The billionaire trying to turn Kazakhstan into a tennis nation
Wimbledon champ Elena Rybakina is one of many players from the Central Asian republic to benefit from Bulat Utemuratov’s deep pockets
CASUAL tennis fans likely got their first glimpse of perhaps the most surprising rising power player at Wimbledon in July, when a dark-haired man in a Panama hat and blue blazer embraced Elena Rybakina, the native Russian turned Kazakh who had just won the women’s singles title.
“Unbelievable support,” Rybakina said of the effusiveness of Bulat Utemuratov, the billionaire who invested in her game and changed her life, as she thanked him during the trophy presentation.
Utemuratov’s sporting indulgences were back at the centre of tennis this week. Because of him, the tennis universe is focused on a mid-sized city in Kazakhstan, a country that was only nominally on the tennis map a decade ago but now has the wherewithal to lure many of the biggest stars of the game.
Novak Djokovic, Carlos Alcaraz, Daniil Medvedev, Stefanos Tsitsipas and other top players competed earlier this week in Astana, the capital of the vast Central Asian republic, because Utemuratov, a Kazakh diplomat and industrialist decided 15 years ago to use his largesse to turn his country into an emerging tennis force.
Rybakina’s run to the Wimbledon championship caused a major dust-up. Players from Russia and Belarus were barred from participating in this year’s tournament because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Rybakina, 23, was born and raised in Moscow, where her family still lives. She became a Kazakhstan citizen in 2017 in exchange for financial support from Utemuratov and the country’s tennis federation. It was just one part of Utemuratov’s strategy for turning the former Soviet republic into a legitimate tennis nation.
His multipronged approach could serve as a blueprint for other nations that want to get better at tennis, or really any sport, as long as they have one key ingredient – a billionaire willing to spend whatever it takes. The sports world is filled with billionaires who buy teams and use them as fancy toys. Utemuratov chose to essentially buy an entire sport in his own country, although he is becoming increasingly influential internationally.
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Utemuratov boxed and played football and table tennis in his youth. He did not start playing tennis until Kazakhstan’s post-Soviet business community embraced it in the 1990s. During the Soviet era, tennis was frowned upon as a sport of the elite. There were only a handful of tennis courts in the entire country, and playing on them was extremely expensive.
In a country where football and combat sports ruled and its most prominent athlete was Gennady Golovkin, the middleweight boxing champion known as Triple G, tennis barely registered. By 2007, the country’s tennis federation was nearly bankrupt. Utemuratov and other business leaders discussed what they could do to save the national federation. Utemuratov, who had become a big fan of Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer, offered his services.
Using almost entirely Utemuratov’s money, the Kazakhstan Tennis Federation went on a building spree, investing roughly US$200 million – nearly one-tenth of his estimated fortune – to construct 38 tennis centres in all 17 regions of the country. It trained hundreds of coaches and instructors and imported some from Europe. It subsidised lessons for young children and adolescents who can train six days a week for US$40 to US$120 per month. The best juniors receive as much as US$50,000 to pay for training and travel.
Utemuratov said making the sport affordable was essential to changing the perception of tennis to a game for all people, from one of just the elite. There are now 33,000 registered players at all levels in Kazakhstan. In 2007, there were 1,800. A staff of 32 at the federation’s headquarters is in constant contact with 70 other coaches and employees at the tennis centres tracking the progress of promising juniors.
Utemuratov knew that people in his country would truly embrace the sport only if Kazakhstan had top professionals. And he didn’t want to wait a generation to see if the country might produce one organically.
Instead of waiting, he adopted a strategy that lots of other countries have used to pursue excellence in other sports – he began to look abroad, specifically to Russia, in search of players who had talent but were not successful enough to garner support from the tennis federation there. His offer was simple: Play for Kazakhstan, which shares a language and a history with Russia, and the country will fund your career.
He found early takers in Yuri Schukin and Yaroslava Shvedova. Schukin never cracked the top 100, but Shvedova reached a career-high ranking of No. 25 in 2012. She made the quarterfinals in singles of three Grand Slams and won doubles titles at Wimbledon and the US Open. Schukin is now one of the country’s leading coaches.
More recently, Rybakina and Alexander Bublik, another native Russian, signed on to represent Kazakhstan. Russia’s tennis federation had essentially discarded both players, leaving them to find coaching and court access on their own.
Bublik said he first met Utemuratov when he was a young teenager playing in Monte Carlo, Monaco. Utemuratov had reserved a court for several hours to play with his daughter. They finished early and Utemuratov told Bublik to use the rest of his court time.
Bublik, 25, decided to make Kazakhstan his second home in 2016 after he made the quarterfinals of a second-tier tournament, but with little help from Russia’s tennis federation. With Kazakhstan funding his travel and coaching, he cracked the top 100 a year later.
Utemuratov’s investment is paying off for him outside Kazakhstan’s tennis circles. He is now a vice-president of the International Tennis Federation, the sport’s world governing body.
The next big step is happening this week as Kazakhstan hosts a Masters 500 tournament, just below the top-level tour events, for the first time, after years of hosting lower-tier competitions. In another first, Utemuratov said the tennis federation did not have to give away tickets to fill the stands. NYTIMES
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