‘Unruly little calculator’: an interview with Ernests’ mother

(The following article was written by Anda Burve-Rozīte and published in the Latvian newspaper, Diena, on June 14th. We thank Evita for kindly translating the article into English. Read the original article in Latvian here.)

Ernests Gulbis (19) is the first Latvian who managed to break into the top 100 of the world’s best tennis players. He climbed up to #51 after his matches in the French Open.

A proud fist pump whenever he won a point against the world #3, Novak Djokovic. His brown, expressive eyes looked at his opponent on the other side of the net so fearlessly and sharply that it seemed like he could be a great James Bond! It was the beginning of June; the French Open quarterfinal match in Paris was under way. After beating such well-known names in the tennis world as James Blake, Nicolas Lapentti and Michael Llodra, our Ernests Gulbis only lost to Djokovic after 4 hours of fierce battle.

How did you feel sitting in the stands and watching your son? Actress Milēna Gulbe-Kavace, the mother of the new promising tennis player, received the question in complete calm. During our conversation she never took off her sunglasses – perhaps so that strangers could not see the emotions in her brown eyes (Ernests inherited them from his mother), emotions that she only wanted to show to her family. Milēna warned me at the beginning that she did not want any sentiment in the article about her son.

“It’s not important how I look or feel. The article is about Ernests and I’d like it to contain only matter-of-fact, no-nonsense information,” she said politely but certainly. Both Milēna and Ernests’ father, businessman millionaire Ainārs Gulbis, avoided interviews in the past. They said neither their family nor Ernests needed it. Still, Ernests is playing under the Latvian flag. His noteworthy success makes us ask the question: how do you bring up an Ernests Gulbis?

“Baba, pass.”

Don’t panic if you have an offspring who moves like quicksilver and asks for something new to do all the time. Such a lad can turn not only into a mischief-maker but also into Ernests Gulbis!

Upon receiving news in the early days of June that Gulbis was winning again and again in the French Open, the LTV news crew did not waste any time and found a 15-year old video about Milēna and Ernests. In it, Ernests not only ran all over the grass but also answered “Sportsman!” when asked if he wanted to become an actor or a sportsman when he grew up.

He had just started training in tennis in Jūrmala at that time. At first, no coach wanted to teach him. “No, he’s too little,” his first coach, Valdis Ginters, said. The short boy hit the ball very spiritedly and tried to beat his mates who were three to four years older. “That’s how Ernests’ famous dropshot was born,” said Milēna, smiling.

It is possible that we might not have had the chance to witness Gulbis’ great serving if the women who brought him up did not have so much trouble finding things to do for the very active boy. Milēna’s mother Irina, the wife of the legendary actor and Milēna’s father, Uldis Pūcītis, helped her with Ernests’ upbringing. The Gulbises divorced when Ernests was still very little. The 22 year-old actress was studying dramatics and taking part in plays and movies. “Ernests became fond of my fellow actors: Ivars Stonins, Uldis Anže, and Ivars Auziņš. He missed terribly a man’s hand, boyish things.”

It wasn’t possible to leave Ernests in a corner of the room with a building set or blocks. “Baba, pass!” the Latvian star tennis player would call to his grandma and shoot a ‘goal’ between her legs.

Unwanted by the Latvian tennis community

At the start of the 90’s, when Ernests started practicing tennis, this sport was not yet a hobby for many adults who would also include their children during their practice. “It seemed a privileged sport at that time. Accessible only to a select few people,” Milēna remembered. Ernests’ training in 1993 started thanks to Milēna’s mother. “Everyone in our family was more inclined towards art,” said Milēna.

In 1984, Cherkasov, Pugayev, Chesnyakov – Russian tennis stars of that time – came to a tournament in Riga. “My mother was a young, beautiful woman. She went to watch a couple of matches and caught the ‘tennis fever’ there, she started to learn how to play herself.” She inspired her colleagues, electronic scientists, to play tennis and also her grandson later on.

“Anybody can learn to play tennis. My husband [Milēna's present husband, Gintars Kavacis] learned to play when he was 40. Now he plays in amateur tournaments,” said Milēna. She tried tennis herself but soon stopped. “I understood that I looked rather ‘ugly’ on court. I’ll never learn how to play as beautifully as my son.”

Ernest was already bouncing a ball when he was 2 years old. “Nobody believes me when I tell it to them now,” smiled Milēna. They had countless balls in all corners of their flat in Riga – big and small, hard and soft. Ernests hammered all the walls with them. They even had to install sound-insulating material in order not to disturb their neighbours. “He didn’t want to draw or work carefully on something for a long time,” remembered Milēna. When he was 4, Ernests was already able to read and count. “Baba, teach me this, teach me that,” the boy asked all the time. He learnt all the games at lightning speed. He beat everyone once he had learnt the game, for example Monopoly, and then lost all interest in it.

The boy had so much energy that you had to “drag him down” all the time. “He turned six on the 30th of August and we took him to first grade.”

Ernests had no difficulty with studying. “He has something like a small calculator in his head that grasps and calculates everything very quickly.” Despite his intensive tennis practice and tournaments that did not allow him to go to school every day, Ernest scored good marks. Milēna described her son as a sprinter, not a marathon runner. “He does the maximum, enjoys the groove but grows bored soon.”

The Latvian tennis environment became inadequate for Ernests when he was 12. Milēna thought that the Latvian tennis federation did nothing to help the talented youth. There was also no coach in Latvia who could help Ernests achieve more success internationally. “They placed their stakes on other players. Ernests, with his talent, was not needed by the Latvian tennis community,” felt Milēna. Why? “He didn’t fit into their plans. They put obstacles in his development – regarding coaches and how the rating points were counted.”

Ernests’ father, Ainārs Gulbis, covered the enormous cost of participating in international tournaments. “He helped us out very much financially. It’s different, quite often after a divorce – the guy just disappears.” They required not only money but also information: what next? Milēna used Google to find a good coach for her son, the best tennis academies in Europe. She came across the legendary tennis coach, Niki Pilic’s academy in Munich.

Goals still a secret

“Just like Ivanisevic,” Niki Pilic thought, watching the speed of Gulbis’ fingers playing with a mobile phone. The opportunity to be taught by the coach of one of the all-time tennis stars, Goran Ivanisevic, proved to be the decisive one in Gulbis’ career. Milēna did not want to explain how she felt sending off her 13 year-old son into the world. But there was no other way if he wanted to participate in tournaments and grow professionally.

The hardest turn in Ernests’ career was when he was 16 and switched from U18 juniors to adult tournaments. He had many losses in the lowest-level tournaments. “30 year-old men were playing there. They were tournaments with 10,000 USD prize money. It’s their profession – to make money in this grinding machine,” said Milēna, revealing the behind-the-scenes story. It was very hard for a young player to progress through this grinding machine. This year Ernests has started playing in the highest-level tournaments.

Coach Niki Pilic helped his Latvian pupil not only professionally but also taught him a wisdom of life: to be simple. They both went by car to tournaments if they were held in Europe. They spent the night in the same hotel room in order not to spend too much money. Milēna admitted that Ernests could earn a substantial amount of prize money by himself now. His webpage said that his total prize money earned is 461,485 USD. He also has advertisement contracts with companies that provide him with clothes and racquets. Still, Ernests does not spend unnecessary money. “Of course, he can afford to fly in business class, take care of his own needs, but without excess.”

The times when Milēna sat together with Ernests’ father, Ainārs, looking at the tournament calendar and trying to figure out how to manage to go to all of them have passed. “The only thing we always wished was for him to play in Europe. So he wouldn’t have to fly to Africa, Australia.” Milēna used to scrub the floor from worrying if Ernests was playing and that she could not be there at the tournament and it was not shown on TV. Now that is not the case anymore. Ernests has grown up and is independent, Milēna said. She does not know her son’s next tournaments by heart anymore; sometimes she has to check the Internet to find out where he’s flying to now. “Why do the parents try to go to the matches? Because it’s a chance to meet him,” she said. Gulbis changed his coach recently – now Karl Heinz Wetter is working with him. Each coach has his own strengths. It is important to change the coach sometimes in order to grow as a player.

“This is my destiny. I was the daughter of Uldis Pūcītis once, now I’m the mother of Ernests Gulbis.” The family is her priority and Milēna is fine with that. Ernests has grown up now. “I’ve let him loose,” Milēna said. She paused for a while. We could only imagine what emotions her sunglasses hid when she talked about her son. She has a 10 year-old daughter Monika from her second marriage who also trains in tennis.

Can we say that Milēna sacrificed her acting career for her son’s career? She denied it. The actress thought that she did not have the necessary amount of energy required for theatre. “I’m too weak to project to an audience.”

Milēna thinks her son could be a great actor: he has an analytical mind and great emotions. He cares very much about his younger sister, about animals. He’s always the heart of any company. “He can cry while watching a movie.” But Ernests is ready to show his manly side on the court. To fight till the end in order not to lose.

The scene we see so often at changeovers – Gulbis sitting with a towel over his head – is not a simple gesture. It is a way for him to concentrate and control his emotions that he learnt in psycho-training. “Psychologists work with great players,” said Milēna. Ernests did not say what his goals in tennis are. The 21 year-old world #3, Djokovic, said after their match that he was glad someone else so young is having so much success.

Ernests is heading for more victories under the Latvian name. “He’s a patriot of Latvia and always will be,” his mother is convinced.

~ by Zahirah on June 16, 2008.