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A couple of years ago at the US Open I was in the interview room when Tommy Robredo was asked about why Spanish tennis was struggling to produce top caliber ATP stars after Rafael Nadal. Robredo revealed an interesting theory. The 34-year-old former World no. 5 said that in the golden age of Spanish tennis all the top Spaniards trained together in Barcelona. Which meant that the best of the best of Spain battled it out on the court every day lifting each other to greater levels. Robredo said a shift then occurred and Spain then had three main hubs for their ATP players to train – Madrid, Barcelona, and Valencia. Subsequently, the top players no longer trained as fiercely every day and gradually the excellent results of the “Spanish Armada” declined. Rafael Nadal trained on his own in Majorca. Two years ago at Eddie Herr I discussed this matter with a Spanish coach who added another interesting revelation. He said that Nadal’s incredible success triggered a “tennis boom” in Spain which inspired many youths to try tennis because they wanted to try to “be the next Nadal.” However these Spanish kids quickly realized tennis is not nearly as easy as Nadal made it look and most of these kids ended up “quitting tennis and going to soccer.” Thus the explanations of the curious decline of why Spanish tennis has struggled mightily to continuously produce consistent top ten stars such as Carlos Moya, Juan Carlos Ferrero, Albert Costa, Robredo, Alberto Berasategui and Alex Corretja. And in case you didn’t notice there are zero Spaniards in the ATP NEXT GEN group. [Note: Spain currently had six players in the ATP top 30 – Nadal (7) – Bautista Agut (15) – Carrena Busta (24) – Vinolas (25) – F Lopez (28) – D Ferrer (29).] – Scoop Malinowski

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