Surely Maria haven't taken US citizenship just permanent residency.
That's what I'm thinking.
Saguar0,
Back to reality and on topic, this question is sort of about "credit" for the production of top tennis talent and reality vs TV graphics.
Specifically, I noticed that the ESPN3 commentators kept saying that America isn't producing winners and/or there are no American winners. As others have pointed out, those are two different issues. It seems the US is good at training tennis players who "play for other countries".
But at this point, if a top tennis player lives in the US, trains in the US, is culturally American, and in some cases has US citizenship, I don't really see the player as "playing for another country". They're really just playing for a little icon next to their name on the TV screen since, in so many cases, their life and entire "tennis being" is truly American.
Yeah, nominally they're "playing for X", but at some critical level they've deliberately rejected that country when it comes to their daily lives and professional tennis development and chosen the US for their day to day life and professional development.
They could be playing for sentiment, but if it means so much then why reject that home country so profoundly when it comes to daily life and professional development? If the home country means so much why not embrace it fully?
IIRC Nadal lives and trains in Spain. Is that correct?
I notice you never specifically addressed Maria's citizenship again, so I guess we all agree that she does not hold an American passport. Exactly which players are you talking about that are American citizens that play for other countries? Can you name any? Here I'll help you.
-Amer Delic, came to the US as child, became a naturalized, dual citizen. Went to Illinois, became an NCAA champion. Played under the US flag for many years. In 2010 the Bosnian Federation asked him if he would play Davis Cup for them. He consulted with the USTA, got permission, and now plays for Bosnia. (I understand Amer having 2 countries equally in his heart, I feel the same way about the US/UK and wish I could have dual citizneship)
-Treat Huey, Eric Taino, and Cecil Mamit all played for the US at one point, but eventually played for the Philippines. I think Huey just switched this year.
Note that these guys are all low ranked players in the US, and number one players in the country they play for. Maybe that's why they switch.
Yup.
This is all about the money. All these players were in shadow of Youzhny, Davydenko and a whole string of higher ranked women players in Russia. So, they accepted Kazakh citizenship, because their tennis federation offered financial support.
Back to Sharapova. Does she have any financial obligations to play under US flag? How much money did USTA spend on her? Bollitieri academy is down in Florida - but it is a private business and they accept students from all over the world. USTA is welcome to provide scholarships for american players to go there (and I am sure they do), but so does German tennis federation etc.
It's a different story with Bogomolov - he actually accepted financial help from USTA, scholarships or what not. This is why USTA wanted Russian tennis federation to pay this money back. Last time I read in russian press it was $70K. I am on USTA side here...
The USTA didn't want the money ($75K) from the Russian Federation, they wanted it from Alex. He wrote them a check out of his son's college fund in December. Total joke, the USTA pisses away far more than that on their ridiculous annual meetings in the Bahamas or whatever island they picked last year. (Hopefully, the Russian Federation will give some of that money back to Alex). They were just mad that Alex switched without sucking up to them first the way Amer did. They were 'publicly embarrassed' and made him pay for it.
Anyway, any tennis player that enrolls in and is developed by a private academy like Bolletieri is not 'US produced', they are academy produced or Florida produced. When TV commentators say the US can produce tennis players, they mean that our best athletes are choosing other sports or they mean the USTA are inept fools who spend more time playing politics than creating better tennis players (and there are plenty of examples of that on this forum). As far as I know, the USTA has never spent a dime on Sharapova, can't imagine why they ever would. She has no obligation to them or "American tennis".
