IT’S A QUESTION with no obvious answers. A conundrum without any apparent solutions. Why, for a sporting nation with a history of producing athletes with immense hand-eye co-ordination, has a top-class tennis player not come from these shores?
Down through the years, there have been players who threatened to break through on the world stage. Conor Niland led the way for so long and now it’s James McGee.
The 28-year-old Dubliner has taken the baton from Niland as Ireland’s flag bearer on the ATP circuit but life as a professional tennis player can be a lonely crusade to desolate corners of the world.
Unlike team sports, there is no salary and the structure in professional tennis is heavily geared towards rewarding those at the top. Trying to justify your existence in the lower echelons of the sport is a relentless struggle.
Andre Agassi, an eight-time Grand Slam winner and former world number one, once compared life on the road to solitary confinement and insisted it wasn’t a natural way to live.
At just 16 years of age, Simon Carr is already trying to keep his head above water on the professional circuit. The teenager left school last summer to take a different path to the one those who have tried, and ultimately floundered, on before.
The natural avenue to go down is to seek a scholarship in America, earn a rich tennis and academic education in the States and hope it manifests itself into some sort of sustainable career.
But Carr and his father – the former Dublin footballer Tommy – know the sport inside out. They’ve watched on as fledging careers have fallen by the wayside and how child prodigies have eventually yielded to the cut-throat environment.
“I’ve enjoyed travelling around but it’s been tough at times,” Simon tells The42. “I’m away for two weeks most of the time so it’s tough being away from home but you have to do it.
“I’d be away a couple of times on my own but usually it’s with my coach or one of my parents. I do know a few other players now so you’d hook up with them for hotels and at dinner but when you’re on your own there’s not really a lot to do.
“I miss everything from home really – friends and family but it’s what I decided to do and I feel I’ve learned a lot over the last few months and my game has really improved.”
Carr, who completed his Junior Cert in Mullingar CBS before ceasing his formal education last summer, is currently competing on two fronts.
He combines events on the Junior Tour and the ITF Men’s Circuit (futures) Tour as he looks to gain as much experience and exposure as possible. It means he’s on the road most weeks.
“Simon doesn’t want to get too bogged down in the Junior ranks because at the end of the day it’s not a great indication of your future game,” Tommy explains.
“So he’s more interested in building for the future and not now. We have a long-term view and feel because he’s so young, if he gets this head-start now then his game will be all the better for it when all his competitors are entering the circuit in two or three years time.
“Although he’s not concentrating on Juniors, his ranking has gone from 500 to 300 in one competition. He’s just dipping in and out and he could focus on Juniors and chase ranking points but that’s not really where we want him to focus his attention.”
This is very much the learning phase of Carr’s journey. In January, he advanced to the semi-finals in a Juniors tournament in Tunisia but has failed to get past the qualifying rounds in his last four Future Tour events.
It’s a harsh learning curve in a difficult, and at times lonely, environment but each defeat is serving a purpose. His coach, Garry Cahill, firmly believes being thrown in at the deep end and being subjected to heavy defeats will accelerate the process.
“Every time I go onto the court I learn something new and gain more experience,” Simon continued. “I’ve seen improvements in my game by simply immersing myself in the sport day in, day out.
“The other players are much older than me, 25, 26, 27 year-old journeymen pros, and that’s why I started so early so in a few years time I’ll already have all this behind me.
“It was an easy decision to leave school because it’s the only way. If you go to college here you’re taking four years out of your playing career and there are guys in Europe and America and they’re making really good progress really young.
“You need to be on a par or if not just behind them. Going into transition year made it easier and was a good opportunity to try it and go for it.”
Carr demonstrated his prodigious talent on the court from a young age. He dominated underage tournaments at home and on the continent and was earmarked by Tennis Ireland as a future star for the last number of years.
The governing body have been ‘hugely supportive’ so far but funding is non existent and Carr’s decision to go solo, and ignore the traditional structures, means his family must finance his every expense.
Winning on the Futures Tour earns a prize cheque of around €1,000 but Carr hasn’t reached that level yet. At the moment, making ends meet isn’t the aim of the exercise but, suffice to say, his journeys around Europe aren’t cheap.
Last month, Carr had to frantically dash from Tunisia to Majorca to arrive at his next tournament on time for the registration deadline. His father spent much of the journey on the phone to the tournament referee assuring him they would be there.
“It’s quite difficult at the moment,” Tommy says of shouldering the financial burden. “We’re funding Simon’s tennis, coaching and travel. It requires fair old resources as you could imagine and we are looking at a few ideas that would raise those finances.
“We have a few people looking at ideas to raise funds for two or three years and you know where the whole thing is going then. The prize money is minimal so we can’t even begin to factor that in.
“The difficultly is that Tennis Ireland simply don’t have the money or resources themselves. They’ve been very good in terms of providing Simon with facilities and coaching and they do their best but they’re in no position which is a shame really.
“It’s not just Simon but there are two or three very talented young players in this country and we’ve made that commitment but not everyone can.”
But no one else is, or has ever, done what Carr is doing and his father, believes it’s the only way he’s ever going to be competitive enough at the top level.
“We don’t have the facilities like clay courts in Ireland and that’s part of the reason why Simon is travelling because of the surfaces here,” Tommy adds. “The hitting partners aren’t good enough so the resources aren’t here and not in Tennis Ireland so you go out on your own.
“Like anything, is there any guarantees in sport or life? There’s none whatsoever but unless you try something and take risks or somebody goes out and tries something different then it’s never going to happen.
“And wouldn’t it be great if it was Simon or one of the very talented other young tennis players who go on and make a name for themselves and be in a Wimbledon quarter-final, semi-final or final?
“Somebody has to chase the dream and Simon has always shown a talent for sport in general but tennis in particular and if that’s what he wants to do and that’s what he wants to achieve then why not? If he feels he’s good enough and we feel he’s good enough why not give it a shot?”
Having studied for a degree in strength and conditioning, Tommy is very much part of the journey and has taken on more roles than just a supportive parent.
By his own admission, he is not well versed on tennis’ technical aspects but having played sport at the highest level himself is in a good position to lend advice to Simon about dealing with life on and off the court.
“If Simon would listen a bit more often than he might take that advice,” he jokes. “We chat from time to time but I don’t involve myself in the tennis aspect of things, I leave that to Gary Cahill.
“For me, I’ll always ask the question: why can’t we produce tennis players who are good enough to produce on the world stage and that’s what I’m trying to help Simon achieve.
“We can produce golfers and cyclists and runners and all the other individual sports. Tennis should be a sport which suits us, it’s physical, hand-eye co-ordinated.
“We probably have some of the best hand-eye co-ordinated sportspeople in the world from the game of hurling so it should be in our DNA so there’s no reason we shouldn’t be producing and Simon has shown promise so far.”
But promise, as well all know, is a dangerous word. Potential has a shelf life and both Simon and Tommy are aware of that. There will come a tipping point when Simon will either sink or swim.
For the moment, the emphasis is on putting the building blocks in place to ensure Carr has the best possible chance of becoming Ireland’s first tennis star.
“That would be great,” he admits. “I’m just taking it as it comes because you see someone like James McGee doing very well yet he’s not making much money and at the end of the day it’s a job.
“I know it takes an awful lot to even reach that point and I’m a long way off yet but it’s my dream to represent Ireland on the big stage and be known as the Irish tennis player.”
The42 is on Snapchat! Tap the button below on your phone to add!
