1) Please introduce yourself to our viewers
My name is Marc, Im from switzerland, I went for 10 months as an exchange student at NTU and now Im staying for 6 more months in Singapore for an internship.
2) Tell us when you first started playing tennis and what is the highest level of tennis you have played
I started playing around like 6-7 years old! Until 15, I was taking lessons with a swiss qualified tennis trainer!! During this time, I was doing playing lots of competition and my best ranking was R4 in switzerland!! I don’t know to what it corresponds here in Singapore!! then I stopped 5 years, 15 to 20yo, and then I restarted playing for me, then restarted some competitions too and now Im still playing and my rank is R5 in Switzerland!!
3) What do you think about the standard of tennis in Singapore?
I can just compare to Switzerland. So compare to switzerland, the standard in Singapore is definitely lower! But it’s not like a big surprise cos in switzerland as in europe in general, tennis is much more a popular sport than here in Singapore…where it’s more considered a bit as a “fancy” sport. But still there are some good players in Singapore too.
4) What do you think is the main challenge of our tennis players here in Singapore?
Hmm u mean for the elite/professional ones?? I dont know if there is like a structure for the elite player. I dont know if the best player in Singapore can join a structure where they are trained, helped financially, helped with school stuff and sent oversea to play against other player…cos Singapore is pretty small so players have to move if they wanna know which level they have compared to the other.
5) What is the main difference between the mindset of tennis players here in Singapore and back home?
So i dont know how play the elite players in Singapore but the more “popular” level, like I play…it’s not considered at all as a sport!! it’s considered as a recreation game, a past time!! it is not considered as a competitive sport!! they dont play the real rules, no advantages, never…even in tournament!!! sometimes its like only 9 games?!?! I do not understand this rule, only 9 games!?!?…it’s totally not the same sport anymore!!! so then, its like not really motivating too…cos ur not playing tennis, ur like playing “kind of tennis”!! so u play, u lost like 3 sudden death in a row, so ur losing like 3-0…but ur not even that much frustrated cos in ur mind(at least its like that in my mind) its a bit like…im not playing real match, a real tennis match…its like a bit fake!!
Like at home, even in the popular level, u can see people (old and young) like break their racket, yelling on the court, cursing like hell…cos they are in the game, and its really mental game!!like when u lost a game and u had like 10 Advantages but then u missed them all and then the other has just one, and he wins the game, that can make that u want to killurself…thats totally different then here, where u know that the first who wins 4 points has the game, so less emotion, less pleasure in a way cos its not the real game and ur never like totally in the game, cos ur not playing the real game!!
6) Were you surprised at the standard of tennis in Singapore when you first arrived?
I knew tennis is not really popular sport in Singapore like badminton or pingpong but I didnt know they were not even playing the real rules!!
7) What kind of advice would you like to share with our tennis viewers and players?
Give more credit to tennis and play the real game,real rules…even if a tournament has to been played over 1 week or 2 weeks!! take time to play and enjoy this sport
8) Who is your favorite tennis player on the ATP circuit and why?
Roger Federer!!! cos he is just the best for me and he is swiss :-))
