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TennisOne Lessons 
Larry Stefanki: The Coach Who Turns Careers Around Paul Fein “No matter what accomplishments you make, somebody helps you.” – Althea Gibson, Early in this decade Andy Roddick was tabbed as The Next Great American Player. Armed with an explosive serve and formidable forehand, he captured the U.S. Open and ranked No. 1 in 2003. He seemed destined for stardom. But the duopoly of Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal soon seized power, and even lesser opponents exploited weaknesses in Roddick’s game. His year-end rankings steadily dropped – 2, 3, 6, 6, and then 8 for 2008. Not even big-name coaches, such as Brad Gilbert, Dean Goldfine, and Jimmy Connors, could reverse the slide.
Was Roddick, a popular and valiant competitor but a less gifted athlete, washed up at 26? Or could he still win more major titles and perhaps even regain the top spot? Enter Larry Stefanki, A-Rod’s seventh coach since he turned pro in 2000. Stefanki, an outgoing, former journeyman pro from California, specialized in igniting slumping, underachieving players and guided Yevgeny Kafelnikov and Marcelo Rios to the No. 1 ranking. He also enjoyed successful coaching stints with John McEnroe, Jonas Bjorkman, Tim Henman, and Fernando Gonzalez. “What intrigued me was the fact he’s worked with left-handers, right-handers, guys who come in, guys who stay back, absolute head cases, guys who are quiet on the court,” explained Roddick, about why he hired Stefanki last November. Presto! The new tandem clicked, and the leaner, sounder, smarter, more confident Roddick quickly started producing encouraging results on different surfaces. He knocked off No. 3 Novak Djokovic en route to the Australian Open semis and easily reached a career-best fourth round at the French Open (where he previously had a dismal 4-7 record). At Wimbledon, Roddick took out No. 3 and British favorite Andy Murray, and then dueled the incomparable Federer in an epic 5-7, 7-6, 7-6, 3-6, 16-14 final. In this interview the no-nonsense Stefanki, 52, reveals how he has turned Roddick’s and other players’ careers around, analyzes topical coaching issues, and evaluates the state of American tennis. When you were a young man, John Brodie, the former National Football League star quarterback and your father-in-law, gave you some career advice: “Get out of your comfort zone.” What exactly did he mean, and how did you respond to that advice?
He gave me that advice when I was playing on the pro tour, and I’ve used that advice over the years with the pros and young juniors I’ve worked with. I’ve told them to travel around the world and play in very difficult situations and put yourself in a position where you don’t feel comfortable. That means getting away from the country clubs and the perfect settings and the good courts and play everywhere in the world using the bigger balls and on the horrible courts, whether they be in Africa or places in eastern Europe and develop a game that will hold up in the worst conditions possible. That’s starting on the Satellite and the Challenger tournaments leading up to big-time ATP Tour events. It builds a lot of character by doing that. If you can get through that and have a game that holds up, then it will hold up when you get to the big moments at the next level. After Andy Roddick took out Andy Murray 6-4, 4-6, 7-6, 7-6 in the Wimbledon semis, he said, “I’ve improved other parts of my game, and that’s definitely necessary against Roger.” What parts of Andy’s game have improved, and how have they improved? Andy has worked extremely hard [with conditioning and strength coach Lance Hooton] in the last seven months on his footwork and his foot speed. He lost about 15 pounds, which enables him to move a lot better. We’ve focused a lot on his return of serve. For the last few years he’s been way, way down in the return of serve category in the statistics for a guy ranked as high as he is. We’ve focused on taking the balls early off the bounce, which takes time away from the opponent. We’ve worked on taking the ball on the fly and attacking a lot more. He’s coming to net against [opponents’] second serves. We’ve worked on his backhand so he can absorb power. I’m a big believer in changing the dimensions of the court and not just playing one-dimension ping pong from the baseline. And all of that is not only to beat Roger, but it’s also important against all the top four guys, including Nadal, Murray, and Djokovic. They all move better than Andy. But he’s closing that gap. This game is played from the lower body down. I don’t think Andy really understood what I meant when we first started. Now he’s a big believer in that because as you get older you start what I call the Boris Becker routine, and your body gets bigger and bigger. So he’s closed the gap a lot with his improved foot speed and balance and footwork. After winning the Wimbledon semifinals, Andy also confided: “To be honest, the last couple of years, I didn’t know if I’d ever get a chance to play for another Grand Slam title. Now I get to. It’s just a dream.” How have you have instilled more confidence in him this year?
Andy’s not a rookie. The memory bank [he has] doesn’t forget when you’ve won a [Grand] Slam. He’s been the No. 1 player in the world. Andy didn’t just mean the last couple of years. I think he meant since winning the [2003] U.S. Open and became No. 1. That happened so fast for him, it’s was almost like: What happened? And then it was kind of gone. The players are much better now, six years later. They’re bigger, faster, and they hit the ball harder. They can do more things than when he won the U.S. Open. When you have a guy who is as great a competitor as Andy, you have to go back into the memory bank. He knows how to do this already, he doesn’t need a pump-up speech. What he needed more than anything was to become faster and better balanced. I’m a big believer that when you fill the holes in your game, the confidence will return and the insecurities will evaporate over time. We talk a lot about the fact that he can’t be impatient. He is a champion already. He’s already proved that. Now it’s a process of resurrecting that knowingness. But you can’t bluff it. If you have holes in your game, these four guys ahead of you will exploit that like nobody’s business. During the riveting 16-14 deciding set of the epic 2009 Wimbledon final between Roger Federer and Andy Roddick − which NBC broadcaster Ted Robinson described as “like a heavyweight championship fight in the 20th round” − what were you thinking would determine its outcome? I said from the very beginning that the outcome would be determined by who could capitalize on second serve returns and who served better at the time. Roger is not known as a guy serving 50 aces. At 8-all, 15-40, after Andy hit two winners up the line, I thought he was going to win the match. I really did. But then Federer proceeded to hit four first [point-winning] serves in a row. The big thing in that match was almost a reverse. Usually Andy is the guy who is going to get 50 aces and Roger 32 [sic], but this time it was reverse. I thought that was the big key. Roger served his way out of that match. I felt Andy played better from the backcourt. He dictated a little more, which was great to see. That’s going to help him more in the future. Playing the biggest match of his career in the past six years, he handled it extremely well. Roddick played spectacular tennis throughout the Wimbledon final, but it was also a heartbreaking and bitter defeat, partly because of the four set points he squandered in the second set tiebreaker, which would have given him a two-sets-to-love lead over Federer. After the dust settled, did losing that momentous match discourage or encourage Roddick? You come away from a match like that either going one way or the other way.
Either you get depressed and feel this was my only chance and I blew it. Or you can take it as a kind of an ignition to bigger and better things ahead. I think this is just the beginning for Andy. He’s worked so hard on his fundamentals, especially his footwork. He’s just a better tennis player now. Andre Agassi started playing his best tennis from 27 on. Andy has this ability because he’s so driven internally. He’s a very competitive guy. I’ve spoken to Andy a lot since this match, and he’s really showed me that this is just the beginning. He’s very motivated. He’s not depressed at all. That’s a great sign for me. Since he’s been on the tour for as long as he has, for eight or nine years, it can go the other way. But he’s put so much work in that he has very few holes in his game, so it’s almost a revelation, like wow, that his game is holding up under pressure. I think his best tennis is ahead of him. Both you and your brother Steve, who coached the U.S. Olympic team in 1984, are disciples of legendary coach Tom Stow. Specifically, what knowledge, principles and attitudes did Stow impart to you that have guided you throughout your playing and coaching career? Tom was very influential with me. I started working with him my senior year at the University of California Berkeley. He was very old then. I worked with him for about a year. He was very influential in teaching discipline and stressing that tennis is played in a rectangular box. This is not on a basketball court or in an open field where you have a lot of space to run around. You’re in a confined box where balls are moving up to 150 miles an hour. So movement, balance, footwork are what Tom instilled. He was a disciplinarian about that. I never forgot those things he taught me. I still use them today. It’s the most efficient way to absorb speed and then to create speed. That’s basically what he believed in, along with taking the ball early and not having guys push you off the baseline into a defensive mode. Tom coached Don Budge when he won the Grand Slam [in 1938], and [many] people don’t know who he is. I’ve used Tom’s ideas from the Johnny Mac [McEnroe] era through [Yevgeny] Kafelnikov, [Tim] Henman and [Fernando] Gonzalez to try to get them back on track to become more efficient and handle the speed factor. When Tom was coaching in the 1930s through the 1970s, when I was working with him, tennis was a lot slower then and they played with wood rackets. I worked with him with a Jack Kramer wood racket. Today you have to prepare earlier and move your feet faster. Today, these guys are huge and phenomenal athletes. When Roddick explained why he hired you, he said, “What intrigued me was the fact he’s worked with left-handers, right-handers, guys who come in, guys who stay back, absolute head cases, guys who are quiet on the court.” How were you able to bring out the best in such diverse characters and lead them to some of the best years in their careers? I wasn’t afraid to get out of my comfort zone. I’ve coached South Americans, Russians, English guys, European guys, and Andy is only the third American I’ve worked with in my career. The biggest secret is knowing that what you know works. The second thing is communication. I don’t care what language they speak, an athlete is an athlete. That’s something my father-in-law, John Brodie, always said. Their competitive juices will come to the surface no matter where you’re from. I was never afraid to work with top-level athletes. In fact, it intrigued me a little bit if they spoke a different language. But even if you communicate well, you better know what you’re talking about. Let’s discuss your most famous students, some of whom are real characters, and the secrets of your success to get them to fulfill their potential − and also what you learned from coaching each player.
MCENROE — You worked with 1980s superstar John McEnroe at the end of his career in 1991 and in 1992 when he reached the Wimbledon semis at age 33. When he contacted you, what did he want in a coach and what were his goals? He wanted to win a [Grand] Slam [title]. He wanted to get back into the top 10, which he did. He had seen what I had done with a guy named Tommy Ho, who I worked with when he was 14 or 15 and became the No. 1 junior player in our country [in 1988]. Ho went from oblivion to a top 200 [ATP] player within a year. He was a lefty like McEnroe. Johnny said, “I saw what you did with Tommy, and I know you can coach me.” I was adamantly opposed to coaching Johnny because I had known Johnny since he was 15. He had to convince me. I went to his house. He said if I don’t win another Grand Slam [title] in the next two years, I’m quitting, which he did. BJORKMAN — Jonas Bjorkman, a friendly Swede, reached the 1997 U.S. Open semis and ranked a career-high No. 4 with your coaching. How did you help him? I worked with Bjorkman on a trial basis. I spent only a month with him. He played two Masters Series tournaments and did extremely well. I think I helped him quite a bit. He’s a tremendous athlete. We worked a lot on footwork, and as everyone knows, he excelled in doubles after that.
KAFELNIKOV — In an August 1998 interview, a depressed Yevgeny Kafelnikov told me that winning more major titles and becoming No. 1 is “way beyond my ability. For a little while, I did believe I could get there, but it’s in the past.” Six months later, in January 1999, a very different Kafelnikov won the Australian Open. How do you explain his transformation? He had already won the French, beating Stich in the [1996] final and Sampras in the semis. Before we hooked up, he approached me and basically said I need you no matter what. I said, “Yevy, you seem to want to retire. Do you really want to put the work in?” He said yes. He was still young [21] at the time, but he didn’t have a lot of friends on the tour, he was getting pretty depressed and a little frustrated. There was no one out there to guide him. So we hooked up, and he worked extremely hard. For a couple months, he was doing a lot of two-on-one drills, a lot of running, a lot of fitness training. He was soft at the time. But I know his background. He’s an extremely hard-working kid who came from nothing. So he went back to his grass roots. Then we went to Asia and he played in Dubai and a couple tournaments, and then he played the exhibition in Kooyong [Australia]. As I said, guys who have been there [at the top] before, you have to instill that mentality back in their soul. But, if they don’t do the hard work, then my communication is just words. He did the hard work and then he had some pretty quick success. RIOS — Marcelo Rios, like McEnroe, was known as a brilliant talent but also a difficult guy to relate to and deal with. Yet under your guidance Rios reached the 1998 Australian Open final and briefly (for six weeks) ranked No. 1 in 1999. How did you manage to bring out the best in the sometimes sullen Chilean?
Marcelo was born with a gift, like Johnny Mac. And none of the other guys [I’ve coached] were born with a gift. He could control the tennis ball − the flight of the ball, the speed of the ball, and he could hit spots on the court − without any effort. Those two guys happened to be lefthanders. If Marcelo were a righthander, he probably would not have gotten to No. 1. He won a lot of Masters Series events. In 1998 he beat Agassi in the finals of the Grand Slam Cup and Key Biscayne. When I started coaching him, I think he was ranked 125, and he went to No. 1. There were a lot of naysayers saying he was too small, too fat, too this, too that. You had to be all over Marcelo all the time to make him work hard. When he worked and you were in the trenches with him, he would work like a mule. But if you weren’t with him, he was a bit of a loose cannon. Because of that, I had to spend a lot of weeks on the road, constantly talking to him. No one really believed very much in him and thought that he could be that great. Marcelo’s agent said if you can coach Johnny, you can definitely coach Marcelo. We had a rocky time at the beginning about [his appreciating] the high standards you need as a professional, how hard you have to practice. He was very young then, only 18. He had lost eight or nine first-round matches, and he got a lot of wild cards. He was the No. 1 junior in the world. Being a lefty neutralized the disadvantage of his small size. He could hit the ball from A to B as fast as any guy playing. But he also had the touch of Johnny Mac. So he showed different dimensions. Sometimes I would say, “You have to be kidding. There’s no way you can create that shot.” This was during practice matches, and he would say, “Watch this,” and he would hit the exact same shot from 20 feet behind the baseline.” And I would say, “I’ve never seen that shot, ever.” He was that good. He had total control of the flight of the tennis ball. You see guys today banging the ball all over the place, and they don’t know where it’s going. Marcelo wasn’t that way. And he was faster than lightning. He had a loose cannon mentality, and that’s why he fell off the pro tour very quickly. He fired me when he was No. 1 in the world. HENMAN — You coached Tim Henman, a gentlemanly Englishman who served and volleyed, for almost three years during which he reached a career-high No. 4 in the world. Please tell me about him. Tim had a great style. I loved his style. As a person, he was a great human being. If he had a little bit more competitiveness, I thought he definitely could have won a couple Wimbledons and a couple U.S. Opens. He was not a guy who before a match would say, “I’m winning this match no matter what” – a la the Andy Roddick or Johnny Mac or Jim Courier mentality. That was the piece of the puzzle that was missing. [But] he was one of the most talented guys I’ve ever worked with. What he can do with a golf ball or a squash ball or a tennis ball or a soccer ball is unbelievable. I’ve never seen a guy who could move and control balls like this guy. I tried to use Edberg as a model for Tim because he loved the way Edberg played. I think Tim beat Federer five or six times in a row before Roger went on a winning streak. Tim attacked second serves and put a lot of pressure on people. He was also very flexible; I used to call him “Slinky” because he had very long arms and he could play defense, offense. He was fun to work with. But when it came to big moments, the focus would wander a little bit. GONZALEZ — When you took over as coach of under-achieving Fernando Gonzalez, he was known as a slow-footed, erratic, low-percentage slugger. With you as mentor, Gonzo cracked the top 5 and gained the finals at the 2007 Australian Open and the 2008 Olympic Games. What keys did you find to unlock and ignite his considerable potential?
He has one of the best forehands in the game, day in and day out, much like Andy’s great serve. The only time he misfires with it is when he’s not fit enough. Like Andy, he was too big and too slow. So we worked on improving that from the beginning. Fundamentally, he was not that sound on the backhand, so he had a gaping hole on the left side. So we focused a lot on that weakness, his return of serve and a lot on his fitness. Now at 29, he’s really into fitness and running. Recently we talked, and he said now he does more running than hitting tennis balls. And if you keep your legs fit in this game, you can play it for a long, long time. When he was in the final of the Australian Open, he weighed 182. That was light because he had lost 10-12 pounds to get there. He was an underrated mover. He’s very, very fast. He can play defense. And for a guy 5’11”, he can really hit powerful serves. His focus can wander a little bit, but he played unbelievable at the French [beating No. 3 Murray to reach the semis] this year. RODDICK — Despite being a 26-year-old veteran when you started coaching Andy Roddick in November 2008, he had the least-finished game of any of your well-known students as well as of any player in the top 10. When Roddick contacted you, what did he say he wanted to accomplish in the remainder of his career, and what did you tell him he had to do to reach his goals? I wanted to hear from him what he thought he needed to be improved. With every one of these guys, I know what I would do. [But] I always try to put myself in their shoes. But I want to hear it out of their mouths to see if they have any clue, or if they’ve looked in the mirror and been honest with themselves to find out what they need to become a better tennis player. From the beginning, his goal was to win a Slam. And that’s strictly why he hired me. He doesn’t want to be a “one-Slam wonder.” That’s his motivation. Andy can be pretty argumentative. That leads to great discussions. Afterwards, he looked at what I said and concluded maybe there is something [valuable] there. Much of that discussion had to do with how heavy he is and should be to win seven best-of-five-set matches. He said, “I’ve been doing it this way [weighing 207] for the last five years.” I said, “I know, and look at the results.” He said, “I won Key Biscayne [in 2004].” I said, “Look, that’s Key Biscayne. It’s not the French Open or Wimbledon.” So Andy made the drastic changes. Every one of these guys put a tremendous amount of hours of work in − a lot of drills and a lot of sweat. Andy also had to change his backhand quite a bit and his return of serve. Why did it reportedly take you almost five sleepless nights before deciding to accept Roddick’s coaching offer? The reason is because Fernando Gonzalez was, and still is, a very good friend of mine. We spent over two and a half years together. He had tremendous success. But I felt it had to be a decision for me, for my career, because when this is done, I’d like to work with the juniors in the U.S. Working with Andy gives me an avenue to do that because he is an American. The fact that Andy hasn’t fulfilled [all] his goals and his dreams was really appealing to me because I felt I could really help him. The sleepless nights came because of our friendship and the honesty I have with Fernando. I was still under contract, but I felt like we had run our course. Sometimes, after two and a half years, you get to a point where people aren’t really listening all that well. I’m not saying that’s the case with Fernando and me, but his motivation and competitiveness were waning. That’s one thing Andy doesn’t vacillate about. He’s very, very competitive. It was also a career move, a family move. It was something to get involved in U.S. tennis. I was always coaching guys from other countries. Last year Roddick converted less than 30 percent of his break point chances, which was a problem you wanted to rectify. This year it’s improved to 36 percent (as of July 26), which is still considerably below Federer’s 44 percent, Nadal’s 48 percent and Murray’s 49 percent. That mediocre percentage has caused Roddick to win only 20 percent of his return games. What did you advise Roddick to do to improve here?
That 36 percent is a huge improvement for Andy. The three guys ahead of him are probably better returners. [But] Andy is closing the gap a lot. His return of serve was the first thing I thought needed improvement. Fundamentally, it was not very sound. Andy would just will balls over the net at any cost. Nadal had better return serve well because he doesn’t serve very well, and playing a lot on clay skews the service return statistic. We looked at all those stats when we started, and Andy was very low, in the Fernando [Gonzalez] zone. So we focused a lot on the return of serve. It’s improving. He has a very good concept now about what works and what doesn’t work under pressure. We can all do it in practice, but unless you can do it under pressure in big situations against high-level competition, it’s not going to hold up. Andy knows he can’t revert to his old ways. Roddick’s two most impressive statistics this year (as of July 26) are his 26-6 tiebreaker record, the best percentage among players with at least 15 tiebreakers, and his holding serve 91 percent of his service games, second only to Ivo Karlovic. Please talk about these two very important statistics.
I think he’s the best server in the game. He has 50 percent of the games basically won − 9.1 times out of 10 he’s holding serve. He held serve 37 straight times against Roger Federer in the Wimbledon final under the biggest pressure you can get. That should allow Andy to free up on his service returns and take more chances and take the ball on the rise and come to net more often and do a lot of things that will play on his opponent’s mind, because you’re playing an opponent, not a machine. So we’re doing all those different dynamics to help him win when he already has the best serve in the game and has improved his movement. His movement is underrated, especially moving in a straight line. He’s not very good laterally, but Andy is very fast from baseline to net. These are the tactics Sampras used to play because he also held serve so regularly. We work hard on all these different things that the opponent is not expecting because if Andy breaks serve, he wins the set. Roddick’s backhand has been criticized over the years because the stroke was too stiff and he didn’t bend his knees enough to use his kinetic chain better. How have you helped him improve his backhand? His footwork is a lot different than it was. He’s taking the ball early. The result is that his down-the-line backhand, both during rallies and for passing shots, is better. Now he knows he has ball control during a match even on high-pressure points. Great players, like Mats Wilander, have ball control, and it doesn’t matter if the ball is going 60 miles an hour or 120 miles an hour. If you can hit the spot, then you gradually increase the speed of the shot. I don’t believe in the Andre Agassi “hit it as hard as you can and you’ll get control later” approach. I know that was Andre’s big thing. I’ve got news for you. That doesn’t work. Since he won the 2003 U.S. Open, Roddick’s forehand gradually became a less potent a weapon. What changes did you make there? He was doing what I call the Statue of Liberty forehand where he doesn’t release his wrist like Gonzalez or Federer or Nadal. When you do that, you start blocking it. He has to become much softer with his arm, which will become more like a whip, so he can control the ball flight. But, if you grab the racket [tightly] like you’re holding a life jacket and you don’t release the head, with these powerful rackets, you will hit the fence, especially when you’re hitting the ball 100 miles an hour. So he has worked a lot on softening his arm and playing a lot more stressless. Andy lost the way he hit the forehand when he was 19 years old. Now he’s gone back to the way he hit it when he was 19 years old and attacking forehands at the right times and confidently. Now he creates spin from the backcourt and hits it flatter on the short ball. For years, U.S. Davis Cup captain Patrick McEnroe and other experts have urged Roddick to come to net more. In the Wimbledon final, Roddick approached net 69 times, 10 more than Federer, and won a respectable 61 percent of those points (though he missed a pivotal high backhand volley on set point in the second set tiebreaker). Please talk about this major improvement in Roddick’s game. To improve any stroke, you have to practice a lot. And after you practice it, you have to implement it in playing situations. Andy is not afraid to expose himself to failure. And that’s a big thing in this game. You have to do it in match situations, not just in practice. And you have to have a high belief in yourself. When you do make mistakes, and we talk about this all the time, you understand that you made the right play, [but] you just didn’t execute that well. The next step is to go back on the practice court and do that a lot, and keep doing the right thing on the right ball during a match. Then confidence will come when you start executing those shots, as you play more matches. But you have to capitalize on attackable shots, especially when you’re the best server in the game. He kept Federer off balance in the Wimbledon final. His game is just starting to get a lot better. There is much more dimension to it. In retrospect, do you think Roddick would have had a much more successful career if you had coached him for the past eight years, rather than only for the past nine months? I’m not one of these guys who looks back at anything. This year has been a success, a good story. During the last nine months I’m thrilled how well he has absorbed information and worked so hard. He’s in the physical prime of his career right now. In those earlier years, I don’t think he would have been ready for me. Mentally, I don’t think Andy would have been ready to absorb my viewpoint of what it would take to get to that level he wanted to attain. Sometimes people who are younger think they know it all. Until a player is ready to listen, it’s going to be very, very difficult to coach someone. But don’t coaches have to be tough sometimes and insist on certain things, such as when Roddick used to position himself ten feet behind the baseline? Absolutely, I’m not going to agree with things that don’t work. You can insist all you want, but there is a balance there. Insisting, wanting, demanding are all overrated when it comes to coaching. You have to know when and where to do that. That is something that is 30 years in the making for me. But if the individual is not willing to absorb the information for whatever reason, ego or something else, it’s not going to be used right. I wait more often than not to do this. And that’s maybe why I’ve been coaching older players when they get caught in a rut and they had been great, and then they wonder what happened. Then they are open to information and are more of a sponge to absorb it. In terms of Grand Slam singles titles and high rankings, the current generation of Roddick, Blake, Fish, Ginepri and Dent has been the least successful in U.S. men’s history. Why was this group unable to achieve that much? I not quite sure of the answer to that. Some of these players were overweight. That leads to injuries and bad backs. We have two young guys right now going down to Austin [Texas] next week to train with Andy. It kind of opens their eyes a little bit. A lot of guys [who’ve already done this] don’t come back because of how hard pro players work. But that’s what they need to open their eyes to understand what it really takes. Maybe the generation you just said didn’t understand that. Maybe they were thinking about their picture in Tennis magazine without really having earned it. I noticed that, too. Some guys don’t put in the proper work. Dent weighed 215 and dropped 20 pounds and then said he felt better when he weighed 215. When you hear that answer, you know they haven’t looked in the mirror. That’s exactly the conversation I had with Andy. And if you don’t want to do it, then don’t call me, because I can’t help you. I told Andy at the beginning, “If you think I’m the Shell Answer Man and I’m going to tell you three things and then you’re going to be a better tennis player, no, it doesn’t work that way. No, it’s about you. You have to change your mentality and your habits.” I played on the pro tour for 10 years. I know what it takes to get the most out of yourself to attain your goals. I think it scares a lot of these guys to look in the mirror and to try to get the most out of their ability because it’s hard work. It’s painful. It’s a commitment. It takes an internal drive, and a lot of these guys like it easy, and it’s not easy. Which method of developing young talent is better − tennis academies which feature mass teaching or individual instruction? And why? I’m not an academy guy. I think it’s all crap. You get 600 guys down there, and you hope one or two diamonds come out of the jumble. It’s an individual game. There’s an individual way of doing things, depending on their assets. I’m more attuned to knowing the style you want each to play and then giving the student the best training individually. I’m not opposed to six or seven or eight guys working with a couple coaches. But when you get to 500 or 600 kids at an academy, you can get lost really quickly. I think it’s a waste of money. I’d rather have the young player have a normal life, a la Sam Querrey, and the way he did it and go to a normal school. When you’re young, you’re not able to absorb that type of training. People think the younger the better, and let’s practice and train six hours a day. But these kids can’t do that. If the training is right, they don’t need that. It’s too much, and it’s overload. That’s why most of these kids get overloaded and quit because they can’t handle it mentally or physically. Andy won his only major title at the U.S. Open in 2003 and reached the final there in 2006. At last year’s Open he said, “One thing I’ve said I have on 95 percent of the players in this tournament is I’m totally comfortable playing in that atmosphere [in Arthur Ashe Stadium].” All things considered, how do you rate Andy’s chances of winning the U.S. Open in September? Very good, because he plays every match on that center court, the Arthur Ashe Stadium court, and a lot of them are at night, except that last Saturday [for the semis]. That helps his serve a lot. He feels very comfortable there. He loves the energy there. He’s a big-match player. He’s been in huge Davis Cup ties with that energy. He comes from that type of background. He gets motivated, stimulated to be in that arena. He knows, after that Wimbledon final, he’s a better tennis player now, not just a one-dimensional player with only a serve and a forehand. That’s something we continuously work on. Every day he focuses his intensity and energy on those things he doesn’t do that well. Andy will be very comfortable at the Open this year, and he’s saying all the right things about having a shot at winning. Your comments are welcome. Let us know what you think about Paul Fein's article by emailing us here at TennisOne.
Paul Fein Paul Fein, a USPTA teaching pro and former top 10-ranked New England men’s open player, has won more than 20 writing awards. His 2002 book, Tennis Confidential: Today’s Greatest Players, Matches, and Controversies, published by Brassey’s, Inc., was listed No. 1 among tennis books by Amazon.com and BN.com. Information about the book and how to order it can be found at www.tennisconfidential.com. His second book, You Can Quote Me on That: Greatest Tennis Quips, Insights, and Zingers, was published by Potomac Books, Inc. (formerly Brassey’s, Inc.) in 2005 and was listed No. 1 among tennis books by Amazon.com and BN.com. For more information, visit www.tennisquotes.com. His third book, Tennis Confidential II: More of Today's Greatest Players, Matches, and Controversies, was published April 28, 2008 and was featured on the home page of Amazon.com and has been listed No. 1 among tennis books there since April 1, 2008. Paul recently received a 1st Prize award and two 2nd Prize awards for his tennis articles in the 2007 United States Tennis Writers' Association writing contest. It was his sixth 1st Prize award in the USTWA writing contest. |
