Don Budge, Jack Kramer, Gonzales, Sampras...

[worldsbesttenniscoach]

Yes, I chuckle when the "experts" at the USTA & USPTA say, "The parents have done all they can for the child's tennis game, but now is time to put that child in the hands of professional coaches who can help the child more." Yet when the professional coaches have a player who has plateaued, they should probably be saying, "Let's allow some family coaches like Dr. Bartoli, Mike Agassi, Toni Nadal to observe our tennis student so that we can learn to teach better."

Unfortunately, American professional coaching often shows an arrogant side -- believing wrongly that it teaches players much better than laypersons can (when actually the level of professional coaching in the USA is not high....the level of coaching needs to improve).

If the USTA Player Development, USPTA, & academy pros would open their eyes, they'd notice that the reason so many Americans & other players blow their forehands is because the players' modern forehands have many flaws. Players today often blow their slice backhands today because their expert coaches don't know what a good slice is, & can't teach it. Federer blows backhand volleys against Nadal because he does not prepare the racket out front so that the strings are somewhat lined up with the path of the incoming ball. He often chops down at the ball.

In other words, players at the worldclass level & those aspiring to that level lose points because the coaching they receive is not adequate.

I feel sorry for players like Isner, McHale, & Harrison whose coaching has lacked important information that they should have been given.

[stotty]

Great post, don

What I see is good kids having to play kids who can barely get 2 games off them in early rounds of designated tournaments. Those better kids should be playing more matches against comparable opponents. And those weaker kids should be playing against someone against whom they can employ the skills of competition in a meaningful way.
don

WHAT! You mean to say your tournaments aren't graded over there! Our tournaments are graded. Depending how high your player rating is depends what grade of tournament you can enter. This reduces one-sided matches dramatically.

We have something called Matchplays, too. Players play two matches back to back on a Sunday or a Saturday. You play someone your own rating, never above, nor below, just someone around your standard. Good stuff. Most matches are competitive and tight and so offer excellent experience for budding players.

About he education thing...

I feel education is a wonderful thing. The best thing. It's shouldn't necessarily be about making money at the end of it...though a nice byproduct if it happens. It's just greatly beneficial to be educated, period.

I know many failed tennis players whose parents put tennis before education. Big mistake. Do both. McEnroe and others did.

[tennis_chiro]

.... I'd defy anyone to tell me the 22 year old Grigor Dimitrov isn't ahead of his college peer group in every facet of life at this stage of his emotional and psychological development. We also must keep in mind, getting a Harvard degree is not guarantee either. Spending 20,000 hours in a classroom certainly won't guarantee a great job either. ...

I'm not saying a college degree is a panacea for success in the world. Most of the players in the top 100 are exactly where they belong. But a college degree is only about 2000 hours of class time at most. Dimitrov is probably far more "worldly" than some 22-year old college graduate, but he's at least 20000 hours in on his investment in his tennis career. Hopefully, with the help of his new coach and a deeper commitment he will make it all worthwhile. You can not possibly succeed as a pro tennis player without that kind of full commitment. And I don't think he would be as well rounded in dealing with life as someone who has worked his way through college and maybe served a couple of summer internships getting a handle on possible careers. Tennis players live in a cocoon which enables them to make progress. It doesn't allow for much else in their lives.

It simply is a question of people realizing what the stakes are. The odds in Vegas are definitely set up to favor the house, but not so much to kill the gambler's hope. The odds against a kid making a living as a tennispro are so slim it is ridiculous. I knew that. I still went for it. I'd have kept trying until I was in my mid30's if it hadn't been for my arm giving out on me. But I wasn't doing it for the money. I just loved to play. I wanted to be the best I could be. Never quite satisfied that itch.

Also, it is not easy to go back to school in your 30's. I earned an MBA and then a chiropractic degree in my 30's. I wish I had just found my career a lot sooner and just enjoyed my competitive tennis outside of my professional career. Granted, I was just a wannabe. I have been so busy trying to survive the last 20 years that I ended up playing a lot less competitive tennis than I would have liked.

I get upset when I see parents who see their kids as a meal ticket to financial freedom. Even a college scholarship is not a given, much less a professional career. Play the game and learn it because you love it and the things it embodies. Jim Loehr's points in this months little piece are right on the money.

The 10000 hour rule is only the beginning. Any satellite/futures player who has played the pro tour into his mid-twenties has put in a tremendous investment. If he/she did it understanding what the potential rewards were, then great. But if they were conned, ...

One of the things that amazes me is how hard it is to get a full draw in a Southern Cal Open tournament. I teach at the park where I learned to play. When I was a kid, the tournaments played there always had literally hundreds of entries. The first good tournament I won as a 19 year old was the losers draw from the qualifying for the LA Metropolitan Chps. I think it was a 64 draw of losers from the qualifying. Despite the fact that we have nearly 1000 kids entered in most of the designated tournaments in SoCal, we are unable to generate a full draw of even 16 players in the LA Metro Men's Open division. They may have had 3 entries in the women's. What happened to all those kids playing those tournaments. They were pretty good players. But they didn't learn to love the competition. Or the game. That's really sad. Especially with our society heading to extinction by obesity!

don

[hockeyscout]

Interesting read ...

Interesting read! I think if the passion is there, yes, go for it. And do it urgently. Their aren't many wonder-kids. The great ones make it in tennis. The ones who don't, who invested 10,000 hours will go into their next field (lawyer, doctor, businessman, wife, husband, whatever) and crush the competition.

[bottle]

I will try to keep all of this in mind as I write my letter to my college on Carmella's behalf.

[tennis_chiro]

Awesome, but what does it mean for our tennis kids?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WREgHsTr5yE

Absolutely an awesome story. Fits right into the pattern of Coyle's The Talent Code, that there is actually something tangible and physical that changes in our nervous system with practice and skill development. Personally, I feel like I've been losing the "fusi-name" section of my brain. I will have a terrible time remembering the name of something or someone, and then as soon as I relax and move away from the pressure I will remember that person's name or perhaps something I was trying to describe, but I've already embarrassed myself! Often I will find that I can remember someone's stroke or recognize them from 4 courts away by their strokes, but I might have trouble remembering who they are when they are standing right in front of me.

Just as Susan may have hijacked and developed the "fusi-face" section of her brain to remember "chunks" of chess configurations, I would suggest that great serve-and-volley tennis players, develop "fusi-volley" type sections of their nervous system to enable them to execute and manage high level reflex moves that are necessary to play serve-and-volley tennis...oops, I forgot, ... no one learns that anymore. And, you can't develop those kind of skills or those kinds of neural synapses without repetition ad infinitum.

But there is a more important question that has to be asked: namely, to what end? Is it worth spending 6 hours a day for all those years to become a chess grand master? If you love it, and it doesn't keep you from developing in other areas of your life, great. But I'd rather come out as Rubenstein and be able to play piano concerts into my 90's, even if I did have to keep playing scales all those years, even into my 90's.

But think of all the kids that are started on the path to be tennis "wunderkinds". How many of them make it even just to where they can break into the top 100, much less actually make a living for 10 years. And except for the very, very few who make a fortune that sets them up for the rest of their life, those individuals will arrive at age 30 having invested twenty, thirty or even forty thousand hours in a highly specialized skill with very limited potential to support them for the rest of their lives without continued relatively hard labor. I love tennis and I think it is a great thing to put at the center of a family's life; but don't give up the potential for a full life in other areas.

Just think how much effort it takes to go beyond being a very good junior tennis player and perhaps being able to be eligible for a college scholarship to a top Div I tennis program (only partials for almost all boys) vs someone who puts in enough time to be able to wrangle admittance to a really good Div III school with assistance earned with an academic scholarship that was earned with the effort that wasn't put into going the extra mile on the tennis court. (Personally, I'd recommend saving a lot of money and getting the first two years done in a junior college and then transferring to a school that specializes in what you would then know you want to study.) Assume for the moment that effort was the only factor that determined success in achieving either of those outcomes. Now let's project forward about 15 years when these two people are in their early thirties and consider what their careers look like. What are they going to be doing from age 35 to 65? What are their prospects for financial security?

The world is a very big place. And with today's available sources of information anything is possible. I wish I had had me to teach me how to hit a forehand when I was younger and do many other things on the court. Gosh, it hurts when kids ignore my advice. I just hate to see missed opportunities. But would I rather have had me as a coach as a kid or have had the unlimited opportunities kids have today to explore anything they want to look into. I would have wanted to hit my forehand a lot better (that's not asking much), but I would much more have wanted to develop other skills and facets of my life rather than invest any more time into tennis than I did.

I see tennis not as a means to a life, but simply as a metaphor for it. Learn to fight for yourself in a tennis match and you will fight for yourself better in life. Does it really matter if our kids don't dominate the world rankings (or barely maintain a presence there) if we are producing kids who learn to play and fight properly on a tennis court and at the same time spend enough time to develop the other skills they need in life. Tennis is a really hard sport. To be elite takes tremendous dedication and there is no guarantee of any return on investment other than a skill and a love of the game. If there are dollar signs in the equation that creates that investment, it is a false equation. The odds are just that bad!

I've often thought about arguing that college tennis should not be connected in any way to the pro game. Perhaps they should play three 2-set doubles matches (with lots of serving and volleying!) and deemphasize singles and play just 3 single sets of singles (9 points -don't play the singles if not necessary). Hey, I said perhaps. But that is more in line with developing the values and experiences that will benefit our kids in real life. If you want to play pro tennis, you need to be devoting 30 to 40 hours a week of dedicated effort from the age of 17 to 22 to have a real chance to compete.

Take a look at our current group of hopefuls. I don't know the women very well, but I am somewhat aware of the men. Take our current crop of young men that bypassed college and went straight to the pros: Querry, Young, Harrison, Sock and Kudla. On the other hand, we have Isner, Klahn and Johnson who earned college degrees. Querry and Isner have both made enough money to set themselves up decently in life after tennis and if they can stay where they are for another 3 to 5 years, they should both be into 8 figures. At the same time, they are always just one bad knee away from enforced early retirement; and Isner seems to have more than his share of nagging injuries that threaten his career. But then, John does have a college degree to help soften his post-playing career landing. Then take a look at Young and Harrison and Sock. Young was a junior Grand Slam champion at 15. Sock won the US Open Juniors in 2010 just before his 18th birthday. Harrison also turned pro at 15, but they are all outside the top 45 who get straight into the most exclusive 64 draw Masters 1000's. Klahn and Johnson are struggling too, but I like their prospects in their 30's with their degrees a lot better.

Is it conceivable that Sock or Harrison will not make it to the "elite" level. For Young, it is almost already a given. In reality, it is also likely for Sock and Harrison. They are going to have to show something pretty special very soon or they are going to be falling even further behind what were the expectations for both of them. I've seen both of them do some great things, but there are so many great players out there, getting into the top 20 or 30 where they can make some serious money is so hard. It's much more likely that they hang on where they are (between 50 and 150) for a couple of more years and then fade away. Not what I would hope for or even predict, but just a lot more likely. And I would say the odds of them making it into the top 10 are really low. They've had a couple of years to show something special and it just hasn't happened. Unless they are really doing something different (I hope they are), there is no real reason to believe they will suddenly now solve the puzzle.

As for what it takes to succeed in this game, it is good fundamentals to create the opportunity to legitimately compete; and then there has to be a lot of competition. What I see is kids ducking competition all the time. What I see is good kids having to play kids who can barely get 2 games off them in early rounds of designated tournaments. Those better kids should be playing more matches against comparable opponents. And those weaker kids should be playing against someone against whom they can employ the skills of competition in a meaningful way. Here is SoCal, the USTA should be setting up practice challenge matches at least 2 days a week to supplement weekend tournaments. The reason all those players come out of Buenos Aires and Barcelona is they all go to one place to train against one another and they drive each other up. The USTA should stop wasting it's time trying to be in the developmental business and run competition. Then use its resources to support the players who excell.

Can you imagine what the situation would be like if the USTA really went after competition? Most of the USTA local sections each have the economic base of a Spain or Argentina or Belgium. Imagine if the ratio of the number of futures tournaments played in the US to the number of futures played in Spain mirrored the ratio of the sizes of our economies: US:$16.7Trillion, Spain: $1.4 Trillion, Argentina: $0.77Trillion. If the USTA ran those events (about 5 a week nation wide) and then turned around and tried to arrange good practice facilities for our players and also some housing in return for practicing with some of our local juniors. How would that look? Different I think.

Sorry, you got me started!

don

[bottle]

Re Polgar Sisters

Thanks, hockeyscout, for your posts and this link (post # 20 in this thread).

This to my mind is one of the great stories in the world. I had only been exposed to the verbal form of it. But these are great films-- all five of them even though they are just small slivers in an overall epic that includes the weeks when the late and great Bobby Fischer on the lam came to live with the Polgars in Budapest and they all played chess.

I'm never going to apologize for my enthusiasm. Part of mine right now however is that I just came from an interview with a 17-year-old prodigy in tennis who started at 4 years old and also, like Susan Polgar, believes that she or anybody given certain circumstances and work can do anything (so refreshing!).

Last week I got to play against her (2-6), this week with her (6-0). Once per set, if there is a man on the other side of the net she will go straight at him.

When a good player male or female does that to me, here is what usually happens. The first time I jump out of the way. The second time I reflex a BHV winner.

When Carmella came at me for the first time, the speed was such that I couldn't jump away and had no chance to prepare a BHV so took the ball squarely on the wrong side of the throat of my racket. Lucky for me, the ball deflected away.

The guy in the mixed doubles team we were playing was less lucky. He didn't get his racket on the ball which hit him squarely in the chest as Carmella groaned. The guy was okay however since he is excessively well cushioned in the chest.

A corporation is not a person but a college may be. And, if my college doesn't give Carmella a great tennis scholarship, then my college is an idiot.

[hockeyscout]

Polgar sisters

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WREgHsTr5yE

[hockeyscout]

Natural talent.

I don't believe to much in natural talent. And I don't think great coaching gets a player there either. If that was the case their would be a lot more champions in the USA (as the coaching is very good). I believe in an athlete consciously deciding to be # 1. Its that simple.

[don_budge]

Just Great hockeyscout!

I do have one big problem with your post. Like players, certain parents are "special." Like come on, comparing a difficult tennis dad at your club to Peter Graf, Richard William's, Mike Agassi's, Miroslav Navratolov, Walter Bartoli and Yuri Sharapov's is laughable. The dads I mention weren't great athletes who had kids who were "born stud talents" who appeared out of no-where to win Wimbledon. These kids were mentored by very intelligent parents who were all 10-20 years ahead of the curve in every way.

When Martina Navratilova was 15 the Czech Federation stepped in and said: "Okay, Miroslav, you need to step back now. We need to take over, work on the technical aspects of her game and now it's time for the experts to take over." Needless to say Martina was killing every player the country, and the world at the time, and she stated: "No." Three years later she defected. She said in an interview thank god I did not listen to them and serve and volley, and hit from the baseline more."

I read one post where klac said "tennis players willing to listen, have little ego and enormous heart don't grow on trees either."

He's right about the "heart don't grow on trees" - in order to survive the parents like Graf, William's, Agassi's, Navratolov, Bartoli and Sharapov certainly had to have huge nuts to take on the tennis system, and put up with the abuse they took. And, wow, their kids followed suit and became big time pro's. The apple does not fall to far from the tree. Interestly when they won, the parents never got the credit they deserved, and self serving individuals like IMG stated: "Yah, Yuri copied everything from us", and then stated "Yah, Kournikova's mom ruined her daughter, and we were never able to teach this natural talent."

Like come on.

I do not think a tennis player can make it if he has no ego and is willing to listen. The best players in any sport are usually uncoachable, and never listen to anything anyone ever tells them. Coaches, who've actually coached top talent understand this clearly. Trying to reach a high level player is interesting, because their not stupid. The great ones know the game better than the coaches. They have spent many hours developing their skill-sets, and they know what feels good and what doesn't feel good. And they live for the sport. They'll test you. The best athletes have the ability to listen, think on their own, act on the information they want to act on and develop their own unique style which will benefit. The daddy Graf, William, Agassi, Navratolov, Bartoli and Sharapov's created kids with unmatched tennis IQ.
The great ones are all self created talents, who have the ability to figure it out. I hate to say it, but, the young kids will always be smarter than us old farts. They'll always out-invent, and out think us. Tennis is a self taught sport. Everything in life is self taught. The world is changing, and the kids who will get ahead are the ones who'll be able to figure it out on their own. Their's so much information and ways to connect right now. This is the future.
Tennis (and business - sports and anything else) is a creative, inventive process, and the greats like Ali, Gretzky, Graf, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison and all the rest (you name it) got to where they got because of (1) LOVE of the sport (or computers, business or whatever), (2) Surrounded by the people who had a true interest and belief in their way of doing it and (3) They did not conform to the norm, and (4) They'd spot a weakness they had, and they'd work, and work and work on it to the point of exhaustion (on their own), when no coach or teacher was watching and patch it up no matter how much time, energy, sacrifice or pain it took and (5) They'd solve or figure out a technical problem better than anyone else.

You know I read a great article on this site about the GREAT BORG. It said basically tennis coaches didn't understand what he brought to the table in terms of technical work until after his career was over. Bjorn invented. Coaches didn't. Smart players trying to copy and emulate. The champs emulated, and improved on their own.


Now to the self taught thing!

Well, if you can't teach a kid basics, and have them retain them, then it's very clear to me you need to explore why this is the case.

If you're continually returning to square one with a player you should really encourage a player to get a new coach, get more serious, study on his own or explain to you why he doesn't want to do what you are teaching.

It's likely a case of you the coach not communicating to the player what's required, and reaching an understanding.

God help the kid when he gets into a match if he can't retain things from lesson to lesson. It will all fall apart, and you won't be their in the middle of a set to help him.

Don't sweat it. Remember back to your days in school. Was their one teacher you performed for extremely well. We're their others you drove up the wall? Well, it wasn't your fault as a student you didn't get it (you were a child or teen after all), it was the adults fault for not having the professional skills to cultivate your interest in the subject, give you freedoms to develop on your own, at you own pace and get the needed end results. You know, I did well for one teacher because he'd stay after class and chat about hockey with me, and discuss how my life was going with playing sports. He'd call my mom and dad every few weeks and praise me. I tell you, I never wanted to let that guy down. I worked for him. 95's in his class. He knew how to reach his student. He loved his work. We all knew it. We all retained. Was he a great teacher? No. He didn't have to be, he had great students in the first place. I remember he used to come with his wife and play open pick up hockey with us. When it was your birthday they'd bake a cake and have a party for you.

Great coaching really is about loving what you do, making your student feel it and passing it on in the most appropriate matter. Coaching isn't about teaching technique and rotation. It's about planting a seed. Mother nature will take care of all the rest.

The goal of coaching is to make the player not need you. Unless of course, you're intent is to be a factory farm and mass produce robotic athletes.

And you know I hate the word coach. The best in the business are not "coaches." Their mentors. Its a big difference.

Now to parents! If a parent is jumping down your throat every week their is usually a good reason for it. END results never lie. This is life as a coach. You are hired to be fired. I say, welcome to the real world. If you weren't a tennis coach some manager would be down your throat demanding results as well. Difficult bosses, difficult tennis dads. Same shit.

To often it's easy to take the cop-out road and say "bad parent" or "bad boss at work" and not fix the underlying problems.

Just remember, you've always got the option of saying "take this job and shove it."

So what can USA Tennis do to fix the problems? Nothing. They've forgot how to create a perfect storm. However, right now in some third world country, or annonymous tennis club or small town their is an annonymous mentor (notice that word, mentor) and a parent with a revolutionary plan (another papa or mam Graf, William's, Agassi's, Navratolov, Bartoli and Sharapov) who'll take the game to that next level.

It just won't happen at a sanctioned USA Tennis facility, even though I am sure if it does they'll somehow try and take the credit for it (-:

What a wonderful post! So much food for thought. Thanks for sharing. Let's get together and call ourselves an "Institute of Shamanic Mentoring"! I will have an office and you will have one too. A playground too! We'll bounce the little squirts back and forth like ping pong balls. They will sort it out.

Put enough monkeys in a big enough room with enough typewriters and sooner or later one of them will type out the King James version of the Bible. It is possible that the biggest contribution that the USTA could make is to provide an organization and facilities for competition. Let everyone just have at it. The competition will sort it out. The competitive coaching styles will sort it out. Instead of producing robots...produce innovative and spontaneous play. Have fun. Meanwhile it is only "Tennis for the Bloody Fun of It!".

You know what the problem is with things today...generally speaking? Everyone fell for the money is everything paradigm. The problems are too big for any possible solutions to work. It's time to tear it down and build it again.

[gzhpcu]

Nobody is naturally talented at tennis. It's harder to master than other sports, pays less for mid range talents who can make more in virtually any other pro sport. Audiences all over the world don't pay to watch, esp. female/doubles/mixed/challengers/semi pro/masters matches. The powers that be have turned it that way, due to rules changes, attitudes of the refs, time violations, personality wash out rules, pressure from sponsors to clean up the violent outbursts, psych jobs, that made the old school matches so entertaining. Can anyone hide under the curtain like Nasty did? Or pound the ice cubes into the face of the Spanish king!

I don't agree. Pancho Gonzalez being a prime example of natural talent. Federer also. Then you have hard workers like Jim Courier, David Ferrer, etc.

[stotty]

The USA Tennis Federation has to stop abusing parents. Everything you hear from them is about how parents should step back and let the experts take over. Well they've successfully socially isolated this generation of parents, and put in place programs to dissuade mom and dad from being involved, and boom, what can I say, the results simply speak for themselves. Tennis is a FAMILY sport where top players develop with their older brothers and sisters, mom's, dad's and friends spending hours and hours on the court. It's a sport where coaches should step back and let development happen instead of constantly meddling, interfering and attempting to confuse with mumbo-jumbo. Kids need to play a lot to be good, and their's way to much structure, politics and games being played behind the scenes with to many overly involved parties. I think what the USA needs to get back on top is a few more rebel parents like Richard Williams, Yuri Sharapova and Mike Agassi who'll stir up some shit, create some conflict and do whatever the hell they please. Also, tennis in the USA needs a few guys who know shit about the game, who can start academies where kids can play, and play, and play and not put up with the insane rules and politics of these out to lunch associations and administrators. Maybe bad coaches who dont know any better would be better for development! I read about bolletieri when he first started at img, it was small mom and pop and he admitted he did not know shit and he brought a lot of kids in on scholarship and some even lived at his home. they were great because they did not know any better! Now, its so socialized and professional at img they cant do what they did 30 years ago when they were mom and pop with no insurance rules and freedom. kids excelled their because it was a vast tennis playground where everyone beat the hell out of everyone, had no rules and did things that encouraged innovation. Players today are overcoached. In the old days their used to be a lot of what I call playground tennis, and its not there anymore, and of course the system is broke. Take away the playground and fun and the kids dont develop creativity. Way to go, you've developed some nice robots. Let the kids figure it out on their own, in the short term the results may not be there, however in the long haul they'll be better! Kids invent. Let them! We have to be careful not to stiffle talent! And trust me, the smarter we get, and the more techical we get, the worse these kids get! I got to say I respect a coach like Robert Landsdorf who says the kids don't need me more than once a week and they need mom and dad to go and hit balls with them for six days a week. Anyways, my way would not work because it would take less money. These days everyone thinks lets throw more money at the issue. Funny how its not working. Lets get parents less involved. Next it will be, lets build more facilities, and hire even more coaches. Its a revolving door. Meanwhile, excuse my english, some uncle tony, jerk mama or papa, kid playing on a court in a gheto with broken beer bottles, a dad who teaches his overweight daughter to play double backhands, papa merciless graf, insane tennis ball machine dad agassi or someone playing in a swimming pool or parking lot in some buttfuck third world country (excuse the language but I want to make a point) is going to be the next wimbeldon champion whether we like it or not. Whats funny is some tennis academy and celebrity coach who entered the picture late in the process or put in 5 percent of the work will always step up and take the credit and the well oiled money machine of tennis will continue to press forward.

What you are saying is very generalised and sweeping.

The scenario for many coaches is they see a child once maybe twice a week for an hour. The kid then runs off and spends many hours playing with his friends during the rest of the week, usually forgetting and unravelling all that you've worked on in the lesson. So the following week he comes along for his lesson and it's right back to square one. This is real life as a tennis coach. It's far from over-coaching that's the problem...rather not enough coaching.

Academies fair better because they see the players for longer and more often throughout a week.

For every Richard Williams there are a hundred dads like him whose kids don't have the talent of Serena and Venus. Dads like this drive most coaches round the bend. There is nothing worse than a manic, driven parent jumping down your throat every week. I agree, however, one of the parents has to be a little mad, or driven for the child to succeed.

I think when trying to find root causes in a system one needs to take aim carefully. We all live in a tiny corner of a given country and it may be unfair to assume local problems are also widespread throughout the land. America is huge. How can a coach in Boca Rotan know what's going on in Washington or New York?

I think what Klacr allured to is about right. The coaching has to be good, and the kid has to be receptive and responsible...the type that carries out all he learns in a lesson when he plays elsewhere and retains it for his next lesson.

It's unlikely a self-taught player could make it to the top. No one picks up a racket and does everything right naturally. Even Nastase and McEnroe needed some help. The game is high specialised right now and coaching is playing a big part.

[GeoffWilliams]

Nobody is naturally talented at tennis. It's harder to master than other sports, pays less for mid range talents who can make more in virtually any other pro sport. Audiences all over the world don't pay to watch, esp. female/doubles/mixed/challengers/semi pro/masters matches. The powers that be have turned it that way, due to rules changes, attitudes of the refs, time violations, personality wash out rules, pressure from sponsors to clean up the violent outbursts, psych jobs, that made the old school matches so entertaining. Can anyone hide under the curtain like Nasty did? Or pound the ice cubes into the face of the Spanish king!

[klacr]

Very true...very true....if only our students were as keen as us.

To be fair, perhaps if we were also as keen as our students. Its a two way street. it requires hard work, patience, understanding and dedication from both players and coach. Some of those qualities I mentioned are not as abundant today. I don't want to come off sounding like an old codger (I'm only 31) but no doubt the our culture is changing and drifting away from where it was. Change is inevitable, but decline in positive characteristics should not be.

Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton

[stotty]

Tennis players willing to listen, have little ego and enormous heart don't grow on trees either.

Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton

Very true...very true....if only our students were as keen as us.