Week 6 - Challenger ($50,000) - West Lakes, Australia (Hard)

Doonan · Intermediate Club Player

RE: Week 6 - Challenger ($50,000) - West Lakes, Australia (Hard)

Shhh · Challenger level

korriban wrote:
A great win!
Given Cam was born in NZ, raised and educated in NZ, has a NZ passport, played for NZ having been trained and supported through the NZ national tennis system, and following a brief period in GB to train under the LTA as a Brit, has now returned to NZ to make his home........shouldn't one reasonably expect that we will "lose" him at some point?

Does Cam intend to remain playing as a Brit do we know? Will he return to base himself from these shores or was the previous swap now considered a mistake on his part?

Spectator · All-time great

Given that he's planning to spend the next four years in Michigan - which is hardly close to either, though closer to the UK - who knows? But with results like that one, it wouldn't be surprising if NZ made a concerted effort to get him back.

paulisi · Tennis legend

Cracking result for Cam, but yet another failure for Brydan.

steven · Tennis legend

Full summary:

L32: (Q) Cameron Norrie WR 976 beat (6) Matt Reid (AUS) WR 183 (= CH) by 3 & 4
L32: Brydan Klein WR 403 lost to (Q) Maverick Banes (AUS) WR 719 (CH 614 in 2012) by 4 & 4

L16: (Q) Cameron Norrie WR 976 v Matthew Barton (AUS) WR 293 (CH 201 in Apr) - Thursday

Re. Cameron's plans - @zootennis said in answer to someone else last night that "Norrie is Michigan's prized recruit for this fall" (as Spectator already seems to know - see 2 posts up)

It doesn't strike me as inevitable that he will switch back one day - the fact that he wanted to go back and finish school in NZ (perfectly understandable) doesn't mean he won't want to base himself in Europe after college and in any case, you don't have to be based in Europe to play for GB. He seems to get on ok with the other Brits, which must help, and even looking at it from a purely mercenary point of view, the lure of a possible Wimbledon WC probably beats having more chance of playing Davis Cup. Also, it's probably a bit embarrassing to switch one way then switch back!

Finally (and perhaps most importantly) if you have parents from two different countries, of course you'll be more into the culture of the country you were brought up in, but you tend to feel pretty strong links to the country your other parent is from too if they have made any effort at all to keep you in touch with those roots - and in my experience, Scots in particular do tend to do that

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

What an absolutely cracking result from Cameron.

Re the possibility of going back to NZ and the NZ authorities maybe making a big push to lure him back, I can't see that happening with the way things are set up at the moment.

There was lots of hoo-ha last year from Markovic - High Performance Sport New Zealand, which funds all sports, currently has no tennis players because it has a 'one-fits-all' criterion and so for tennis, it's claimed, you'd have to be in the WR top 20 to get funding (!) and, anyway, tennis isn't a targeted sport. Markovic (being top 50) gets nothing, and can't even use national facilities !

There were lots of articles, here's a couple:

www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm

www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm

Supposedly there's been questions asked about the system and it's being reviewed for tennis but, at the moment, it's just really severe for tennis players.

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

Doonan wrote:
Klein lost 6-4 6-4 to the wonderfully named Maverick Banes.

Why am I not surprised? disbelief His doubles partner, Westerhof (7), also lost in straight sets (2 & 5).

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

Cam gets a second pop at Matt Reid in the doubles, but a win to take him & Bradley through to the semi-final looks like a pretty tall order:

QF: (1) Matt Reid & John-Patrick Smith (AUS/AUS) CR 195 (120+75) vs Bradley Mousley (AUS) & Cam Norrie CR 1787 (654+1133)

Spectator · All-time great

Thanks, CD, for the article on Erakovic. I seem to recall there was also a point at which the New Zealand Olympic Committee was proposing not to send her to the Olympics, despite the fact that she'd qualified, because she wasn't top 16 (which was their general criterion). At that point there was quite a fuss, and they backed down. Given that they simply don't have as much money to spend on sport (which is fair enough: if it's support to professional sport v support for education or healthcare or other domestic or foreign priorities, I'd go with the other options myself.)one might think that they could nonetheless work out that criteria might differ from sport to sport.

-- Edited by Spectator on Tuesday 4th of February 2014 07:44:57 PM

indiana · Tennis legend

Thanks for these links, CD, very interesting read and the NZ funding authorities do seem very blinkered and inflexible.

Refusing Erakovic access to the gym at their Millenium Institute, because she was using a foreign trainer ( who she was paying out a not inconsiderable sum for ), after she had been repeatedly refused assistance internally is maybe not the most important individual matter, but it speaks volumes for a poor mindset.

To compare top rowers generally with tennis players ( easily the most competitive worldwide individual sport ) and football ( whatever one may think about the salaries and pampering of the top stars, so many other sports people would have loved to make it at football, another absolutely global, competitive sport ).

Sometimes folk can just lose the plot, like Mahe Drysdale, the great NZ single sculler rower, who indicated great surprise at the NZ "All Whites" international football team winning a notable team award when saying that they didn't even reach the last 16 of the World Cup. In truth, they performed remarkably well to be unbeaten in their group at South Africa 2010. Well done to Ryan Nelson, the NZ international footballer, on a pointed hometruth in response : "If rowing was as big as football, Mahe would find himself up against 120 rowers of his level."

Rowing ( in particular ) and cycling bear no comparison in depth with such as tennis and football. If the NZ authorities want to highly focus on potential world medal winning sports, that is their choice, but they have to show more flexibility and empathy to some others than they appear to do. Erakovic, one of their relatively few ( outside both codes of rugby ) internationaly recognised sportspeople, seems to have had had quite a battle with this.

As for Cameron, bearing such as this in mind, I am like some others in not drawing too much from him going back to NZ to finish his schooling. I reckon he could still be in the GB tennis camp for many years to come.

imoen · Admin: Moderator+Tennis Legend

In New Zealand's defence it has a population of just over 4 million and it's main sports are rugby, sailing and netball. Football is of course popular as it is everywhere. If you have some time you go for a walk or sailing you don't go for a game of tennis. Without knowing for sure I'd imagine tennis is even further down the popularity list in NZ than it is here and the pool of people playing tennis regularly is therefore miniscule. As a result there is no money to fund their players apart from the multi-sport government money so it's hardly any wonder that they haven't got it perfectly set up for tennis there.

As an additional note sort of on topic and for any of are interested...New Zealanders feel a strong connection to Scotland in the South of the South Island especially - the cities of Invercargill and Dunedin (which is a derivative of the gaelic name for Edinburgh) were settled by Scots and there is a great affection for Scotland evident there.

indiana · Tennis legend

Nice people in New Zealand, I found on my travels a few years ago, although I was just in North Island. Maybe me being Scottish helped :)

You're in New Zealand aren't you, Imoen ? ( or is that a were in NZ since I notice you posting more again here and during our daytime ? )

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

As I feared:

QF: (1) Matt Reid & John-Patrick Smith (AUS/AUS) CR 195 (120+75) defeated Bradley Mousley (AUS) & Cam Norrie CR 1787 (654+1133) by 1 & 2 cry

imoen · Admin: Moderator+Tennis Legend

indiana wrote:
Nice people in New Zealand, I found on my travels a few years ago, although I was just in North Island. Maybe me being Scottish helped :)

You're in New Zealand aren't you, Imoen ? ( or is that a were in NZ since I notice you posting more again here and during our daytime ? )

It's a was, I spent a couple of months travelling both islands but had to come back in November I'm English rather than Scottish but I still found New Zealanders to be very nice people always with a smile & a hello if you meet anyone on a walk - I got some very strange looks when I picked up the habit and brought it back here....I lost it again very rapidly!!

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

Looks like Cam put up another good fight over night but unfortunately couldn't pull off the victory this time. However it has still been an excellent week for him.

L16: (Q) Cameron Norrie WR 976 lost to Matthew Barton (AUS) WR 293 by 5-7 4-6