This year’s Plava Laguna Croatia Open has once again tapped into the NextGen story by including three young tennis players in its draw: Andrey Rublev (age 20), Felix Auger-Aliassime (age 17) and even our very own Nino Serdarušić, who is only 21.
- This NextGen project and the promotion of the young players are great as tennis needs fresh blood - said Goran Ivanišević.
Tournament Director Lawrence Frankopan is always willing to give young players a chance by handing them the invitations. That is how this year we got the promising Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime to compete in the Plava Laguna Croatia Open.
- He is only 17 but plays fantastic tennis. It is easy to see his huge tennis potential and that is why we are glad to have him here at the tournament. Hopefully, he will remember who gave him one of his first invitations to an ATP tournament and he will be back many times in the years to come – added Frankopan, stressing the potential “threat” of the NextGen project.
- These are all young men that have loads of hard work and a tough road ahead of them if they want to make it in tennis. For the time being, they have done nothing great and we just need to make sure that this pressure that is being put on them as future stars isn’t counterproductive.
Ivanišević admitted he had no favorites among the young players but added that he liked some of the new rules that are making their way into tennis.
- Introducing Hawk-Eye has, by far, been the best thing that has ever happened in tennis. I also like the idea of the no-let rule, which allows the players to continue playing the point even if a serve clips the net. If we had had those two things back in the days, I would have won a few more Grand Slams – added Ivanišević unsurprisingly.
