Tennis blends profits and sport commitment
Tennis blends profits and sport commitment
JAKARTA (JP): There are tennis courts scattered across
Jakarta, offering various facilities to benefit people who like
hitting a furry ball across a net.
Playing time is arranged as easily as a quick meal at a warung
(food stall). Weather is a minor hurdle.
A lack of skill is easily compensated for with an expensive
and "forgiving" racket which allows the player to blast deadly
shots.
Coaches, with various levels of expertise, are also available
if one is determined to take tennis seriously.
"The great interest in tennis makes for a big market here,"
Red Summers, General Manager of Club Rasuna, says. Club Rasuna is
a sports club in the heart of the capital's business district,
the golden triangle, on Jl. Rasuna Said.
Managed by an international sports agent International
Management Group, the club, to be opened in the middle of this
year, will have tennis as its main drawing card. The club joins
American and European equivalents to become the local setting for
the Nick Bolletieri Tennis Academy, the tennis stable where Jim
Courier, Boris Becker, Andre Agassi and Mary Pierce improve their
tennis mastery.
Jakarta is the second Asian country after Bangkok to utilize
Bolletieri's tennis training.
Rasuna Club's Marketing and Public Relations Manager, Nicky
Amarullah, admits that the arrival of the Nick Bolletieri Tennis
Academy will be the club's selling point. The club will be aimed
at middle and upper class patrons.
"Indonesian coaching is not lacking anything, but it needs a
bit of new discipline, organization and science," Stephen Miller,
who will represent Bolletieri here, avoids criticizing Indonesian
tennis. Miller, who has just completed his post at Kapalua,
Hawaii, will be assisted by two local coaches.
Summers says the new system and teaching techniques, offered
in various packages with fees ranging from US$12.50 to $768, are
available to players of all ages and skill levels. "We are
offering enjoyable tennis in which we can play a game and have
fun with our family," he said.
Rasuna will have 13 courts, including two indoor ones and a
1,200-seat tennis stadium for exhibition matches. Top junior
players will also be hired as drillers for members who want a
more challenging game.
Recreational
The law of marketing suggests that clubs target members who
prefer tennis as a recreational game rather than those who want
to nurture a professional career.
"We expect 75 percent of our income to be derived from renting
courts," August Ferry Raturandang, the manager of Kemayoran
Tennis Center (KTC), said. Almost 170 amateur tennis leagues and
groups from private companies and state offices play at 10 indoor
and nine outdoor courts which were built on the site of the
former Kemayoran airport. It also has a 2,000-seat outdoor
stadium.
The four-hectare tennis complex cost the Indonesian Tennis
Development Foundation Rp 8 billion ($3.8 million). It was
inaugurated in June last year. A hospital, a three-star athletes'
hotel and an indoor tennis stadium will be constructed, pending
an agreement with new investors.
"When everything is completed, this place will be as grand as
Rolland Garros in Paris or Flushing Meadows in New York," Sugeng
Sarijadi, an executive of the center, said during the opening
ceremony.
Each court costs between Rp 10,000 and Rp 22,000 (between
$4.50 and $10) per hour to rent, depending on the time chosen.
Ferry said the company has set the "prime time" at between 6 and
10 a.m.
KTC gives lessons to 17 selected teenage players under the
tutelage of former national champion Tintus Arianto Wibowo.
Ferry, a former official at the Indonesian Tennis Association,
says KTC expects to produce future national athletes.
"We need to commit ourselves to the development of national
tennis while also doing business," says Ferry. KTC is now
grooming two leading junior players, Wukirasih Sawondari and
Frans Wijaya.
Rasuna Club pledges to apply the same formula. Summers says
Miller also has the job of scouting for talented junior players
during his two-year posting in Indonesia. "We are trying to find
them scholarships to learn tennis at Nick Bolletieri Tennis
Academy's headquarter in Florida," Summers says.
Miller says Indonesians' enthusiasm towards tennis leads him
to want to promote the sport outside Jakarta. "One club can't
handle the fast growing interest," he says.
Ferry says grooming players won't mean much if the players
lack experience in real matches. KTC has been organizing a
weekend junior tournament every month as a testing ground for its
young prodigies.
"A tournament is like a showroom where a factory stakes the
quality of its products," says Ferry. The regular tournaments are
expected to run twice a month next year.
The Kemayoran tennis complex was also the site of three
international events highlighted by an exhibition match pitting
Yayuk Basuki and Argentina's Gabriela Sabatini in September last
year. (amd)