The Goxhuli sisters: Born to win

Born to win

Their father escaped Milosevic's clutches, then risked everything to move his family from London to Florida. If his daughters become the new Venus and Serena Williams, then the future of British tennis will have been made in...Kosovo

Sunday May 5, 2002
Observer Sport Monthly

 

It's 10am on another stiflingly hot day in Pompano Beach, Florida, and as the paunchy, middle-aged golfers set off across the manicured greens of the plush Palm-Aire Country Club in their motorised buggies, the girls and boys at Rick Macci's nearby tennis academy have just slogged to the end of the day's first three-hour coaching session.

Macci is famous for turning children - and girls, in particular - into international tennis stars. The names of his most accomplished past pupils are strung round the perimeter wire of the tennis courts, so if the enthusiasm flags among the class of 2002, they can draw inspiration from the likes of Venus and Serena Williams, Mary Pierce and Jennifer Capriati. As if that wasn't enough, there are also the placards they pass every day on the path leading to the courts. 'No fear, no fear, you gotta love the fight,' instructs one. 'Winners are positive, losers negative,' warns another. My favourite is, 'Tennis is a game of inches - from one ear to another.'

First workout over, most of the Macci kids have just headed off to a nearby school. For the minority, being tutored at home - usually foreign youngsters lured to Florida by first-class tuition and world-class competition - the court work continues. On a far court, there's a teenage girl from Georgia, part of the trend, post-Anna Kournikova, for all things former Soviet Union. On the court next door is a slightly-built, young African-American, who may have found the door to tennis has opened a little further since Venus and Serena took the tennis world by storm. And on the nearest court are two sisters, age 10 and 12, a recently arrived, double phenomenon known affectionately at Macci's as 'the Brits'. The girls are being watched, with considerable admiration, by Macci's director, Jamaican Greg Russell, a former Davis Cup player.

 

Lobbing from the baseline, they look like winners. Against the rhythmic, satisfying pop of racket strings meeting tennis ball, the sisters, the youngest now nearly as tall as her sibling, are strong and fast, and their play versatile, expert and very confident. Some argue that British tennis needs radical action if it is ever again to produce world-class players, and radical action is certainly what has brought this pair - the elder, a brunette, the younger, yellow blonde - to Macci's. Seven months ago their father stunned relatives and friends by taking his daughters out of their primary school in west London and moving the whole family to Florida. Tennis was the sole reason for the move. To finance it, he took out a bank loan, using the family house as collateral. The family is not well off, and with the father having given up his job, they are already struggling to meet the financial demands of living and training in Florida.

But the gamble may yet pay off, and in spectacular fashion . The girls impressed Macci sufficiently for him to wave three quarters of the usual $1,600 a month coaching fee. And they have since made so much progress that Russell compares them to the Williams sisters - the elder graceful like Venus and the younger powerful and more aggressive like Serena - who were millionaires in their teens.

All the same, few British families would risk everything to pursue a dream. Then again this family is not typically British. The girls, it is true, were born and brought up in London. But their parents came to Britain as refugees from a bloody civil war and the old country can still be heard in every heavy-accented syllable they utter. The future of British tennis may have its roots in Kosovo.

Ragip Goxhuli came to Britain in 1989. He was an architecture student and arrived in London to study English. At just about the same moment Slobodan Milosevic, the President of Yugoslavia, famously and provocatively erected the standard of Serb nationalism in Goxhuli's homeland in ethnically Albanian Kosovo, triggering the events that would lead to a decade of Balkan wars and the disintegration of Yugoslavia.

Goxhuli, a small wiry man with thin beard and glasses - more 1960s LSE lecturer than a hulk from which sports stars might spring - says he could see war coming. From a staunchly nationalist family, he knew he would be a prime target when the Serbs cracked down in Kosovo. His grandfather had been a relatively wealthy man, but the Goxhulis had lost everything when his father was jailed for seven years for his nationalist beliefs. 'The children of nationalists were treated with suspicion,' says Goxhuli. So when his visa ran out, he stayed on in Britain, initially illegally.

Starting again in a new country was tough. And in the modest, two bedroomed-flat the family is now sharing in Pompano, Goxhuli tells his story with a mix of humour and intense earnestness, while his daughters - 12-year-old Artijeta (pronounced Artiyeta) and 10-year-old Abresha (pronounced Abreesha) - listen, with half an ear to the cartoons blaring from the TV in the corner. On court, in plaits, the sisters were pretty. Off court, hair down, they are Pre-Raphaelite beauties. Each strand of Artijeta's hair is fine as mist, but combined creates a mass that fans out like peacock's feathers. Abresha's blonde hair, never cut, reaches below her waist.

'Oh, they know I slept in a hall at Kings Cross for £2 a night,' says Goxhuli, in his joking, self-deprecating way. 'They know it was just a mattress and a blanket.' At first he worked in restaurants and later in factories. Soon he managed to bring his wife Shukrije, then just 18, and then her family, to London. And, along the way, Artijeta and Abresha were born. 'Some British people think that refugees only want benefits but I never took a penny,' he says. 'I worked for everything I have.'

And, forced to start life again, he did work hard. It took double-shift, 16-hour days for the man who would have been an architect to work his way up to a foreman's position in Parcelforce. And all the while, the exile was hurting. It was 1997 before Goxhuli was granted indefinite leave to remain in Britain, and could feel secure about his family's position here.

By then his father, then 76, and still living in Kosovo, was very ill. 'My mother had died in 1995 and I couldn't even go to her funeral,' he says, sadness cracking his good humour for the first time. It was highly dangerous for him to return to Kosovo but Goxhuli was determined that another parent would not die without seeing him once more. With Shukrije only weeks from giving birth to their third child, Ragip left west London for bandit-ridden, northern Albania - in the midst of its own violent internal strife - and then drove into Kosovo, where the KLA was engaged in a guerrilla war with the Serbs. Shukrije's father had insisted on going with him.

The men were stopped seven times by Serb police. Miraculously, they were never asked for the identity papers they did not have. They risked jail every time they were stopped. Goxhuli made it home to an emotional reunion with his father whose health had improved. He visited his mother's grave and then returned to London by the same hair-raising route to find himself father of another daughter. 'We called her Kosovare because that's where Ragip was when she was born,' says Shukrije.

Artijeta swung her first racket in 1995 on a public court in Gunnersbury Park, west London. She was four. Her father had never played tennis but had been impressed by Boris Becker on television. A friend showed him the basics; then Ragip took Artijeta down to the park. 'People started to say she had a good forehand and that I should get her into a club but I didn't know anything about clubs,' he says. Goxhuli made his connection with the sport through the friend of a work colleague with a daughter at private school. The girl was a member of a tennis club.

Not satisfied with Artijeta's half-hour club lesson once a week, Ragip, copying her coach, started extra home tuition. He taught both daughters from a book, just as Richard Williams did with Venus and Serena. He even resigned from work when his company tried to impose a change in working hours that interfered with his daughters' coaching.

But his efforts were paying off. At 10, Artijeta was easily dispatching boys of 12 at the local David Lloyd tennis centre. Abresha was showing the same aptitude when her father made the move to Florida.

Many would consider such a move ridiculous, but Ragip Goxhuli starts from his own unique place when it comes to risk. 'I know there are people who think I am crazy to move to Florida,' he says, at the flat where Artijeta and Abresha share a bedroom - and a home study system - and Ragip and Shukrije share another with Kosovare. 'My own brother-in-law asks how I am managing,' he says, 'but I came to London with just 35 deutschmarks and I survived. When my life turned upside down, I thought it was too late for me but that I could to do something for my kids. And I believe that to achieve something big, you have to aim big, for these things do not just come to you.' Like Richard Williams, the uprooted Kosovan believes passionately that he has two tennis champions on his hands and that Florida, therefore, is the best place for them to be. But he definitely wants his daughters to play for Britain. 'When they call us the Brits here I feel proud,' he says. 'I want my kids to play for Britain because Britain has done so much for my family, and my country.'

On the face of it, there is a gulf between the experience of the English girls and their Kosovan father. It reflects in their language. The sisters speak English together, Albanian with their mum - a sweet, hospitable woman who does not speak much English - and a mix of Albanian and English with their dad. When Abresha recalls her first visit to Kosovo last year, what she remembers is that 'the roads were just mud'.

But for Ragip there is no chasm, just an unbroken line, linking the fortunes of his grandfather and father to his own and those of his daughters. It is that sense of continuity, and family destiny and purpose, that seems to fuel his dream that Artijeta and Abresha - born 19 months apart - will be world tennis champions.

'I got no doubt that they will be top 100,' he says in his heavy accent. 'The only question is, will I have the resources to take them as far as the Williams sisters?'

No tennis coach would dispute his claim that if his daughters are to fully develop their potential, these are the crucial years. For it is now that technique - particularly in women's tennis where champions mature earlier - is established, with imperfections often impossible to correct later. Goxhuli is grateful to the Lawn Tennis Association for recognising Artijeta's talent, and singling her out for special coaching, but he says coaching twice a week was hardly going to prepare her, or Abresha, to compete with the world's best.

The Goxhuli sisters know their father believes that they too will make tennis history. And you wonder if they feel weighed down by the burden of his dreams. In the diaspora triggered by the Balkans wars, Ragip has two sisters in Germany, but most of Shukrije's family is now in London and Abresha and Artijeta have nine cousins there whom they miss very much. Still, they do seem to love tennis, which is just as well since they train five hours a day, six days a week. Artijeta wanted to practise today despite a virus that had already made her throw up four times.

The girls are both sweet - no hint of tennis brat - and close. When their father isn't there, I ask how good they think they will be. 'Very good,' says Artijeta, with quiet confidence. Will her sister ever challenge her like Serena has Venus? 'She wants to beat me,' teases Artijeta, looking at Abresha. 'But I won't let her.' Abresha says nothing but smiles slowly, her eyes never leaving the television.

Do they feel pressurised? Artijeta says that it would be impossible to give up now after all the money and the effort. Anyway, she loves tennis. Then she volunteers heritage as another reason to continue. 'My father thinks Abresha and I have the fighting family spirit in us,' she smiles. 'But I think that he thinks it hasn't come out fully in us yet.'

Venus and Serena Williams were 10 and nine when their father wrote from the ghettos of Los Angeles to the US's top tennis academies, inviting coaches to see his daughters play. He claimed that they were potential stars. Rick Macci was the only coach to take the trip to California.

'It was May, it was slow,' Macci tells me. 'But I wasn't impressed with what I saw. The girls were all over the place. Richard had been their only teacher.' As Macci was about to leave, Venus walked off the court on her hands, bowling him over with her athleticism. He stayed to watch the girls play with each other. 'That was when they looked like two of the best players for their age in the States,' says Macci. He gave the girls full scholarships. The rest, of course, is history.

According to Macci, all tennis parents are crazy. 'But that's not bad,' he says. 'I think you have to be crazy if you want to become the best in the world.' Macci says children are not usually self-motivated and that, particularly in the woman's game, it is good to have the parents involved. But he adds that parents 'get in the way when they start coaching'. Richard Williams was never content to leave coaching to the professionals. Neither is Ragip Goxhuli, who is at Macci's every day watching his daughters' sessions, chipping in.

Tennis parents from hell, screaming from the sidelines, are not just some wild tabloid creation. Greg Russell says he has dealt with plenty who had no idea where their own dreams and ambitions ended and their children's began. But Ragip Goxhuli, he says, is not one of them.

'Ragip knows how to treat his girls,' says Russell, 'how to get the best from them. He knows when to push and when to lay off.' Artijeta says she prefers her dad being around because she feels comfortable asking him to explain things. Artijeta has an elder child's tendency to speak for siblings. 'Abresha has a problem with focus sometimes,' she says. 'And dad can bring her back.'

Russell says hell is home to coaches as well as parents. He recalls seeing one coach shouting at a 12-year-old girl by a Florida roadside after a tennis tournament. He got out of his car as the man was raising his racket to strike the kid. 'I nearly got into a fight with the guy,' he says. Incidents like these - child abuse, not coaching - hammer home the reality that for budding tennis stars, Florida certainly does not mean Disneyland or the beach.

For tennis kids, Florida is big business, tough competition and tennis at least five hours a day, six days a week. Chris Evert warns the hours are damaging children and claims she only ever practised two hours a day. But Macci insists 30 hours a week is necessary. And Goxhuli says there is no point in putting in less work than the opposition. The girls like the beach but their father is reluctant to take them because he thinks it drains them of energy needed for tennis. That will sound harsh and obsessive to the average, double-garage family but then again Mr and Mrs Average are unlikely to produce tennis stars.

In Florida tennis, business concerns often eclipse the sport. The hyping of a new talent can spark a vicious scramble among coaches and sponsors for a bit of the action. And there is intense competition among parents and academies for scholarship and sponsorship deals. With kids treated as commodities - by parents as well as the tennis business - newcomers can find the territory hard to negotiate. It is difficult to know who to trust. With no personal wealth, the Brit sisters find themselves in the tricky gap years. Management companies such as IMG, which owns Nick Bollettieri's Florida tennis academy - Bollettieri is Macci's bigger arch rival - do not usually start cherry picking until 14 or 16. Macci's is rife with gossip about a 14-year-old at Bollettieri's who has just been signed up by IMG in a deal that even takes care of her parents' grocery bills.

Russell believes, despite the financial difficulties, that the sisters will win through. At a mini, military-style obstacle course behind Macci's courts, he tests prot¿g¿ stamina. Some kids whine, but not the Goxhulis. 'They are talented and they also have guts,' he says. 'At six-all, break point in the final set, I would put my money on them.'

Tom Terpko, whose daughter Dani is fifth in Florida's rankings for 10-year-olds and also at Macci's, is another fan of the Brits. He says that Abresha is already as good as his daughter. 'And Dani is nothing compared to Artijeta,' he says. 'Artijeta has a real feel for the ball.'

Russell insists that above all it is the sisters' stamina that counts. For the sport is much harder than when he played on the international circuit in the Seventies. 'It's tough now,' he says. 'It's the money, man.'

Times seem tough at Macci's. Russell, the academy director who was popular with parents and kids, resigned during my visit two weeks ago, to set up his own school. And the rumour was that he wouldn't be leaving alone; coaches and star pupils - including the Goxhulis - might follow him, or defect to rival schools. Rick Macci did not require Russell to work his notice.

It is bad news for Macci, who is in the middle of an expensive and messy second divorce from the lawyer who handled his first. (His rival Bollettieri also does it bigger than Macci when it comes to divorce - five marriages, last count). Macci himself seems a little bitter about the rewards for coaching champions. 'Should I have got more money?' he says, asking his own questions. 'Should I have got more credit? Absolutely.'

Though the departing Russell has had more daily contact with the Brits, Macci agrees the sisters are talented. 'They have a lot of ability,' he says. 'They have good strokes and are good competitors. The eldest has a lot of power and weapons.' But he warns that only time, and tournaments, will tell how good young players are. He says he never thought the young Mary Pierce was a good competitor, and he has trained world champion juniors who made little impact on the senior game. Then he reels off the imponderables - physical development, puppy love, adolescent angst - that can ruin even the most promising tennis career.

What Macci is certain of, though, is Ragip Goxhuli's decision to decamp to Florida. 'At the moment you have to get out of Britain if you want to create a champion,' he says. 'Because it sure ain't happening there.'

Mark Cox, the former British No 1 who is now director of the LTA's future development programme, knows Artijeta and describes her as 'an interesting player with potential'. He admires Ragip's commitment to his daughters but he has doubts about the move to Florida. 'I can think of three families who have done it over the years but I don't know of anyone that has been successful,' he says. Cox says most families do not have the financial resources to make it work.

Angela Buxton says that misses the point. Buxton, who is British, was a Wimbledon doubles champion in the Fifties. She is now 68 and remains an enthusiastic and extremely well-informed observer of British tennis. She works as a tennis consultant, dividing her time between Florida and Britain. The LTA, she argues, should be providing more financial backing to families, like the Goxhulis, that show talent, commitment and courage. 'The LTA doesn't really care,' insists Buxton, who describes the association as an old boys' network . 'It just pays lip service [to development].'

When the Brits start competing on the Florida tournament circuit, it will be expensive. The Goxhuli family's funds are already stretched beyond their limits by living costs. The LTA makes a partial contribution to coaching fees, but Buxton says it is a drop in the ocean. 'There is oodles of talent [in Britain] and the LTA has oodles of money,' says Buxton, who argues for a reallocation of funds and British talent to such tennis hot-houses as Florida.

The LTA does indeed have oodles of money. Last year's Wimbledon raised just over £32m, but a spokesman for the association said that £23.3m of that was put into the coaching of promising junior and intermediate players, and the development of the game at grassroots level. The LTA believes it addressed the overseas training issue by starting a tennis camp at the La Manga club in southern Spain. However, a girl of 12, like Artijeta, could expect to spend a week at most there. If Artijeta had stayed in Britain the LTA would have provided two, two-hour small group coaching sessions and two individual coaching sessions for her a week. She would also have been eligible for eight days coaching a year at the LTA's Bisham Abbey camp. Clearly her Florida experience is much more intensive.

Back at Pompano Beach, in pink Barbie trainers, little Kosovare is on court, bouncing and splitting like a professional and practising a backhand of which grown men would be proud. Ragip feeds the balls and Kosovare's sisters field. 'She is starting so early she is going to be better than us,' says Artijeta.

Ragip says that however his Florida gamble plays out, he will never regret taking a risk. 'Money comes and goes,' he says. 'At the end of the day it is about what you did with your life. If this works it will be great for the British, and for Kosovo and Albania too.' But, right now, the bottom line is that money matters. Artijeta and Abresha need that elusive early development funding. Without it, the sisters' talent, and an immigrant father's dream, may wither, along with British women's tennis. 'The seeds are set at this young age,' says Ragip Goxhuli. 'Some people say it is risky, but to do nothing is the greatest risk of all.'

Observer Sport Monthly
Observer Sport Monthly

Bernie Ecclestone exclusive
05.05.2002: Confessions of a used car dealer