Because I was lucky enough to do my share of travelling in the 90s in the professional tour, I was often a witness of the following. One would walk into the players’ lounge area of a Grand Slam event, and it would be very clear to see that the big American names of that time (Agassi, Sampras, Courier, Chang, Williams, Capriati, Davenport and more) would be sitting down in tables with only their own team around them. I am sure that they would say hi to each other in passing, but most likely that was as far as their interactions went. At the same time, it was easy to scout that there was a table where four or five Argentinian players were joint while watching a soccer game on the screen: potentially a table with Spanish players playing some sort of board game, and another cluster of French players laughing and drinking a nice cup of coffee. The problem with this image was that most of the generations that followed these American super stars (including their coaches and families) believed that if that was how these idols went about their days, that would be how it was meant to happen in order to reach those levels of success.
In 2008, Patrick McEnroe took over as the player development leader for the USTA, and one of his first moves was to hire Jose Higueras as his top advisor. While they knew that American tennis was struggling to produce results at the time, and that things most likely would get worse before they started getting better, the entire entity took on a very different and driven approach. Two of the main ideas that came out of that partnership were the need and development of a national USTA teaching and coaching philosophy that needed to be spread across the coaches and academies around the country to evolve in a way in which more and more of the similar things were being worked on, and more and more of the same terminology was being used (at the time, the US had incredible talent from the coaching side, but everyone was shooting on a different direction). The second big component of this new way of doing things was the constant pursuit of a Team USA approach to things. The way the regional camps were being run, the inclusiveness towards the private sector, the activities that would involve the players’ parents, the wording in the materials, the constant celebration of the small victories across the board, and many more steps marked the way in which things were going to be done from then on. The system is not perfect, and it keeps evolving, but it clearly provides a healthier way of doing things.
Our kids are currently being a little spoiled be seeing that there are more American players ranked in the top 20 and the top 100 in the world in both the men and the women’s rankings than any other country in the world. The fact of the matter is that this is a product of a lot of years of not only hard work and hard lessons learned, but of years of true TEAMWORK. The relationships and partnerships between our top players, their coaches, and their mentorship ways towards the up-and-coming American players should help us all learn that we are in fact all in this together, and that if we go about things the right way, everyone involved should be able to get great levels of success.
One of my favorite parts of doing what I do for living is the feeling that I belong to a team (even on an individual game like tennis), and I feel a constant responsibility to make sure that that team/family feeling is consistent with our approach towards the development of better players and people. From my 30 years of coaching experience having spent ten years as part of the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy staff (now IMG), the twenty years at the MAC and the fifteen years as part of the faculty coaching team for USTA, I have a feeling of certainty that this teamwork approach is the best way to strive for success and sustainability for our warriors.
As we begin this new season, let’s try to get rid of that “me against the world” approach, and focus on embracing the idea that what is going to give each player and family the best chance to excel is to LEARN to benefit from all the surroundings. It is never going to be a straight shot, there will be plenty of difficult days, and doubts and fears will always be there, but our team is here to help players and parents (and ourselves) endure the process one day at the time.
See you on the courts!
