Spending the week at Good to Great Tennis Academy again this week. This week im working with Borna Dewald from Croatia and his personal coach Ivan, as well as Rikard Rååd from Sweden and his coaches from the academy Martin Öhrman and Robin Brage. After many years coaching i really like working in a team like that. In the beginning i was not really used to it and I’m sure i was perhaps stepping on the personal coaches feet a few times without thinking twice. Only due to not enough experience. Today i have a much deeper understanding on how to work with the player and the coach together. You really need an understanding about the background before you start working together. What are the player working on. What are his weakness and strengths. How is his mentality etc. At the same time you wanna give inputs on what you see with your own eyes, but today i know that it is much better if I’m communicating with the coach more then the player itself. If you connect the right way you can excel quite good when having the opportunity to work like that. You can share things you see the player if the interaction is the right. Today we have a great day lined up for the boys also integrating the fitness coach Viktor in the session in the morning.
We had a group of players playing the Brittish Futures last weeks. The report is really not nice to hear. Minimal amount of practice courts if any at all. The price for accommodation was around 70 punds per night or 55 pounds for sharing the room. You have to be there around 8-9 days with preparation. Then you also have to eat. The winner cashed in a little bit over 1000 pound for the win BEFORE tax was deducted. Its not a holistic situation really. I heard stories about players that brought the bags to the tennis center just in case they lost so that they could fly out straight away before if they lost.
The tennis family need to act on the grassroots. Its a great start to raise the prize money at Future level a little bit but more needs to be done.
*** Stan is playing Dubai this week. Up against Stakhovsky, again! Tough draw. Will try to watch in tuesday night.
Have a great week!
//Magnus
