Lessons learned

"I’ve been a dreamer. I’ve always believed Filipinos can excel in tennis." So says a wistful Manny Tecson, former Philippine Davis Cup coach, now coaching director of the Manila Southwoods Tennis Academy. Tecson has had a whiff of his dream. A decade ago, he coached and captained the first Philippine Davis Cup team that defeated China and Japan and qualified for the World Group after 40 years.

"When I first dreamt of that, people laughed at me," he recalls. "But, thanks to the constant international exposure of my players like Felix Barrientos and Roland So, the dream came true."

The last three years, Tecson has been building on that dream through the Manila Southwoods Tennis Academy. His protégés, like Joseph Victorino and Adelo Abadia, are among the fastest players in tennis history to attain world rankings (top 200) in junior ITF competition. Victorino has, in fact, even beaten players ranked in the top 20 in the world.

"When we first started our program, we kept it small. We wanted to test the program first," he reveals. "Now that the program has been proven to be successful, we’re opening it up to the public at Renaissance Towers and Manila Southwoods."

One of Tecson’s secrets is that he does not allow his players to sit on their successes. If a player triumphs in his age group, Tecson moves him up to the higher age group to stretch his abilities. He actually has one thirteen-year old player making the finals of tournaments for eighteen-year and under players.

Aside from having his players invited to join the national team, Tecson occasionally helps out in coaching, as well. If he’s accompanying a player to an ITF Futures competition, for example, and another national player is there, he stands as that player’s coach, as well. This was the case with Czarina Mae Arevalo, whom Tecson guided to her first tournament wins in Malaysia and Vietnam.

"Actually, I think girls can penetrate international competition more easily," he says. "They have a lot of competition here that makes them sharper. And they can even play against men. When men reach the top rankings here, they have nowhere else to go but abroad."

And that has been the class ceiling of legal tender holding back our tennisters. Even the best tennis players in the world come from upper middle class or upper class families that can afford extensive travel. That’s the single roadblock to the country’s success in the sport. Many of the junior players developed have terrific potential, but cannot make the leap to international competition for lack of finances. Tecson sees this as an opportunity for sponsors to come in and give the sport a boost.

"Or else, I tell the parents to start saving up," he smiles.

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One sad story of lessons learned is the case of Jon Ordonio. At a time when everybody’s looking for Fil-Americans who play like (and sometimes look like) NBA stars, Ordonio is headed back to the US with his wife and two small children this Wednesday without having found the pot of gold at the end of his rainbow. Three years ago, he was touted as a Kobe Bryant look-alike who had game. After brief tenures with Pop Cola and Alaska, he found no takers this season. Trying out with a couple of MBA teams, he found his price difficult to match. One lesson he’s learned: to save up for rainy days.

The story of Jon Ordonio is just one of the ups and downs on tomorrow’s episode of The Basketball Show. Another is an intimate interview with RP Team candidate Johnny Abarrientos, who categorically denied rumors that illegal drug use has been the cause of his weight loss. Abarrientos says that injuries have forced him to lose weight to aid in recovery. After being traded to Pop Cola by Alaska, The Flying A has been striving to return to his fearsome, lightning-quick form.

At the other end of the spectrum, this week’s program also gets comments from Fil-Am rookie Jimmy Alapag, who has quietly endured a lonely, deprived existence away from family and friends.

"I really came here with the intention of being drafted into the PBA," Alapag told this writer. "But when my papers didn’t make it in time, luckily I made it to the RP team candidates’ pool."

With no mother team to pay him a salary, Alapag had to scrape together his means of subsistence, hitching rides and making do with the minimal luggage he had carried with him from America. He had given himself just one more week before giving up and going back to the US. Ironically, some of his fellow RP team candidates believe that, if he had been on the floor, RP-Selecta would have beaten RP-Hapee. Before they actually met in their game this week, RP-Selecta had been routinely getting the better of its sister team. Last night in Bataan, the littlest Fil-Am finally got a chance to show his stuff.

"It was tough," he admits. "When coach finally told me, it was fifteen minutes before practice was out, and I didn’t believe it. I’m just glad that I’ll finally be out there on the floor with the guys."

Also on this week’s episode of The Basketball Show, get an up close and personal look at Danny Espiritu. He has been called the most powerful man in basketball, and currently manages fifty-four of the best basketball players in the country, including many national team pool members. You’ll hear from the club and restaurant owner himself how he stumbled into managing players quite by accident, and hear from his players how he has helped transform their lives.

The Basketball Show is broadcast over RPN 9 every Sunday at 2 p.m., and is sponsored by Columbia International, Red Horse Extra Strong Beer, Greenwich and Pearl of the Pacific Boracay.