McEnroe brothers seek growth of tennis

NEW YORK

Patrick McEnroe, head of player development for the USTA, has just lost his clay courts at Flushing Meadows until after the US Open. They’ve been turned into a parking lot.

That’s the price you pay for having a headquarters at a public facility that is also the site of a Grand Slam.

SURPRISE ENDING

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It wouldn’t happen at Roland Garros, because the French Federation runs the place. But McEnroe has made other arrangements at a nearby facility — and it is not brother John’s academy on Randall’s Island on the East River.

“They’re too expensive,” Patrick says with a smile. “They’re running a business. It’s a different model to us. They are trying to make money; we’re spending it.”

The two brothers, along with middle brother Mark, who runs the John McEnroe Tennis Academy with his superstar sibling, are taking different paths to the same goal. Patrick has only 24 players at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, and he hopes all of them will make a career in professional tennis.

“We would like to produce a champion, too,” says Mark, a pretty fair player who, nevertheless, elected to spend much of his career as a lawyer. “But we have broader objectives, like trying to get as many adults and kids playing tennis as possible.”

The academy, which has always been John’s dream, has been open nearly a year and is making progress, in as far as there are 2,000 adult members and more than 100 kids a week enrolled in summer camp. They are looked after by a bevy of top coaches and fitness experts, headed by two prominent former ATP pros, Fritz Buehning and Gilad Bloom, who supervise action on 20 courts.

However there are frustrations. The academy is owned by a company called Sportime, which runs a World Team Tennis team. There is a well-designed outdoor stadium that holds 2,500, but Mark admits they had a tough time filling it this summer.

“People still think Randall’s Island is difficult to get to," Mark says "It was fine when John played Bjorn Borg, but regular matches without superstars are a hard sell.”

Equally galling is the fact the New York Fire Brigade has its training HQ right next door, and many of the fire fighters have lunch in the academy’s excellent restaurant. “But not one of them plays tennis,” Mark says.

“There is still an elitist image which clings to our sport, and it is so difficult to break down," he adds, "Most of the kids in our camp come from affluent families, even though we reach out to local kids in Queens and have arrangements with various sports foundation groups, including the New York Junior Tennis League, which was founded by Arthur Ashe and Charlie Pasarell.”

To prove they are serious about trying to entice youngsters into the game, Sportime, which is owned by Claude Okin, offers free courts each morning to a variety of local schools and programs.

Patrick’s problems are somewhat different. Since taking over player development for the USTA three years ago, the youngest McEnroe has been trying to change a culture.

“One of the reasons why I want Jose Higueras on my team is his philosophy towards the game,” Patrick tells me. “He says, ‘It’s not how you hit the ball, but how you play tennis.’ It’s a mindset, and so many kids have been held back through making poor decisions. You have to go out there totally prepared to play 12-, 13-, 14-stroke rallies instead of three- or four-stroke rallies. That’s one reason why I am emphasizing clay-court tennis. It helps your development as an all-round player.”

Patrick doesn’t want to point fingers, but he admits: “In the past, it hasn’t been a question of the young players being soft — we’ve been soft. The kids have to be made to understand what it takes.”

Since taking over, Patrick has increased the number of regional training centers from two to 20. He is not afraid of people having different ideas — they exist within his own family — but he does believe that France and Spain have taken the lead in producing a high volume of top players because their national coaches adopt the same approach.

“Without stifling individualism," he says, "in France and Spain, they are basically playing the same way all over the country, playing within the same parameters.”

Players from Patrick’s group cleaned up Under-14, U16, and U18 titles at the National Claycourt Championships this summer, and Mark thinks he is seeing talent emerge from some of the academy’s younger players.

With three McEnroe brothers all working toward the same aim, albeit by different paths, within a few square miles of one another in a sporting corner of New York, it should not be unreasonable to hope that some of the America’s next generation of players emerge under the umbrella of one McEnroe or another.