Adept Mansdorf imparts experience
A QUARTER of a century ago, Israeli tennis hero Amos Mansdorf cracked the top 20 of the world rankings. Now captaining the country’s Federation Cup team and coaching Swiss veteran Marco Chiudinelli, Mansdorf is passing on his wisdom to ensure their success.
A QUARTER of a century ago, Israeli tennis hero Amos Mansdorf (above left) cracked the top 20 of the world rankings. Now captaining the country’s Federation Cup team and coaching Swiss veteran Marco Chiudinelli, Mansdorf is passing on his wisdom to ensure their success.
“Now that I am back in tennis full time, I think there are a lot of things I can do with my experience and my knowledge,” Mansdorf, who was in Melbourne for the Australian Open, told The AJN.
“There is still a lot of stuff that you did back then that was working and that is still working today.
“It hasn’t been that much of a change, its not like the change from the 50s and 60s to the 80s and 90s … [but] there are a lot of new things, a lot more players and a lot tougher competition than it used to be and I still think I’m valuable.”
The 47-year-old has been regarded as Israel’s best male player, with a win/loss record of 304-230 including six titles throughout his 14-year career on the world tour. But his tennis journey was cut short in the latter stages due to chronic fatigue.
“It was very late in my career and the doctor said to me that you have no chance to recover from that. So I was already 30 and I decided to stop,” said Mansdorf.
“But maybe the mistake I made was when I was younger, was that I didn’t go out [of Israel]. I should have, when I was 14, 15 or 16, gone somewhere, leave the country to practice and move my base … because it’s really tough to develop as a player coming from a very small country.”
Mansdorf has that same belief today and is worried that there are not enough emerging talents in Israel to continue the success of the country on the world stage.
“The thing that worries me the most is the outlook for the future,” Mansdorf said.
“We don’t have a lot of players [and] I don’t want to put the blame on anybody, it’s mainly numbers.
“You need such a great talent to do well and the numbers are against us. Tennis is a popular game today and there are countries with hundreds of millions and billions.”
Mansdorf rates the current crop of Israeli stars highly, but believes there needs to be more players representing the country at the highest level.
“The situation with Israeli tennis is that every now and then we have some good players,” Mansdorf said.
“We have some decent talent but I think we need more … and then we’ll have some good results in the Federation Cup and the Davis Cup and grand slams.”
Ashley Shenker
Photo: Peter Haskin
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