The Rise Open hopes to be the platform that reignites South African tennis

Former South African elite tennis player John-Laffnie de Jager wants to spark a tennis revolution in South Africa. The retired doubles star and his business partner, Holger Losch, are hoping to do just that with the the Rise Open – a four-tournament tennis tour that will begin in May and conclude in August.

The series will be an Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) Challenger Tour and the hope is that it can reinvigorate an ailing South African tennis landscape.

In recent years, South Africa has produced promising tennis stars such as sisters Zoë and Isabella Kruger, as well as the likes of Khololwam “Kholo” Montsi and Lloyd Harris. However, all have sung from the same hymn book regarding their development struggles, with the dominant notes being the lack of local tournaments and the financial burden that comes with having to relocate or travel regularly to Europe and the US in order to sharpen their skills.

The last time the country hosted an ATP-level event was the now-defunct South African Tennis Open in 2011, where South African tennis star Kevin Anderson clinched his first ATP-level title. Since then, only a handful of ATP Challenger events have been staged. They are just below the main tours, but provide participants with crucial ranking points.

Rise to the fore

The Rise Open organisers want to make enough noise to ensure that South Africa is eventually able to host more major tennis tournaments. This would benefit not only South African tennis, but also the tennis landscape of other African countries.

The Rise Irene Open (24 to 31 May) and Rise Centurion Open (1 to 7 June) are the first events in this new series and will give fans “the chance to experience world-class ATP Challenger action live while local players compete against international talent on home soil”, said Tennis South Africa.

The tour then resumes with the Tshwane Open (27 July to 2 August) and concludes with the Gauteng Open (3 to 8 August). This series will be played on South African shores for at least the next three years.

The organisers are hoping that success during this brief period can be a conveyor belt for continuity and the introduction of more local tennis tournaments, taking a leaf from the Italian tennis boom over the past two decades.

“Italy is suddenly one of the strongest tennis nations in the world,” said De Jager. “All that happened with Italian tennis is that they had more events … from entry level right through to 1,000 events [such as the Italian Open]. So the more events we have, the more opportunities South African and African players have to compete. They don’t have to travel out of the country or the continent. It’s a lot cheaper for them and they can compete in circumstances that they understand.

“For us the biggest thing is that the more events that we can host in South Africa, the better for our players. It gives them an opportunity to pick up ranking points and they don’t spend too much money when they travel overseas. They also get their rankings up so that they can get into the big tournaments.

“It’s in the beginning stages, so we’re aiming to go bigger as we grow. But it’s a great opportunity for our local players.”

South African players who are set to participate in the opening tournament of the series at the Irene Country Club include Montsi, Alec Beckley, Devin Badenhorst, Philip Henning, Kris van Wyk, Marc van der Merwe and Thando ­Longwe-Smit, as well as top college players such as Luc Koenig and Connor van Schalkwyk.

The lead international participants will be Frenchman Harold Mayot and Stefano Napolitano of Italy.

Italian tennis blueprint

De Jager, who also helped to facilitate the historic Match in Africa battle between Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer in Cape Town in 2020, wants to replicate Italy’s success in restarting the tennis buzz.

Italy has stars such as Jannik Sinner and Jasmine Paolini on the men’s and women’s tours. They and other Italian tennis players competing at the highest level are beneficiaries of a deliberate drive by the Italian Tennis and Padel Federation to grow the sport in the country by investing in it and ensuring that athletes could develop inside the country’s borders.

This revolution began in 2010 or thereabouts and resulted in players such as Flavia Pennetta, Fabio Fognini and Francesca Schiavone planting the seeds of the fruit that Sinner and Paolini are harvesting.

During his career, De Jager reached two mixed doubles Grand Slam finals. At both the Australian Open (1997) and French Open (1995), he and his partners, Jill Hetherington and Larisa Savchenko-Neiland, respectively, fell at the final hurdle.

De Jager wants South African athletes to have similar opportunities, and hopefully do better than him. “That’s the dream for us – to develop African tennis. Not just in South Africa, but in Africa. To host more events and give more African players the opportunity to compete,” he said.

“I grew up in an era where there were a lot of tournaments, there were a lot of players playing and there were great venues. So there were a lot of opportunities for us to play and it gave us a platform to develop and play on the tour.

“In the last 10 to 15 years, we haven’t had any big events in South Africa. We’ve had some junior events, we’ve had some entry-level ITF World Tennis Tour events, but no Challengers. So, the Challengers are a great step forward for us, because that is the entry ­level of the ATP.”

More than offering a platform for South African tennis to shine, the organisers of the Rise series of tournaments also intend to deliver all-round entertainment for those in attendance. DM

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.