WSA head coach Richard Prause is currently wearing the training suit of the Iranian club.

In autumn 2010, the Werner Schlager Academy signed an agreement (initially until the 2012 Olympics) with the Iranian club.

This partnership includes the (occasional) training of our trainers in Iran (on Kish Island) and the supervision of the Iranian players during competitions.

During the Asian Games in Guangzhou in 2010, Iran was coached by WSA trainer Dimitrij Levenko.

This week Richard Prause is supervising the Iranian national team during the Pro Tour tournament in Doha, before that he spent about on (training) week on Kish Island.  "On Kish we had two hard training units every day. Almost four hours in the morning and again three hours in the afternoon. I then always spent the evenings together with the trainers. Everyone was highly motivated and they are ready to learn everything from us," reports Prause.

The WSA head coach has even more words of praise for his fosterlings from Iran. "This is some real talent here. We are still a bit away from the top 100, but Iran has the goal of playing in the first category in a World Cup in the near future. It would be nice if we could achieve with hard work together with them."

It's true, there is hard work in store for Iran: There was considerable initial success in Doha. But only initial successes however.