Interview with Wolfgang Thiem: "Challenger in Austria would be senseless"
Wolfgang Thiem is the father of Austria's number one tennis player and a long-time trainer at the ÖTV performance center in the southern part of the city near Vienna. In the tennisnet interview, the 46-year-old talks about mistakes in the Austrian school system and calls for large-scale changes in the training of top athletes.
by Lukas Zahrer
last edit:
Apr 05, 2019, 08:53 am
He also explains why Austria doesn't need Challenger tournaments, why his sons became tennis professionals and how Dominic Thiem fans remind him of Hermann Maier.
tennisnet : Mr. Thiem, what is your everyday life like at the training center in the southern part of the city?
Wolfgang Thiem : The working day usually begins between 8 and 9 a.m. Individual players train in front of the school. In the morning, there are those who no longer go to school or attend an external school. In the afternoon, the students and two fitness trainers join them. The day lasts until 6 p.m. In total, I spend a good ten hours a day on the pitch.
tennisnet : A considerable workload.
Thiem : When my younger son Moritz is at home or a tournament is coming up, Saturdays and Sundays also look like this. But that doesn't bother me. It's fun.
tennisnet : How old are your students?
Thiem : The youngest are 8, the oldest in their mid-20s. Overall, we support 30 to 35 players.
tennisnet : You manage the center together with Günter Bresnik. Why is it working so successfully there?
Thiem : The original goal was to create a performance center for Vienna, Lower Austria and Burgenland in addition to private initiatives. At the first sighting, over 100 children came, which can be described as a success. But overall, it didn't quite work out as we expected. As soon as officials change, a project is immediately overturned.
tennisnet : In your base, you combine ÖTV work with an international base that you run privately with Bresnik.
Thiem : This connection works very well. Ernests Gulbis trains with us regularly. In a country like Austria, you have to gather the best in one place. Even if they have the best coaches: if the top athletes are scattered across the country, sooner or later they will lack the training partners.
tennisnet : A point that Barbara Haas also criticizes . So it makes little sense in tennis to rely entirely on individual training?
Thiem : It has always been said that it is much more difficult for girls to train them together because they do not get along. I disagree. If in doubt, you can split them up among several coaches and still have them train together in a center - even with boys. Everyone benefits from this. I think it is important that they can constantly play upwards in terms of performance.
Wolfgang Thiem: "We are clearly lagging behind"
tennisnet : If you offered lessons privately, you would probably have significantly more financially. Why do you still work with the ÖTV?
Thiem : One clear reason: I have a lot of fun working with children who have the discipline, willpower and drive they show me every day. I have a responsibility as a trainer - many trainers are not even aware of it. There is a lot behind it when you play tennis in terms of performance, not just in terms of money, but also in terms of time and organization.
tennisnet : Would it be possible to create tennis academies in Austria - based on football academies?
Thiem : In this area, we lag far behind in international comparison. There are upper grades that are compatible to a certain extent for competitive sports. But for the four years before that there was almost no offer for top-class sport. But there is also the other extreme.
tennisnet : Tell us about it.
Thiem : We were recently in Stockholm at a U14 tournament. Seven of all eight finalists dropped out of school. I think it is wrong not to go to school at the age of 10 to 14. This is a very important part of the development where regular school operations are necessary.
tennisnet : What is your ideal vision?
Thiem : The training should be positioned around the training and not the other way around. You need the flexibility to have time in the morning for a session on the pitch. The children always start training after a hard day at school. For the actual day highlight they are already physically and mentally exhausted. Perhaps it is also possible to leave out one or the other object, but focus more on biology or nutritional science. That would also be helpful for a training career if it wasn't enough for a professional. You can cut yourself off from the other associations from abroad.
tennisnet : Who does a good job in this area?
Thiem : I remember a youth tournament where the British association sent two coaches, one fitness coach - and one teacher. You have unlimited time in a tournament, the possibilities for learning are endless. When tournaments are pending, absenteeism adds up. You have to think about options like eLearning, or a higher number of learning modules in training phases. Canadians are well advanced in this area. I would not necessarily attach this task to our association, which is not possible anyway. In my view, politics should act. If politicians are interested in competitive sports, two or three such schools would be imperative for the eastern region.
ÖTV funding: "This approach is wrong"
tennisnet : Is there also a need for action in trainer training?
Thiem : The tennis teachers used to have better pedagogical training. It was mostly teachers who trained children in the afternoon. Today most come to the tennis court to make money, but are usually overwhelmed when dealing with children. In addition, in recent years there has been a switch to decentralized individual funding, where there is de facto no quality criterion. Only results are taken into account. Do you play tennis yourself?
tennisnet : I always enjoy hitting balls. This probably has very little to do with tennis.
Thiem : Suppose you give tennis lessons and train a girl who is in the top Austrian field in her age group. Then she will receive financial support. But no one looks at whether you are technically capable of training children technically. Rather, it is said: 'He must be good if he has led this child to the top anyway.' This approach is wrong.
tennisnet : Do you have a suggestion for improvement?
Thiem : There should be local bases where the children can get the technical tools. At a later age, they could then be grouped together in the ÖTV performance center. We formed training groups for the U12 and U14 national teams. The trainers were always involved in order to work out a long-term plan with them. I now imagine a snowball effect in which they pass on this knowledge. The more centralized this introduction, the easier it would be: at nine regional associations, I would theoretically have to invite people nine times, and would have promoted the country nationwide from an association perspective.
tennisnet : The ÖTV recently attempted a coup by the national associations , President Werner Klausner resigned. What are your observations over the past few weeks?
Thiem : Werner Klausner brought calm to the tennis scene. He is not one who polarizes, everyone gets along well with him. Possibly he gave his presidium colleagues too much freedom, they took advantage of the ice-cold trust and opposed him. It was about grants and absurd claims. When the national associations de facto provide the presidium, the scene is even more dispersed. I don't think you can keep nine federal states permanently in line.
tennisnet : The ÖTV proudly prides itself on being the second largest sports association in Austria. Why is it no longer looking out in the professional area?
Thiem : (thinks for a long time) I don't know. I don't want to presume to judge why ÖSV or ÖFB gets more money than ÖTV. I don't know how difficult it is to raise money. Basically, I find it sad that such a large association like ours has a - in good German - pimp budget. But what I want to say: Money has only a limited amount to do with sporting success. I can also make it to a professional tennis player in the southern part of the city - truly no hall under laboratory conditions, to put it nicely. The association in the UK swims in the money, but also does not produce superstars on the treadmill.
tennisnet : Would a higher number of professional tournaments in Austria be a means of success? Why are there no Challenger tournaments?
Thiem : Challenger in Austria would be completely pointless. We need a lot more futures.
tennisnet : Why?
Thiem : You no longer have to worry about those players who challenge Challenger. We're currently talking about a maximum of eight players in the men's area who can already handle everyday touring. The rest are future players. In the meantime there are inexpensive tournaments in Turkey or Egypt. But if these were to take place in Austria, after a qualifying loss, you could sit in the car, drive home, and train all week until the next tournament. Elsewhere, I am bound to stay there for three weeks. The journey home then costs a lot of money in the long run.
tennisnet : In Spain, a handful of futures were pounded out of the ground to promote domestic players after the ITF reform.
Thiem : A $ 15,000 future will probably cost the organizer around 23,000 euros. Assume that a federal state agrees to release 500,000 euros for a tournament series. Compared to the umpteenth sports field in the Pampa, that would not be much money. Then suddenly you would have future tournaments in Austria from April to September.
Wolfgang Thiem about Sebastian Ofner & Dennis Novak
tennisnet : One of the Challenger players mentioned is Sebastian Ofner. As a trainer, how satisfied are you with Ofner's development?
Thiem : He had this incredible run at Wimbledon two years ago. At that time he was as successful as the virgin to the child. I still remember well when we slipped around on the Admira training pitch in preparation for the tournament. He had just come from a clay court tournament and was traveling to London completely carefree. There was a lot going for him there, but a lot went against him the following year.
tennisnet : Why couldn't he confirm the results?
Thiem : Perhaps one of 20 professionals will be able to achieve these results regularly after such an outlier. Sebastian has gradually improved. He's playing better this year than last year, and then better than two seasons ago. I hope it stabilizes so much that it is heading towards the top 100. I trust him to be one hundred percent next year at the latest, he has the potential to do so.
tennisnet : What do you say about Dennis Novak?
Thiem : We all know that he plays his best matches in front of a full house and grows with the task: the better the opponents, the better he plays himself. But he has to do that because he can't play anything else in his ranking area. Theoretically, his potential allows him to play well on every level up to the Grand Slam.
tennisnet : In a recent tennisnet interview, Tamira Paszek asked herself : "Which parents will take it upon themselves to support a child in the future?" So father of two tennis players: What do you answer her?
Thiem : Every child who wants to do competitive sports needs support. Simply to protect it from stupidity. One of the main reasons why my children became athletes was my concern that I was lying in bed afraid that they might drive into the car drunk on Saturday nights. So that was completely out of the question. You'd rather go to the cinema or have a drink at a birthday party, but that's about it. Competitive sports are incredibly helpful.
Thiem: Massu can make the difference
tennisnet : A good decision, as you can see from Dominic Thiem. How did you perceive his triumph in Indian Wells?
Thiem : It was super awesome. One must not forget that Roger Federer won in Dubai and only lost one match in the Sunshine Double, that was against Dominic. When I saw the match, I didn't realize that it was "mei Bua" who was beating Federer. I stay relatively calm and factual in such matches, only much later do I understand what happened there.
tennisnet : How did this distance come about?
Thiem : I am basically not a euphoric person. But the fact that he has now won 12 tournaments and was in fourth place is insane. I am not yet aware of the extent of his career. It is an advantage that the results at home are hardly an issue. It is a little strange for me as a father when people come up to Dominic and are almost afraid to speak to him. It is absolutely logical! I don't know how I would have reacted if I had met Hermann Maier 20 years ago (laughs).
tennisnet : Do you actually know Nicolas Massu personally?
Thiem : I saw him in Salzburg, but I didn't meet him personally.
tennisnet : How did the decision come that he would accompany your son to the next tournaments?
Thiem : The fact is, Günter Bresnik has an insanely high proportion of Dominic's success. Now it is a matter of optimizing and exhausting certain areas.
tennisnet : What can Massu do?
Thiem : He is a former top 10 player. So Dominic takes things that Massu tells him very differently. Maybe Günter tells him the same thing. We can never put ourselves exactly in the position of a professional, as Massu did as an ex-professional who played in all the big tournaments. That can make all the difference.