Julie Patterson: Tennis NZ CEO on Lulu Sun advancing to the quarter-finals at Wimbledon

Tennis NZ head Julie Patterson is among the Kiwi fans who have been celebrating Lulu Sun's career-changing progress at Wimbledon.

Sun beat Britain's Emma Raducanu today, making her the first Kiwi woman to make Wimbledon's quarter-finals.

Patterson joined Piney to discuss Lulu Sun's athletic journey. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sports Talk podcast with Dancy Wildergrave
from Newstalk ZEDB.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Tennis New Zealand chief executive officer Julie Patterson, who joins us, Now,
what an exciting day for you, Julie, you must have
been buzzing all day.

Speaker 3 (00:22):
I actually have been. You know when you get busy
and carrying away with something else and then you go,
oh my goodness, that's right, Lulu won. How amazing. So yeah,
it's just been a wonderful feeling and super exciting all day.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
Lulu was born in New Zealand. Of course, she's played
most of her career under the Swiss flag. Can you
tell us about the circumstances behind her shift in allegiance
to New Zealand.

Speaker 3 (00:45):
Yeah, so, Lulu has always held in New Zealand passport.
She pre COVID would come back to New Zealand and
visit on on a regular basis. But when she came
back to New Zealand for the A'SB Classic, it has
been a couple of years since she'd been back into
the country and she came and played at the Classic.

(01:06):
She had the media sort of snuck it out that
she was a Kiwi and so of course a lot
of people started to come along and watch her matches.
We saw the attendant sort of grow at each of
her matches. She really enjoyed the support that they got,
that she got from the New Zealand crowd. And at

(01:27):
the same time, one of my team had started having
a conversation with Lulu to think about, you know, what
is what was her long term planning. We knew that
she is a senior athlete. She hadn't played for Switzerland
and that was important because as soon as you play
for a Billy Jenkin Cup, then you were basically locked

(01:48):
into that country from a national perspective. So yeah, our
team started to have conversations with Lulu and then her
family I got involved. I met with her mum and
her stepdad and we just continued to think about, you know,
with the opportunities that might be in New Zealand. You know,

(02:10):
she had quite a strong loyalty to Switzerland, of course
because of the time that she had spent there. But
at the same time, you know, New Zealand's a birth
country and it was an opportunity for her to come
back and play for her birth country, which she took.
So fantastic news for us.

Speaker 2 (02:28):
What do you think hipped the balance?

Speaker 3 (02:32):
Oh, look, to be honest, I think it was actually
coming back and playing at the ASP Classic. I think
it was just timing. She was at a point where
she really had to start making up her mind. The
support that she received from the New Zealand crowd, you know,
the profile that she would have in New Zealand, and
she has also said and I I one hundred percent

(02:55):
support this. The opportunity that she has to be a
role model for young tennis players in this country is
really visible. You know, she will stand out and she
will make a massive difference to our sport. And we
can see already the difference that it's making to the
profile and the visibility of our sport in the country

(03:15):
and how excited people are to be getting in behind it.

Speaker 2 (03:18):
Absolutely. How much does success like this and the likely
jump in her world ranking boost the game of tennis
overall here in New Zealand.

Speaker 3 (03:27):
I think it will be huge. We're seeing already people's
comments on social around. I might get down to the
tennis club and go and have a hit. I might
go and get my racket out of the garage and
have a hit. So if we start continuing to build
on that. The profile is really important. The success is important,
of course, because people love success and that sort of

(03:49):
breeds a bit more interest. But the profile, the visibility,
the media coverage and so on is really important. And
then for us to be able to leverage that and
then think about when Lulu comes back at the end
of the year to plan the ASP Classic and the
opportunity that we have to connect Lulu into local tennis communities,

(04:10):
it's just wonderful.

Speaker 2 (04:11):
What sort of support does Tennis New Zealand give to Lulusan?

Speaker 1 (04:15):
Is it?

Speaker 2 (04:16):
Is it financial?

Speaker 3 (04:18):
So we do have what we would consider to be
like a transfer fee or a transfer contract.

Speaker 2 (04:24):
Yes, in terms of her ongoing tennis I guess do
you you provide support for her as a as a
an elite athlete? How does it all? How does it
all work? If you're able to reveal that.

Speaker 3 (04:34):
To us, Yeah, well, I mean the support that we
provide to our elite athletes, and it's just it's very
similar as it as it is for Aaron and Mike
and Marcus and our and our other athletes. You know,
we we're not a particularly well resourced national organization and
so a lot of the support that we provide is
around that holistic support. You know that we have strength

(04:59):
and conditioning coaches, we have national coaches that they usually
are working with our younger athletes building them up, but
we they can tap into our professional athletes can tap
into our coaching support if required, and those are the
wider support networks that we have available. But like I said,
we're not we're not a big federation on the international

(05:21):
scheme of things.

Speaker 2 (05:22):
Luluson of course, welcome by. With Aaron Ratlife you mentioned there.
It was confirmed last week in the in the women's
doubles at the upcoming Olympics. How optimistic are you they
might achieve something special there as well?

Speaker 3 (05:33):
Well, I'm very optimistic. You know, We've got Aaron who
is clearly an amazing doubles player ranked number three in
the world, and then Lulu coming in with this experience
that she has playing in big matches. You can see
how steady she is, how strong she is. I think

(05:53):
her and Aaron are going to make a great, great
partnership at the Olympics, and.

Speaker 2 (05:58):
Michael Venus and Marcus Daniel won't be there. Despite winning
bronze last time in Tokyo, can you just clarify why
that is?

Speaker 3 (06:04):
Yeah, such a shame to do with ranking and the cutoffs.
So this is an its allocation. They have a certain
number of teams that they allow into the Olympics. There
is an element of singles players being able to use
their singles rankings to get in, which I do think

(06:25):
is a bit of a shame. So it meant that
Mike and Marcus just didn't quite make the cutoff this year.

Speaker 2 (06:32):
It's a shame. It's a shame. Well, we can support
Lulu and Aaron when they reach Paris. We can support
Lulu of course in the quarter final against Anavak. It's
coming up at Wimbledon. Exciting times. Duly for your organization
and for the sport here. Thanks for joining us on
zed B tonight to give us some insight, no worries.

Speaker 3 (06:49):
Thank you very much.

Speaker 2 (06:49):
Thank you, Julie. Julie Patterson there, chief executive of Tennis
New Zealand.

Speaker 1 (06:54):
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