At 5, He's Marked for a Champ

PARIS — He's American, hits a one-handed backhand, and prefers clay to hard courts. Every morning, he walks down the hill from his home for a brief practice. After school, he's on the court for another hour or so, and then he eats a snack — lately he's taken to cereal with bits of chocolate in it — or watches a few episodes of "The Wiggles," a popular Australian children's television show. His name is Jan Silva, he's 5 years old, and he hits a tennis ball like few other children his age ever have.

Jani, as his family calls him, is unique in another way: He lives and trains in France, alongside his brother Kadyn, a talented 11-year-old. Their parents, Scott Silva, 37, an African-American social worker and a former college basketball player, and Mari Maattanen-Silva, 33, a native of Finland who was a top junior player and later an instructor, sold their Sacramento home and their car last September and moved their children — Scott's son Kadyn, Jani, and 2-year-old Jasmin — to a chalet overlooking the Mouratoglou Tennis Academy, located in Thiverval-Grignon, a well-to-do village of less than 1,000 inhabitants that's about 18 miles west of Paris.

The Silvas' decision to move to France strikes many people as rash. For those familiar with tennis's history of obsessive, abusive parents — perhaps none scarier than Mary Pierce's father Jim, who once punched a spectator and was banned from the tour — it smacks of something worse.

Spend a day with the Silvas, however, and one finds it difficult to attribute anything other than the best intentions to Scott and Mari. They are warm, friendly people. On the Saturday I visited, they were preparing for a trip to the circus. Jasmin, who at two has the height and agility of a five-year-old, busied herself by running around the academy, climbing steps she's not supposed to climb and jumping from chairs in the academy's restaurant. Kadyn, who speaks as well as a child a few years older, showed off his pro wrestling playing cards (Roscoe, a nineyear-old from Scotland, is his regular partner). Jani shied away at first but was open to high fives after he began hitting with his shirt off, the better to model his Spiderman tattoo (temporary, of course). During a visit to the French Open last week to watch another academy student, Kadyn and Jani ate hot dogs and ice cream. As they watched, Jani asked me, "Did Federer lose?" (He might be a prodigy, but clearly he has a thing or two to learn.)

"You deal with a lot of people who think what we've done is crazy," Scott said. "And most people do think we're crazy until they meet Jani," Mari said.

Jani's talent was obvious from age one, when he began imitating his favorite player, James Blake (you can see him play at www.youtube.com). When he hits the ball, he resembles a grown man held captive in a boy's body. His strokes are effortless, despite the fact that he isn't much taller than his racket.

Less obvious was how Jani's parents should respond to his talent. They described the junior program at the Gold River Racquet Club in Sacramento, where Mari taught, as good but expensive, and the Silvas are not wealthy: Scott worked as a counselor in the Welfare Department. They visited Nick Bollettieri's academy in Florida but were turned off, they said, by its one-size-fits-all approach, and the number of students it accepts.

It was Marcos Baghdatis, the 2006 Australian Open finalist who trained at Mouratoglou from the age of 13, who introduced the Silvas to Patrick Mouratoglou after Baghdatis saw Jani hit tennis balls with Scott at last year's Pacific Life Open in Indian Wells, Calif. Mouratoglou flew the Silvas to France for an evaluation. They now live there for free, and Mari works as an instructor. After some initial regrets about their decision, they said they have settled in, especially since they decided to travel to America more often and spend extended periods in a rented apartment.

Vic Braden, one of the game's finest instructors and talent scouts, and also a licensed psychologist in California, where he runs the Vic Braden Tennis College, met with the Silvas last month after they sought his advice. He said Scott and Mari had a difficult choice to make.

"I think they almost had to take the deal," Braden said. "They are caught in a bind, too. How do you know what's best for a 5-year-old, when there are so few of them who act like a 15-year-old? They have to take the camp, because the camp is money."

Mouratoglou has taken money out of the equation until the Silva children are old enough to earn a living as professionals, if they do. Mouratoglou was once a promising junior himself, but his parents, much to his dismay, pulled him out of tennis so he could concentrate on his studies. He eventually went to work for his father, Pâris, the chairman of EDF Energies Nouvelles, a French renewable energy company founded in 1990 that had $450 million in revenue last year. He knew he would return to tennis before long.

"I had an idea 10 years ago," Mouratoglou said. "Take the best potential, adapt to them, and have a high percentage of success. Everywhere in the world people were doing exactly the contrary, they were taking as many players as they could. They kill a lot of players for that. It's not all about tennis, it's a life project."

Mouratoglou, 36, knows 100% success is impossible, but he believes he can come close by keeping the academy small — 20 fulltime students at most — and concentrating on the mental attitude it takes to become a champion as much as the strokes. The academy has 17 courts, both red clay and hard, including four indoor courts, and two swimming pools (one indoor and one outdoor). The restaurant provides all meals, supervised by a nutritionist. Physical trainers plan agility and strength training and a physician provides regular examinations. In the fall, the academy will open a school (Jani and Kadyn currently attend French schools; Kadyn will enroll in a home-schooling program based in Sacramento next year).

Mouratoglou admires academies like Bollettieri's for their results but not their methods. After 10 years on his own, and the success of players like Baghdatis, Mario Ancic, and Ivo Karlovic, he's convinced that his way is best. In Jani, he sees not only a talented ball striker, but a boy with a top competitor's heart.

"The spirit and the mentality, it's completely different," he said. "For someone his age, you don't see it every day."

Now that the Silvas are in France, tennis has become the easy part of life. The rest, they know, could prove difficult. Jani doesn't comprehend the Grand Slam hopes of his parents and the academy. When he does, he'll have to learn to cope with that pressure. Mari and Scott also know they have to maintain balance, and psychological health, in their children's lives.

"You have to make sure they get the same amount of attention, which is hard to do when people fawn over a five-year-old," Braden said.

On the drive back from the academy to the train station, Scott proudly mentioned that Braden, during their visit, was most impressed by Kadyn (Braden confirmed this). Though Jan's talent has brought the family to France, Scott several times said that Kadyn stands to gain the most from an opportunity he might not have received otherwise. As Scott put it in a subsequent e-mail, Kadyn's training — the academy is paying for a coach, his equipment, his living expenses, and his travel to junior tournaments — could help him become a professional, or win him a scholarship to the college of his choice.

There's no single way to raise a tennis champion, but most of them learn the game at an early age, and their parents, for better or worse, almost always play a big part in the outcome. Not many children Jani's age enroll in a tennis academy. Then again, Jani is no ordinary child, and Mouratoglou is no ordinary academy. The Silvas have made what they believe is the best decision for their family. It's going to be a lot of years before they, or anyone else, know for sure.

tperrotta@nysun.com