Ever since the rules on some sports were loosened during the pandemic, I’ve been playing a lot of tennis. Just recently, from playing on a hard court, I tried a clay court.
Boy, are there a lot of players here in this tourist town down south. And do you know what I realized? There’s a tragic disconnect with tennis officials and people who keep the sport alive here in the country.
Growing up down south in Mindanao, I played a lot of tennis. A bunch of guys a subdivision over, also had the same group who also played a lot of tennis. Not only did they keep the sport alive, they popularized it too by introducing a new generation to the sport.
I started as a “pulot boy”—kids designated to pick errant balls on and almost always, off the court.
“I started as a ball boy,” one guy, one of the designated “commercial players” here, told me. Different names, similar starts.
As I used to brag, for a while, the players manning the University of San Carlos tennis squad were my kababayans. A neighbor, and after him, a batch mate.
And do you know what those guys, and the guys who I’m playing with have in common? Or rather, don’t have anything in common? The Philippine Tennis Association.
These guys learned their tennis outside the shadow of Philta. They played in and played tournaments and events that Philta didn’t know about or care about.
And that’s the tragedy. The International Tennis Federation, by telling Philta to revise its membership, wanted the small clubs, the guys who keep tennis alive in the Philippines, to be a part of Philippine tennis. But Philta doesn’t want to.
Unfortunately, based on my conversations here and of what I’ve observed of the tennis movement back home, they are not even aware of it.
And they don’t mind. They do what they do because they love the sport. On the other hand, the guys at Philta do what they do because they love their position.
Tennis in the Philippines isn’t alive because of Philta. It doesn’t thrive because of the national sport association. It thrives because men and women in the countryside love the sport and play it regularly.
In some areas, it’s the second most popular sport, next to basketball. The very same areas, the ITF thinks should be included in the Philta membership.
Yet here we are, witnessing a Philta tragedy unfold. Because a group of guys refuses to acknowledge that Philippine tennis exists outside of Manila.