スムリクバボウルより
キッズテニスカップ ４８山梨のギャラリーが完成しました。
富士山を望んで良いお天気に恵まれ、子供達の最高の写真がアップされていますので皆さん見てくださいね。
そして本来であればこの山梨大会、春に開催されてアジア各国より選手が集まり、世界最高峰と言われるスムリクバボウル、世界遺産の街、クロアチアのプーラで６月に開催される１０歳世界選手権の出場者を決める大会でした。
しかし、今回はその世界大会がコロナの影響でキャンセルになってしまったため、今回の山梨大会の出場者、特にその１０歳のカテゴリーの選手には一生に一度しかチャンスがありませんので、本当に残念でしたね。スムリクバボウル出身者が今年はグランドスラムで大活躍していますので尚更です。
来年はまだどうなるかわかりませんが、我々にできることはただ一つ。子供たちのために準備することです。
皆さんも前を向いて頑張りましょう。
スムリクバボウルを創り、主宰するミオさんよりメッセージが届いていますのでご紹介します。
頑張って英語で読んでみましょう。… ちなみに彼も英語の国の人ではありませんので。
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Dear Smrikva Bowl and Smrikve friends!
It is 21st of September 2020, Smrikva Bowl Ambassador’s Day (“SBA” Day), and time to start thinking about 26th annual candidacy process…
Usually is the day when we celebrate the opening of the new selection process but as most of you already know we were not able to hold the 25th edition and gather the generation of talents born in 2010 and as of today we can not foresee if there will be conditions to gather the generation of talents born in 2011 for the 26th edition that is scheduled for the end of June 2021.
It is a very challenging year for some Smrikva Bowl families around the world… some friends have passed away due to coronavirus… and as of today the progress of scientists can not guarantee us that 2021 will be the year of Smrikva Bowl normality we are used to… we have to stick with the hope and for this reason it was decided to stick with our tradition and present the traditional requirements for the next edition on the Smrikva Bowl Ambassadors’ Day…
Although there were limited tennis activity this year… our over 2150 SB players spread in 95 countries continue writing the “seeds of the Legends”story…
US OPEN 2020 had 3 Smrikva Bowl players in the quarterfinals: Dominic Thiem, Alex De Minaur and Borna Coric… and Dominic conquered his first Grand Slam title which is also the first senior Grand Slam title conquered by a Smrikva Bowl player…
6282 days after his stay in Smrikve, Domi was lifting the Grand Slam trophy… and it happened to be in New York… 6282 days is just 17 years, 2 months and 10 days… it does not take 5 minutes to turn a childhood dream into reality… but Domi is a proving that dreaming with hard work and staying humble pays off in the long run…
… 1120 signed books arriving from 74 countries continue to be part of the Smrikva Bowl Heritage Library…
… over 1650 names were given by 16 SB generations to old Smrikva Bowl olive trees…
… 33 Grand Slam titles (including junior titles) are conquered by 26 former Smrikva Bowl players…
… 45 professional ATP/WTA titles (1 Grand Slam title)…
… 50 players reached TOP 200 ATP/WTA…
… 24 players reached TOP 100 ATP/WTA… and there are always Smrikva Bowl names among the winners of the most prestige under 12, 14, 16, 18 tournaments around the World…
There are many players who already graduated from Universities and I am pleased to track how many Smrikva Bowl children had the opportunity to get scholarship in the United States thanks to their academic and tennis skills and over 210 children were able to do it…
… I like to list the numbers but who lived Smrikva Bowl knows that our story is always more than numbers… more than tennis… and I am grateful to the Smrikva Bowl seeds that in different ways keep inspiring us to continue to put our efforts in gathering talents at our family garden…
There are many ways to show intergenerational solidarity… and I would like to thanks families who were part of Srmikva Bowl and keep answering my calls to send signed gifts for each Smrikva Bowl participant of our already new SB tradition named “Lucky Draw”…
This special moment is an opportunity for me to share the past players stories with children who are dreaming to follow their footprints… every present child at that moment of intergenerational celebration ceremony bring home a memory gift and I am sure they also discovered a new friend to cheer…
I was pleased to notice thanks to Facebook also that some Smrikva Bowl seeds started to form families and they keep loving the game… I do hope in 8-10 years to see some children of Smrikva Bowl seed playing Smrikva Bowl too…
I am also pleased to share that the 6th Smrikva Bowl Tennis Talents Family Week (SBTTFW) 2021 with Luca Appino will be held during the following weeks: 24th of April – 1st of May 2021 and 2nd of May – 9th of May 2021. The Family Week was born with vision to share with families and players some precious hints that may be of help to their long term development and is probably one of the greatest learning experiences for players and families that can be given at this young age.
I am pleased to share like every year few stories that are important to me and are part of the Smrikva Bowl foundation code…
21st of September is the International Day of Peace, also known as the World Peace Day… and years ago this date was selected to be the Smrikva Bowl Ambassadors Day (“SBA”)…
The SBA Day is celebrated on the same day as World Peace Day… and to me civil society and peace are pillars for any talent development possibility… we’ve seen over this last year how easy the difficulties and challenges put in front of people can change the life we are used to…
Years ago for all the Smrikva Bowl candidates was introduced the obligation to observe the Smrikva Bowl Fair Play and Sportsmanship Code of Conduct and I am pleased to share that more you train more become natural to lead by example… only after many mistakes we have the chance to become better by learning from them… always embracing the challenge… especially when we are forced out of our comfort zone…
I do believe in a beauty of learning and inexperience is a powerful asset. My advice during orientation day to the Smrikva Bowl children is always to use their skills and tennis racket passport to travel, experience… see the world… and I strongly believe that each of them will become very rich person not because of the money they might make but because of the experience they will gain. The releationship wealth they will create with their living will be a precious wealth for their well being that nobody will be able to take them away.
We are living today the moment of almost impossibility to travel… but we need to believe that all this will come to an end… and those who love exploring will for sure get the opportunity to do it in the future…
Many years ago we started to plant an old Olive tree during Smrikva Bowl Ambassadors Nomination Ceremony. The Olive tree selected was older than the oldest man living on the earth… and during the ceremony, every Ambassador put a piece of land close to the root and donate the name to the tree…
This year me and my family did the ceremony for all the children who passed the selection process but were not able to gather on their Smrikva Bowl…
Olive tree is a symbol of peace in different Mediterranean cultures… and the age of our trees is another important symbol… the symbol of intergenerational responsibility.
Cartoons always helped me to share thougths with kids… and The Lion King is nice one to share our Olive Tree story via Circle of Life story…
We are all born without knowing much about life on this earth…
… and you might recall when Mufasa was explaining to Simba that is not easy to be a King… he told him that a good King should know that everything around us lives in a delicate equilibrium and that with intelligence we should try to understand it and respect it.
Mufasa was trying to teach his son Simba… the importance of observing the nature… of being curious… and he was teaching him the respect the nature and get the understanding of the importance of all different creatures in the Circle of Life…
A Nobal Prize for Peace, guest of the group I was member years ago, once observed: “The future is always in a minority. Yet the history of the future is more important than the history of the past. It is for the old to remember the past. It is for the young to build the world of tomorrow.
Do it! You can build a world without wars. You can build a new humanity.”
A signed tennis ball by our Nobel Prize for Peace friend with the above message is a precious memory held in Smrikve that I love to share with Smrikva kids…
I developed an idea that peace is always an instable equilibrium and with intelligence we should try to understand it and respect it. Knowledge, human curiosity and will to learn are important… and all together are pillars for the civilization path.
When the Nobel Prize told to the group I belonged: “Do it!” he reminded me Yoda and his teaching to the young Skywalker: “Do. Or do not!…”
Books are human memory that can help us understand what we see combined with our cummulated personal experience and this is one of the reasons why I started the Smrikva Bowl Heritage Library story. Given the fragility of the circle of life it is easy to lose personal and general cummulated knowledge in just a generation or two.
We have gotten used to rapid technological progress, but social progress is more complex. Humans learn throughout lifetime and mostly from personal experiences.
Today people live an average of about 80 years… and what we call civilization is mostly made up of human knowledge we have accumulated, which our institutions pass onto future generations… and at the moment we are those who represent the current civilization.
World Peace Day although celebrated on the same day as SBA day is the day to start thinking of the new research of the Smrikva talents… and with this e-mail, as per tradition, some basic ideas about the selection process for the 26th annual will be shared.
26th Smrikva Bowl, in case pandemic is finished, will be held in Pula-Istria, Croatia, from (19th) 21stnd till 26th of June 2021. Smrikva Bowl gathers young tennis talents from all over the World and next year edition will be dedicated to players born in 2011.
When I think of Smrikva Bowl Heritage and Legacy I always imagine it phyisically as a theater where we work hard for a year to set the stage… and every year we gather kids, arriving from different cultures, having different dreams…
We set the stage and later on they are in charge with their dedication to write the most different & inspiring stories…
Smrikve is like the place where the seeds of the legends are planted year after year… and Smrikva children stories and families after their departure from Smrikve become like a living fairy tale tree that keeps growing and developing in most different directions year after year…
The intangible part of our theatre is „more than tennis“… whatever that means… and I always wished that it could mean something little bit different for each person that happened to get in touch with Smrikva Bowl story…
Smrikva Bowl is still very young event and is too early to observe the Smrikva Bowl Legacy but I always believed that more then one children who left footprints on our courts will write inspiring stories in most different professional fields.. and I am always happy when I get to know a new SB name achieving the possibility to get their higher education at US Universities thanks to their tennis racket…
Year after year seems more likely that Grand Slam Tournaments will be conquered by Smrikva seeds… they already won 32 junior Grand Slam Titles in singles and doubles… and my dream for the “seeds of the Legends” was always beyond Grand Slam dream…
I know that according to the statistics only few Smrikva Bowl kids will become top professional tennis players, but I want to believe that they will benefit from their tennis and sport experience and find their way in other fields too… because humans need inspiration… we need inspiration not only in sport but in most different fields… there are many challanges today… and even after corona virus is defeated there will be always many new one in the future… and we need divergent thinking to find solutions to challenges that today appear more complicated than what they are… and children are the little genius that could show us the path… being adults those who borrow the future from the children…
I stopped asking myself long time ago of how many kids playing Smrikva Bowl are playing tennis because their parents would like them to become professional tennis players and how much of them play it because they like the game. What I do know is that sport can help kids in their growth and I also know that people that do excel in any field need very long time to reach and master the excellence.
Some people come to Smrikve thinking that Smrikva Bowl is a very “important” competition… without understanding that the result is not the hidden key of the Smrikva Bowl event… and I always need Smrikva Bowl Ambassadors’ help to explain to new candidates and their families that Smrikva Bowl is something more than a competition…
On our website you can already find PDF file 26th Smrikva Bowl 2021 edition presentation with application form and other relevant information:
Smrikva Bowl “more than tennis” idea… will be left to the interpretation of each Ambassador and Smrikva Bowl friend… their feelings will guide them because they are the one who are helping us to write the Smrikva story…
Thanks to the Smrikva Bowl families our special Olive Oil and Wine are spread in 95 countries… Our quantities are always limited… the same as limited is the number of players we can invite every year… but I do believe the same I believed for the Smrikva Bowl players that one day the olive oil made from the “seeds of the Legends” trees will be very unique in the whole World…
Over the years Istria kept recording sustainable growth in numbers of travelers visiting us… she did it this year too with all the limitations and impossibilities to travel… and I am grateful to all those who visited us and contributed to that development… “Istria from Smrikve” is a cultural e-book gift to all Smrikve friends… Smrikva Bowl Ambassadors are helping us in scouting talents but also in spreading the word about Istria as cultural tourism destination worth visiting…
The number of the invited players in 2021 will be for the moment reduced to 64 players (32 girls and 32 boys) and your help will be precious.
If you know a good tennis player born in 2011 that deserves to play Smrikva Bowl or you wish to present your or support a candidacy for the 6th SBTTFW 2021 family gatherings please let me know…
… for the end of this long presentation… being today World Peace Day… my wish to Smrikva players is to continue to inspire… and may some of them make true Nelson Mandela’s words when he observed the power of Sport saying: “Sport has the power to change the world, the power to inspire and the power to unite people in a way little else can…”
Thank you for your time, for visiting us and for sharing with friends the Smrikve story.
Mio
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