March 2010 -- About the author: Luis Miguel Reis is the founder and director of the Equelite Juan Carlos Ferrero Tennis Academy of Dubai, based at the Emirates Golf Club (known as the "Desert Miracle.") He also manages the UAE Davis Cup squad. He played on the satellite and future circuits, worked with top pro players, and, over the past 20 years, has coached and led clinics in Europe, Africa, Asia, North America, and other parts of the world. He is a USPTA Pro 1 and holds degrees in Sports Business Management and Athlete Management.
About the United Arab Emirates: The UAE is a federation of seven emirates (states), including Dubai. It is located in Southwest Asia on the Persian Gulf, bordering Oman and Saudi Arabia. The capital city is Abu Dhabi and the country's official language is Arabic. It has the world's sixth largest oil reserves and one of the most developed economies in the Middle East. The UAE obtained independence from the United Kingdom in 1971.
About meI was born in Maputo, Mozambique, which is located on the East Coast of Africa. My mother is a former Olympic swimmer, having represented Portugal in the 1960 games in Rome, and my father is a former semiprofessional football player (soccer in the United States).
Mozambique is a former colony of Portugal, which gained independence in 1975. During that time, we moved to neighboring South Africa, when I was 7 years old. It was not safe to stay in Mozambique due to a civil war between the new communist regime and rebel forces. My brother and I started to play tennis in South Africa and trained with former world No. 1 doubles player and multiple Grand Slam winner, Bob Hewitt.
In 1988 our family decided to leave Africa and relocated to Portugal as both my brother Paulo and I had been called up to do our military service. We would have most likely ended up in Namibia, where tensions were high between South Africa, neighboring Angola and their Cuban allies. In Europe I played a number of satellite events before I decided to start coaching. I would eventually settle in Sweden, coaching in Motala and then Stockholm, where I worked for eight years developing a number of Sweden's top juniors.
Whilst traveling around Europe with a group of Swedish players on the ITF circuit, I was asked by a gentleman from India if I would be interested in coaching in India. I was looking for a change at the time and accepted. In India, I would end up working with Karan Rastogi, who would go on to be ranked No. 4 in the world (ITF). That is how I ultimately ended up in Dubai. During an ITF event in North Africa, I was asked to train the UAE Davis Cup team by a member of the board and I accepted.
I arrived in Dubai in 2001, and my results during my time with the (Davis Cup) team include a silver medal in the Gulf Cooperation Council Championships and a bronze medal in the Arab Championships. I have a 17-6 win/loss record in Davis Cup ties with the team, which fluctuates between Asia/Oceania Group III and Group IV.
DubaiTennis in the region is not very glamorous and we play a lot of our events in locations such as Bangladesh, Myanmar, Vietnam, Iran, Syria and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, normally staying in bad hotels and playing on dusty courts. A lot of the times players get sick, mostly due to poor hygiene regarding the food. I have in the past taken the team to play tournaments in Europe, but the differences between the level of players in Europe and the Middle East is too big. Hence, we felt it was better to participate in locations where they can play competitive matches and enjoy their tennis.
There are currently no professional UAE tennis players. Generally, players are good technically and many have reasonably good hands, however . Working out in the gym is still very much a taboo for many tennis players here and they fail to understand how important nutrition and proper rest can be for a tennis player.
Support and funding for players and coaches is also a big issue here, as tennis is not a popular sport, especially among the local population. Football (soccer) is king in the UAE, as is the case in most countries outside of North America. A lot of the kids playing tennis in the UAE are children of expatriates, mostly Europeans, North Americans or Asians whose parents are based in Dubai with one of the many multinational companies.
When you have 1,000 players you might get 10 players with the potential to make it, but when you only have 10 players then it is very difficult to produce world-class players. There are just not enough Emiratis playing tennis because of social and economic reasons. Education is considered a priority in the UAE and children are encouraged by their families to concentrate on education as opposed to following a career in sport.
Despite these drawbacks, I have settled down very well in Dubai and have been here for nine years. My wife, Negar, is from the region (Iran) and we met when she was working as a flight attendant for Emirates Airlines.
International member, USPTA
In the United States, or in many European countries, organizations such as the USPTA regularly hold courses and seminars to further educate their members and keep them updated with the latest technology, etc., in the tennis industry. Coaches here are very much alone and have to rely on different tennis Web sites, books and imported DVDs to stay updated.
Furthermore, summer in the United States and Europe is a peak time when academies can make a lot of money by organizing full-day camps and clinics with kids on holiday. Coaches in Dubai don't have that option due to the extreme heat in the summer, when temperatures reach 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit) on a daily basis. So basically, a coach working in Dubai can only work nine months of the year as most tennis programs shut down mid-June and start up again mid-September, partly because of the heat and partly because of the fact that most of the expats go home for the summer. Coaches have to work as much as they can during those nine months, normally putting in 40 to 50 hours a week on court.
Rates are also low compared to what the USPTA members can make in the United States. For example, the top coaches in the UAE charge $50 (USD) per hour for a private lesson and only keep a percentage of that.
Being an international member with the USPTA has helped me in more ways than one. When I was in Sweden I was working with a player who was ATP top 450 and who had played college tennis in the United States. It was he who encouraged me to get certified by the USPTA in the early '90s and it was the wisest decision I made regarding my coaching career when I went to Flushing Meadows to test. USPTA certification gave me a lot more confidence and certainly a lot more respect amongst my peers around the globe. It is a fantastic brand to be associated with and, although I don't network much with U.S. members, it is very comforting to know that if I need anything related to tennis, USPTA is just an e-mail or phone call away.
One of the reasons why I have not worked closer with academies in the United States is because of the distance between Dubai and the United States. Prior to my relationship with Equelite Juan Carlos Ferrero, I did do a number of trips to an academy in Southern California with players from the national team and players from my academy, but the traveling was just too exhausting for everyone (36 hours door to door).
Equelite Juan Carlos Ferrero Tennis Academy of Dubai
The first time I came into contact with the Equelite staff was at on the ITF circuit in Morocco and Tunisia in 2000. I was very impressed by the work ethics, professionalism and humility of the players and coaches. A couple of years later, I started to organize tennis tours for Dubai-based players to Equelite Juan Carlos Ferrero Tennis Academy in Alicante, Spain. It is wonderful to see Juan Carlos around those kids; he is such a great role model.
As an international agent, my main goal was to co-brand with the academy in Spain and start an academy in Dubai to give something back to the tennis public in the UAE. It took almost three years for this project to materialize as I wanted a location worthy of hosting the Equelite Ferrero brand - not an easy task in Dubai as most tennis courts are located in hotels or resorts and seldom have more than two courts each.
Finally, we were able to team up with the Emirates Golf Club, which is arguably the most prestigious golf club in the region. It has two 18-hole golf courses and annually hosts an LPGA event, the Dubai Ladies Masters and a PGA event, the Dubai Desert Classic. Although the club only has four tennis courts and dwarfs in comparison to the academy in Spain, it . has done remarkably well since its opening. We have approximately 400 students in our program, most of which are social players, although we do have a number of ITF world-ranked players. Players from abroad (mostly former Soviet bloc countries) have also been using the academy to train for important events. Equelite has made a proposal to the Emirates Golf Club to build a number of extra courts to cement our legacy as the region's No. 1 tennis academy.
We also work very closely with the academy in Spain. Every year we host two one-week, full-day camps where we fly in the coaching staff from Spain to Dubai to work with our players. These camps have proved to be a massive success and during the summer months I am based at the academy in Spain with players from Dubai. Players from our academy who are looking to make an impact on the professional circuit are encouraged to move to the academy in Spain as they have so much more to offer in terms of facilities, players, tennis atmosphere, tournaments, etc. I am also responsible for promoting the brand and in conjunction with the staff in Spain, am currently in the process of organizing two one-week camps in India.
For more information, contact Luis Miguel Reis, director of Equelite Juan Carlos Ferrero Tennis Academy of Dubai, at dubai@equelite.com or visit the academy's Web site at www.equelitetennisdubai.com.
