CLASS OF 2019: Part 2 – Granted Success
The Class of 2019 series recognises those players who are successfully making the transition from their ITF World Tennis Tour Junior careers into the professional game. Part II focuses on two players who have thrived with the aid of ITF Junior Player Grants – Burundi’s Sada Nahimana and Nick Hardt of Dominican Republic
The ITF development programme was first conceived in the late 1970s with the aim to help raise the level of tennis worldwide and increase the number of countries competing in mainstream international tennis. As part of the programme, the federation provides aid to develop talented players, particularly those from nations that are both under-resourced and under-represented.
Eligible players can benefit from Grand Slam Development Fund Player Grants and ITF Junior Player Grants, which aim to provide direct Grand Slam tournament financial support to selected players from all around the world by way of a contribution towards their competition-related costs.
The grants are designed to help players develop as professionals and world class juniors, gaining international competitive experience so that more nations and players will be represented in the mainstream of international competitions, particularly the Grand Slam tournaments, Davis Cup, Fed Cup and the Olympic Games.
Juniors may also be eligible to join the ITF/Grand Slam Development Fund International 18-U touring teams to Australia, Europe, and the Americas, travelling to the most prestigious events on the ITF World Tennis Tour Juniors circuit. The touring team is an integral part of the development programme and aims to facilitate the transition of talented players through regional and international junior competitions and where possible on to the professional ranks.
For two such players, Sada Nahimana of Burundi and Dominican Republic’s Nick Hardt, 2019 has seen their careers reach the next level. The duo have been involved with ITF/GSDF Touring Teams since 2016, when Nahimana was 15 and Hardt 16. Now 18 and 19, they have received ITF Junior Player Grants in both 2018 and 2019.
Africa’s top-ranked player in the girls’ rankings, Nahimana won both the singles and doubles titles at the new J1 event in Nottingham in the lead-up to Wimbledon, reaching a career-high junior ranking of No.13 in the process, using her funding to make the trip to the UK with her coach, Khalid Lhamidi, for the grass court season.
“This year I used it for this tour – I’m not part of the touring team. I’m here with my coach, which is good because I always train with him every day and he knows me.”
Nahimana, who lives and practices at the ITF Training Centre in Morocco, has split her time between the juniors and the ITF World Tennis Tour since Wimbledon, reaching back-to-back finals at W15 Nairobi, Kenya, to earn her first WTA ranking points in August, before making history for Burundi in October by claiming the nation’s first ever ITF World Tennis Tour title with victory at W25 Lagos in Nigeria.
After a run to the final of W15 Monastir in November, Nahimana ended the year ranked No.476 in the WTA rankings, while after starting 2019 unranked on the ATP Tour, Hardt will start 2020 ranked on the cusp of the top 500 after a season that saw him claim a third ITF World Tennis Tour singles title and two doubles victories.
Hardt, who received a $12,500 grant in 2018 and $25,000 in 2019 and trains at the IMG Academy in Florida, reached No.16 in the world as a junior last year and is starting to make an impact on the ITF World Tennis Tour, winning M15 Saarlouis in July and reaching three further semi-finals in Antalya, Cancun and Brussels, where he won the first of his back-to-back doubles titles.
The path that awaits him was thrown into sharp focus in October, when he partnered retiring compatriot Victor Estrella Burgos in the Dominican’s final professional match at a Challenger in Santo Domingo, the site of Hardt’s first ITF World Tennis Tour title. Estrella Burgos, who reached No.43 in the world after breaking into the top 100 aged 33, won three titles in Quito, Ecuador from 2015-17 and reached the Olympics.
The route to the top in tennis is seldom short and rarely easy, and for teens Nahimana and Hardt it may have started harder than most who go on to make it. But with the support of the ITF and Grand Slam Development Fund, both have seen their chances of success boosted in these formative years.