School's soon out, and tennis is in

Katariina Tuohimaa will be devoting her time to sport over the next few years

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By Jarmo Färdig
     
      Katariina Tuohimaa sits on the terrace of a Helsinki restaurant on a fine autumn Sunday afternoon, and ponders long and hard what to order from the menu. After much toing and froing, she comes down on the side of breast of turkey and a diet coke.
      When the dish arrives, Tuohimaa grabs her knife and fork in long, slim fingers, and shows great moderation, attacking the side salad first of all.
      The reason is soon made apparent. The young lady has her second practice of the day lined up a couple of hours ahead - a 75-minute Pilates session.
      The 18-year-old Tuohimaa is on the verge of saying farewell to school and embarking on a career as a tennis professional.
     
"I'm not applying next spring to study anywhere. I'm going to concentrate on tennis for the next few years", she says firmly.
      "I'm ready for the nomadic life on the road. My aim is to break into the top 100 on the WTA lists", she says somewhat cautiously, after some prodding.
      "I can't say anything as yet about the quantitative growth in my training programme, but certainly the quality is going to improve when I also have time to rest in between. So far the long school-days have tended to take their toll", says Tuohimaa, who has risen to become the third-ranked woman player in Finland.
     
Her new personal trainer Jussi Koivisto, sitting alongside her, listens and nods his head approvingly.
      Tuohimaa has thus far been playing on court according to school rules and terms. Now she faces a whole new game, exploring her own limits, to see how far she can go on her own.
      "I have to develop all areas of my tennis. Many kids of my age on the tour have been going around the world for years, and I still have to proceed at a measured pace."
      "In particular the girls coming out of Eastern Europe have been concentrating body and soul on tennis for years. They've just honed up on their game, with no consideration for schooling. They have a huge head start", acknowledges Koivisto, 34, who spent a dozen years coaching for a living at the leading German tennis academy in Stuttgart.
     
Koivisto returned to Finland this time last year and is now working at the Smash tennis club in Helsinki, as well as acting as Tuohimaa's personal coach.
      "The years I spent in Germany were interesting and rewarding, but I had to do an enormous amount of travelling. It was hard to lead a normal life under those circumstances", says Koivisto by way of explanation for his return home.
      In his late teens he played a few challenger and satellite tournaments on the professional circuit. He did not enjoy any great measure of success, and so at the age of 21 he decided to pack in active playing and move over to the coaching side.
     
When Katariina Tuohimaa talks about the early days of her playing career, her eyes sparkle and she bubbles with enthusiasm.
      "I think I was about eleven when I took part in my first tournament. I liked competing from the very beginning. I wasn't any great super-prospect when I was younger. I just smashed the cover off the ball, and it was miles out as often as not. The most important thing back then was that it looked good and I smacked it hard", she shrugs, crossing her arms.
      "I suppose my strength is in my attitude. I've got a will to win that just won't quit. The best thing about tennis is that it is a duel that only one side can win. It's a game that requires smarts, speed, endurance, and a sense of knowing exactly where you are - not just physically on the court, but in the game."
      "I'm tall and I've got a good reach. I can also give the ball some stick pretty easily", says the trim 180 cm Tuohimaa, contemplating the good sides of her tennis game.
      "And I can summon up temperament. If I get mad, I get really mad. I don't just stand there sulking at myself."
     
Without being asked, she then launches into a litany of her weaknesses.
      "Just about every aspect of my game needs improving, and I'm too often short on ideas in mixing things up. For instance I'll keep bashing away trying to exert pressure from the baseline, when I really ought to go up and attack the net more often. My movement around the court generally, that needs a lot of work."
      "Katariina has talent and she has determination. From now on, it's very much up to her how this develops", offers Koivisto.
      "How hard she is prepared to push herself, whether she is prepared to stay focused and stay humble. The target of getting into the women's top 100 sounds perfectly realistic. It will naturally take a ton of hard work for us to catch up with those others out there who haven't spent the past few years with their textbooks."
      Tuohimaa shrugs again: "Of course sometimes I get fed up with tennis. You start asking yourself how badly you want to go on with this sometimes, like when you are trudging home from training in the dark and the slush of winter."
     
Tuohimaa qualified for the main draw of the girls' singles at Wimbledon this year, going out in the first round to the 15th seed Evgeniya Rodina of Russia.
      She also qualified for the girls' event at the US Open in September. Here she found Petra Martic of Croatia too strong for her in the 2nd round. Martic was no slouch, and made it through to the quarter-finals.
      Tuohimaa thoroughly enjoyed the experience of playing in the big arena, surrounded by all the trappings of a major tournament. It is a treat she would like to experience in the adult series, too.
      Her current WTA singles ranking makes such dreams a relatively distant prospect at present, but the future starts here.
     
Katariina Tuohimaa comes equipped with a fine sporting pedigree.
      Her father Harri Tuohimaa played 492 games in the Finnish ice hockey league with Lukko of Rauma and Helsinki HIFK. He also won 76 caps for Finland and is currently Chairman of HIFK-Hockey Oy, the company behind the league club.
      In addition, her older brother Lauri plays centre for HIFK's A-Juniors, whenever he can get leave from his military service.
      "I'm a HIFK fan - naturally. In our family I couldn't be anything else. But I don't get the time to go to many matches. I think I went to only two games all last season", admits Katariina Tuohimaa.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 26.9.2006

More on this subject:
 WHO? Katariina Tuohimaa

JARMO FÄRDIG / Helsingin Sanomat
jarmo.fardig@hs.fi