructor and worked his way to the head of the academy while training dozens of top players, including Agassi, Sharapova and Pete Sampras. He is the guy who spotted the talent in Kei Nishikori when he was in Japan.
In 1987, Bollettieri joined IMG to open the multi-sport academies in west Manatee County, on 300 acres of former tomato fields. IMG now trains thousands of athletes in sports from golf to basketball.
An investment firm, Forstmann Little & Co., acquired IMG — an international sports and entertainment marketing company — in 2004 for $750 million.
Forstmann Little has a history of cutting costs to make its acquisitions more profitable before reselling them.
Hopefully the restructuring process taking place would not affect the players.
(Via heraldtribune.com)
China's Sun Tiantian, who was 2008 Australian Open mixed doubles champion along with Nenad Zimonjic, was given the honour to become the first WTA player to blog in Sony Ericsson WTA Tour website this year.
Sun is currently in Sydney to compete and make her Australian Open preparations at the Medibank International.
She shared with the fans why most tennis players look older than their age. For instance:
Marcos Baghdatis is only 23 but looks like 32.
She also said, in Australia, the UV ray is very strong due to the depletion of ozone layer.
Believe it or not, statistics show that Australia has the highest incidence of skin cancer in the world!
Besides talking about the sun in Australia (didn't talk about the surf though), she also blogged about missing her mom's cooking, playing doubles with Anna-Lena Groenefeld in Sydney and being satisfied with the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour calendar for 2009.
"There are tournaments with more prize money, and they're also paying more attention to the players' health, giving us a longer off-season among other things. I like these changes."
Click here to check out more updates from her blog soon.
(Via sonyericssonwtatour.com; Images via Yahoo! Sport)
Cute, eh?
