TRIUMPH AGAINST THE ODDS FOR TIMEA FROM RICHARD EVANS, INDIAN WELLS BY RICHARD EVANS

Written by: Staff on 18th March 2015

TRIUMPH AGAINST THE ODDS FOR TIMEA FROM RICHARD EVANS, INDIAN WELLS BY RICHARD EVANS

epa04666955 Timea Bacsinsky of Switzerland reacts after winning match point during her fourth round match against Elina Svitolina of the Ukraine at the BNP Paribas Open tennis tournament in Indian Wells, California, USA, 17 March 2015. EPA/DANIEL MURPHY |

In press conference, after Timea Bacsinszky had won her 15th consecutive match by beating Elina Svitolina 6-4, 1-6, 6-1, Mary Carillo ask the question and we got the answer. It was a long one and not always pretty to hear.

For Bacsinszky, a 26-year-old Swiss born in Lausanne of Hungarian parents, had suffered what far too many young, aspiring tennis players suffer – parental abuse. In Timea’s case it was her father who was always making life intolerable, so much so that, by the age of 15 she forced her mother to divorce him.

“Otherwise, I told her, Okay, if you divorce I stay with you but if you don’t divorce, you’re both not gonna see me any more.”

Just what kind of anguish a child goes through when it gets to this stage is hard to imagine but Timea seemed to survive as a result of her bloody-minded competitive spirit – and her talent. She loved being on court because she could be her own boss. “On court I knew that no one had, how you say, the power on me,” she explained. “When I was playing a match, even if my dad said play cross court, I would go down the line. But I had to move my butt to win the match otherwise I would be in trouble. I had to win matches, otherwise my parents would fight. At home I was in some kind of prison. When I was at school I was looking at all the happy kids around me with a family and stuff. I was kind of wondering, why am I the only kid in this class that it not having fun at home?”

And all because of tennis. It makes one want to weep because it should be exactly the opposite. Tennis should provide the fun, not reduce a child’s life to terror. Bacsinszky was right to point out that, as the victim of the pushy parent syndrome, she understands that it happens worldwide. “Many, many stories, they never get heard because the players are not good enough and they don’t want to talk about it. But it happens a lot, especially in women’s tennis because, for sure, as a young girl, you can never go against the power of a dad.”

Timea Bacsinszky of Switzerland in action during her fourth round match against Elina Svitolina of the Ukraine at the BNP Paribas Open tennis tournament in Indian Wells, California, USA, 17 March 2015. EPA/DANIEL MURPHY

I know this to be true, having spoken on numerous occasions to coaches who work near me in Delray Beach, Florida like Tarik Benhabiles, who was Andy Roddick’s first coach, and Julian Vespan who is teaching kids at his Boynton Beach Academy while his player, Alisa Kleybanova, recovers from a frustrating string of injuries. Both tell me of the trouble they have with parents who pressure their kids and get angry with them if they hit the wrong shot or lose a match.

“It just seems to be getting worse,” Benhabiles told me recently. “You sign up to give a child a lesson and the parent insists on coming on court, too. They get far too involved.”

And not all of the kids will be strong enough or good enough to take charge of their lives as Bacsinszky has done. A foot injury interrupted her career in 2011 but now she is on a roll that few could have envisaged. After starting the year well by reaching the final in Shenzhen, China, Timea began her run by winning WTA tournaments in Monterrey and Acapulco and added a couple of Fed Cup victories to bring her to the BNP Paribas Open here at Indian Wells brim full of confidence. Although each match has been a bit of a struggle, with sets lost to New Zealand’s Marina Erakovic and no 8 seed from Russia, Ekaterina Makarova as well as Svitolina, Bacsinszky has survived because “I have this ability to believe in myself at any time. I think this is one of the only things I am taking from my childhood – that I really had to fight until the last point.”

She knows that will be the case when she meets Serena Williams – for only the second time her career – in the next round. The previous match was on clay many years ago and Timea had the courage to drop shot her off second serves. They had a long conversation at the end of the match. “She told me that I have to teach her drops shots. I said, well, you have to teach me the rest then.”

She was laughing as she recalled the incident. And why not. Timea will have nothing to lose going into a match against the world No 1 – except her 15 match winning streak.

Topics: BNP Paribas Open, Elina Svitolina, Indian Wells, Sports, Tennis, Timea Bacsinszky

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10sBalls_com says:

March 18, 2015 at 7:14 am

TRIUMPH AGAINST THE ODDS FOR @timeabacsinszky FROM RICHARD EVANS, #IndianWells BY @Ringham7- http://t.co/zUH9Z8MpsP #BNPPO15 #tennis #WTA