Asi Maman 17/02/2021 22:15
Aslan Kratzb and Vigal Gifsh (Reuters, Private)
Aslan Kratzbz’s magic journey at the Australian Open continues, after defeating Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov and continuing with a huge game against Serbian Novak Djokovic who is chasing the 18th Grand Slam title of his career. In recent days, many have been wondering how Israeli tennis missed Kratzb, who moved to play under the Russian flag, and now the true story is being published by the man who was at the intersection where the Kratzbts’ decision to leave the country was made.
Yigal Gifash, 57, now director of the Ganei Yehoshua Tennis Center, was previously the head coach at the Jaffa Tennis Center where Aslan Kratzb trained in his youth, and was the man who saw the turnaround in the career of the so-called “Asik” with his own eyes. Although Kratzb’s personal trainer was Victor Dubnov who worked with him from 1999 to 2004, when Vladimir Rabinovich coached him for a short time immediately afterwards, he sought to accompany the Kratzb family all the way – and in his testimony he refutes some of the stories told about the successful tennis player.
“I was the head coach at the tennis center in Jaffa and at the age of 6 Asik started training with Victor,” he said. Gipsh, Who began to chart Kratzb’s life path: “He was a potential tennis player, one who excelled when he also played in the European Tennis Tournament until the age of 12. After that, he left for the Tel Aviv Tennis Center to work with Vladimir, trained at the Wingate Institute for about six months and when he was “He decided to leave for Russia. After a short time there, he returned to Israel for eight months when he was 16 and trained at the tennis center in Tel Aviv, when I was the one who ran the center and Asik trained with us as part of our professional program.”
The center in Tel Aviv is in the Yad Eliyahu neighborhood, where the final decision was actually made regarding the direction Kratzb will go. “In Russia they knew I was Shahar Pe’er’s coach and that’s something that was known in the Russian media, so Asik’s father, Kazbek, contacted me and said he wanted his son to train personally under me. I explained to him that I could not do it because I was part of the whole center’s professional framework. “So I suggested that he be part of our training program but with another personal trainer. In the end, after that, he decided to leave back to Moscow.”
What tennis player was he as a child?
“As head coach, I have always seen Basik have huge potential to be a world-class tennis player. Without a doubt at all.”
So what kept you from training him yourself?
“I managed the whole center at Yad Eliyahu. I could not be a personal trainer in such a position. It should be understood, from this place came Shahar Pe’er and a few other good tennis players, after we decided to work neatly with a professional program, when Asik Kratzb was 6 years below Shahar age. We all worked “As a team in exactly the same way. We got good players from these frameworks because we worked with a method and an orderly plan, together with the whole team at the center I ran. Unfortunately, his father did not accept that.”
Did you try to get him back to play and train in Israel?
“After he left at the age of 16, after a few years Asik was very far from his success. In 2015 I turned to him and told him ‘Listen I found you a sponsor who is willing to invest money in you’. The condition of that donor was that Asik would have to represent the State of Israel and not compete with Degel Russia, and that we will be in charge of his professional program. The same person told me ‘I will invest everything I need in him and if he becomes an actor, he will give me back only 20 percent of the income from investing in him’. I passed the information to him, I told ASIC ‘These are the conditions, are you interested?’ And after a period of deliberation, he said he did not like the demand to return the 20 percent in the future. “
It is said that he had financial problems, that he did not receive help and that only in Russia did he find serious support. What was his situation in the country in this respect?
“Regarding all the stories about money, I say with full responsibility – Asik as a child received in the State of Israel everything he needed to get. He had training in the morning and afternoon, and he participated in all the competitions in the country. It is true that there was a financial problem in the family, but that was not the problem. In my opinion, the main problem was that his father was not involved but would intervene. “
Explain?
“His success in the country belonged to only one person, and that is his coach Victor Dubnov. The reason we broke up in Jaffa in 2004 was because Asik’s father, Kazbek, interfered in professional matters. I had many conversations with his father, in my opinion he should fulfill his role as a father and not “Intervene in these issues. There was one case where he crossed the line, I reprimanded him and he decided to leave. People who saw his father’s intervention were not willing to give money and also that he would be the one to run the business.”
Bottom line, does it not hurt you that we lost a tennis player who grew up here and in the end chose to represent Russia?
“It mainly hurts me that the Israeli flag does not appear in the semi-finals in Australia, but if I had to turn the wheel back? I would do the same. It is impossible to let every parent manage our professional things because otherwise we will be in a hurry. I say this both in retrospect and vision. “I’m happy for Asik, but I could not let the parents run the business professionally.”
When you see him succeed, what goes through your mind?
“Everyone is now looking for culprits and saying we missed the child, but there are many more failures of others that we missed.”
You are an experienced person and have been in the industry for decades. What is our problem in Israel that causes us not to raise new senior tennis players?
“The problem in the State of Israel is that the tennis industry is sick. We have no less good children in the country than there are in the whole world and we also have world-class coaches, but what do we not have? We have no sports culture, no professional tennis managers and not enough money to invest in sports.”
And looking ahead, what needs to be done differently?
“There should be a national program for Israeli tennis. In most settings, we do not work with an orderly program and goals. Everyone is chasing money, doing everything to make money here and now. It was possible, and still possible, to build a national program, persevere and after six or seven years succeed. “There are children, there are coaches, there are no managers. It’s time to move things here in the country.”
