Dinosaur a head-turner at launch of titles

ANYONE around Merrion Square yesterday morning was probably rubbing their eyes.

As a purple and green dinosaur hit a tennis ball with an oversized racket, the sun appeared briefly.

Nobody is quite sure what the sun was doing there, but Danonino the dinosaur was launching the Danone Junior Tennis Championships, which will be held in Fitzwilliam from Sunday for five days.

A highlight of the Irish tennis calendar, the event attracts the cream of Irish talent aged nine to 18.

More than 350 players are expected to compete for the crown this year, which has been won by such luminaries as Elisa O’Rian and John Doran, this year’s Irish Close Championships winners.

Tennis Ireland hopes a new sponsor, complete with its Jurassic mascot, will have more youngsters dreaming of becoming the next Safin or Hewitt. Bringing the game to the athletes of tomorrow is one of the most prominent aims of the association, determined to rid tennis of the reputation of a sport which bristles onto Irish consciousness for a few weeks in July, in tandem with strawberries and cream.

To advance this aim, Tennis Ireland has sought the help of Ivo Van Aken. You have probably never heard of him, but you might know the names of Clijsters, Henin and Xavier Malisse, three superstars produced by Von Aken’s work with the Belgium Tennis Federation.

Highly-respected Von Aken has laid the foundations to develop players in Ireland.

Competitors at Fitzwilliam Tennis Club next week may have the watchful eye of Von Aken cast over their progress.

“Ivo is working with us in a consultancy basis,” Tennis Ireland’s Roger Geraghty said.

“He has got our coaches looking at the development of players in a more systematic way, profiling players, then looking at the technical side of their game,” Geraghty said.

“He firmly believes you need to have the technique right from a very early age,” he said.

He said coaching began with players as young as six, on a modified court, playing a modified game, mini-tennis. They progressed to midi-tennis, still on a smaller court, before moving to a full-sized court.

It was these ideas that Van Aken implemented in Belgium that have seen a glut of good tennis players come from a nation with no great tennis pedigree.

Van Aken will visit Ireland at the end of September, when the leaders in the junior game will be known.