This will not be an easy entry to write and I will do my best to do it justice. Full disclosure you could say I was the lead member of the Norwegian/Australian Kavčič Appreciation Society, then the niche following I have already known this. So, how did this come about? I had seen some results on the Challenger circuit and remember kids Challengers are fun to watch and follow, especially when you see someone come through and do well on the main tour.
Slovenia is not known for its tennis players, sure it has fantastic skiers, ski jumpers, kayakers, basketball and other sports. Back in the day I’m talking around 2008 there were tennis livestreams but the quality wasn’t great. Yes, it’s good to watch tennis via electronic devices but it’s much better live as you get a different feel of the sport, the strokes, movement, patterns and the subtleties. The year was 2009 at the Aus Open qualies where I seen this Dexter lookalike beat Bozoljac easily and I took notice. Then in the next round he lost to the quirky German Florian Mayer after a tough first set, he had no clue as Mayer junked him around with the slices and the funk finishing it off with the donkey kick dropshot.
Australian Open
In that year there was the very prestigious Burnie Challenger in northwest Tasmania. Another great thing about the challenger circuit is the events are smaller, less spectators but they tend to be knowledgeable and also greater accessibility to the players. I was at the event and watched Kavčič beat Ebden, then after speaking with him for a bit I was sold.
From there I was following his career seeing how far he could progress and always going to watch his matches at the Australian Open. 2010 he qualified for the AO and just finished the year inside the top 100 but missed direct entry to 2011 event where he ended up qualifying. The main draw had a couple of interesting moments. He played Kevin Anderson in the 1st round, the match is at 1 set all and one of the stranger things happened. Kavčič ripped his shoes and didn't have any extra, so he looks at Adrian Voinea his coach and says "give me the shoes". Voinea gives them to him and watches the rest of match in his socks. That’s something I have not seen before and not seen since. Kavčič led 2 sets to 1, then was down a double break in the 4th. Once he got used to the new shoes, he took it to a breaker and won in 4.
Voinea and Blaž
The next match was against Youzhny who was in the top 10 at the time. The Colonel won the first 2 sets, then Kavčič comes to back the next 2 sets. When Kavčič was down he played aggressive when he was in front he went into his shell. Youzhny screaming “I can’t make a fucking ball cross court”. The turning point in this match was at 2-1* Kavčič serving. He was struggling very hard, mostly because Kavčič couldn’t make enough first serves and relying on his very weak 2nd delivery. The game went for over 10+ minutes. At Kavčič’s game point, there was a slow ball hit and Kavčič doesn’t play it because it’s out. I didn’t see it at the time, but saw it later and he was right. There was no overrule from Pascal Maria and Kavčič was going crazy at the lack of overrule. This impacted on him and the Colonel was able to break serve and the extra experience and class carried him to victory in this match. Pascal "the Peacock" Maria came up to me after the match and asked me if I knew where Voinea was. I said I didn't know at all, he wasn't happy at all with the spray Kavčič gave him at the end of the match and during the bad call.
The most famous Kavčič match at the Aus Open was with James Duckworth. It was brutally hot about 40 degrees and Court 3 at the time did not have the greatest amount of shade. In the first round Kavčič beat Bellucci who was seeded in straight sets. These conditions were so hot, I remember at the change of sets dunking your head under cold water and you were dry in 10 minutes. Kavčič won in 5, and ended on a drip afterwards and I almost suffered some severe dehydration, needed 3 hours in the ice bath. .
Changes
Not long after this Australian Open, this is where things started to change and the end result wasn’t the best. Voinea had been doing excellent work with Kavčič. You could see Voinea was trying to make him play more aggressively, sure there’d be a few losses in the process but this was what Kavčič needed. What was successful on the Challenger doesn’t work day in and day out on the main tour. This is a point that I will come back to.
Kavčič was not the biggest natural talent but had incredible work ethic which was a strength and a weakness. Voinea knew straight away that Kavčič to stay in the top 100 and do well on the main tour he couldn’t just rely on defensive skills. At the same times you could see the plan working, but at others when struggling he would retreat to type. While Voinea wanted to do better quality work, Kavčič was insistent on doing high volume double gym sessions and double on court sessions, which were a detriment to improvements. Of course, as a player you got to work hard, but it has to be quality work. In addition to that Voinea didn’t want to go to all events and they ended their collaboration way too early.
Kavčič ended up with a new coach who happened to be the Davis Cup captain at the time. Sure, he had someone with him every week but there weren’t tangible improvements to the game. There were some good results, but it was the classic play lots of Challengers chasing the points for the ranking but not necessarily improving as a player.
What ended up happening was Kavčič was a top tier Challenger player but not quite good enough to prosper on the main tour. Kavčič finished with a 19-17 finals record in Challengers which shows how excellent he was at that tier. In his last year on tour, he made a Challenger final as a qualifier before losing to Rola in the final. In the early days he was at his best on clay, then towards the mid to later part of the career he was predominately playing the Asian hardcourt challenger events which to be fair were of a lower overall standard chasing the points.
When the taxi breaks down
Beginning of the end
As was stated earlier Kavčič has an outstanding work ethic which compensated for the lack of natural ability, whereas his compatriot Žemlja was the opposite. There is an argument that Kavčič did overtrain, as he had a lot of injuries during his career. It was a mix of long term and short term issues with the knee, hand, toe. It was very difficult for Kavčič to build any momentum to have a sustained run in the rankings start getting some good results, get injured, recover, attempt to rebuild the game which requires matches, then that leads to the mental struggles and the cycle continues.
The biggest disappointment for Kavčič would be that he wasn’t able to retire on his terms. It was due to the injuries, leading to the decline in form and ranking where the desire wasn’t there to make the comeback again. At the end of a players career it’s on them as to whether they maximised their potential. Thanks for the memories Blaž it was enjoyable to watch your career unfold, yes that includes the chokes and almost passing out from severe hydration. Now, enjoy the coaching gig and life after tennis.
