Issue link: http://itf.uberflip.com/i/193236
ITF BEACH TENNIS TOUR Margot van Doorn (NED) Physical Education teacher at a Netherlands High School ITFWorld: As a PE teacher, how often are you able to compete on the ITF Beach Tennis Tour? Van Doorn: It depends on my job or sponsors because it's expensive to travel, but it's possible to get to a few European events. In the past I've played about five events a year in my time off, but now I try to play two or three events a year if possible. Rosen Nentchev (BUL) Opera singer, former professional tennis and volleyball player ITFW: Do you bring your experiences of the ITF Beach Tennis Tour into your PE lessons? Van Doorn: Of course. I show the kids the pictures from each event and their reaction is usually, 'oh wow, I want to do this too!' I also run beach tennis clinics at school with the guys from Beach Tennis Holland to introduce the sport to kids, and we also run clinics for other PE teachers to increase their awareness of the game. If the educators love the sport too, it will spread all over the country and the level of the players will get better. ITFW: What's your best moment in the sport so far? Van Doorn: My first beach tennis tournament in Aruba, where we reached the semifinals. I'd only been playing the sport properly for a few weeks and suddenly I was in the semifinals of this great event against Brazil. It was crazy because Aruba is a really popular tournament in the sport, with a great atmosphere. I played for Aruba, because it was a colony of Holland at the time, but at that moment I thought, 'I want to do more of this, this is great!' Brazil's Guilherme Prata and Vinicius Font celebrate at the World Team Championship ITFWorld: What attracted you to beach tennis? Nentchev: I was a professional tennis player in Bulgaria for 10-12 years and after that I started to play volleyball, because my father played professionally. About three years ago, a friend of mine told me about beach tennis and when I saw the sport for the first time in Bulgaria I thought, this sport is made for me! ITFW: How important is it to you to promote and encourage the growth of beach tennis? Nentchev: It's very important to all the players. Every sport needs an audience. The sport is growing very much, and the most important thing for us now is to become an Olympic sport. That would be just fantastic. My ambition since I was a child was to go to the Olympics. I'm 31 years old now and if I ever had the chance to go to the Olympics it would be a dream come true. ITFW: What makes beach tennis special to you? Nentchev: For me this sport is the pure Olympic vision. Nearly all of us have a day job — I'm an opera singer at the second biggest opera theatre in Milan. We're such different people when we compete in beach tennis to who we are in our normal lives. We're not like tennis players. Okay, perhaps the top 10 or 20 beach tennis players are professionals, but you can still easily talk to them or play against the No. 1 of the sport. It's not like tennis, where you might see [Roger] Federer on TV or maybe 100 metres away at a tournament. It's an incredible way to be in direct contact with the very best people in the sport. 6 ITFWORLD AUTUMN 2013