MARTINA HINGIS THE SWISS MISS

In 2005 Martina Hingis decided to make a come-back to professional tennis.  Martina had walked away from tennis in 2002 after a career that saw her rise to number 1 in the rankings and stay there for a total of 206 weeks. She captured 15 Grand Slam titles which included 5 singles, 9 women’s doubles and 1 mixed doubles titles.

Martina’s first match back was going to be the Pattaya Women’s Open, held annually in the seaside resort town of Pattaya, Thailand.  The tournament is owned and run by an old friend of mine Geoffrey Rowe.  Geoffrey has been running women’s events in Thailand for many years and Thai tennis owes him a huge debt of thanks.  It was his wild card into the Pattaya Women’s Open that gave Tamarine Tanasugarn her big opportunity to break into the WTA Tour.  Ironically “Tami” under-performed in Pattaya for many years after her break through there, perhaps due to the pressure of playing in front of her Thai fans.

Each year Geoffrey asked me to help with sparring partners for the women participants.  Hingis was scheduled to arrive into Pattaya 10 days early in order to prepare. 

I took two male players with me to Pattaya, Alex Korch, a Canadian who had been training with me for the past few months, and Anuwat Dalodom, a Thai player who was in his last year as a junior.

The first training session certainly made it clear this was not going to be like any other training session we had done before.  There were television crews all the way from Europe filming her every move. Throughout the week we changed courts often and everywhere we went in Pattaya there were crowds of spectators watching our practise. 

I had also allowed my daughter, Isabella, to sit and watch at courtside. Early into the practice Isabella had made a noise that drew the attention of Martina’s mother Melanie. Melanie Molitorova was on-court for every session and she made it clear that there was to be no distractions at courtside during practice sessions. 

On-court Martina was the consummate professional, focused and hard working.  It was a great opportunity for me to see her game up close and to talk to her about her game.  It was obvious that Martina’s mother had a big part to play in getting her to the top.

Martina was drawn to play the German, Marlene Weingartner in a first round evening match of the tournament and a capacity crowd gathered to watch.  

When the match started Martina was clearly the better player and raced away to a handy lead in the first set.  What happened next was one of the most bizarre incidents I have ever witnessed in my many years of watching tennis.  

During a point Weingartner popped up a high defensive lob and Martina hit a confident smash to finish the point.  However the smash hit the courtside scoreboard, sending the metal letters and numbers flying in all directions.  

Play stopped while the young Thai ball-boy replaced the metal plates on which the letters are painted.  Unfortunately the ball boy began struggling with the surname Weingartner and made several failed attempts to get the name right, much to the amusement of the large crowd.  By the time the ball-boy had made his fifth attempt at Weingartner  (without success), the crowd were hooting with laughter.

The only person not laughing was Marlene Weingartner.  She was being beaten badly in the match by Martina Hingis and now even her name was receiving ridicule from the crowd. She must have felt very disrespected!

When the match finally resumed Weingartner began to go for her shots.  She was hitting everything as hard as she could and everything was going in.  She seemed to have overcome her slow, hesitant start and was now playing like someone who not only thought she was worthy to be on the same court as Martine, but should also win the match!

Marlene Weingartner went on to win the set and the match thanks to some old fashioned controlled aggressive anger.  The Hingis come-back had suffered a major set back.

Despite her loss in the Pattaya Women’s Open Hingis did go on to win 3 more singles titles before retiring again a few years later.  Alex, Anuwat and I were privileged to spend time with her on and off court during her time in Pattaya. 

THE TIN MAN AND TENNIS ON MAUI

A swim and lunch between lessons on Maui, HI 1986

One of my favorite teaching experiences was the time I taught on Maui in 1986.  There is something magical about Maui.  I was based at The Royal Lahaina Hotel, an older, well established property that had a superb tennis facility, including 7 hard courts and a centre court.  The main hotel building was situated down near the beach, with the tennis courts set back towards the main road.  As the “new boy” at the resort I worked hard with the few students that took lessons in the beginning and within a short time as that number grew, I was comfortable with the number of lessons that came my way and began to explore the island more.

After morning sessions I would join another pro from the resort and go snorkeling around the rocks and boats moored in the picturesque bays.  In the evenings we would do the rounds of the hotel nightclubs.  I watched as the other tennis pros would engage in conversation with the young single women and produce their business cards stating that they were the Tennis Pro at a nearby resort.  This inevitably had a positive effect on the young ladies!

This time spent at The Royal Lahaina during my early days as a tennis professional was invaluable. It gave me a chance to gain experience and to hone my skills on a wide variety of students.  I got to observe more experienced professionals working with players and watched how they analyzed each player and the drills they used to work on solutions. 

One day the word went out that Dick Sargent and his wife were arriving into the resort and that they usually liked to play some tennis during their previous stays.  Dick had been Peter Ueberroth’s right hand man during the organization and running of the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Olympics .

After a few days of tennis at the resort Dick called two friends back in LA to join him on Maui for tennis.  I was given the job of coaching the new guests during their stay.  Jack Haley Junior was a Director and Producer from Hollywood and his father, also named Jack Haley, had played the part of the Tin Man in the iconic movie “The Wizard of Oz”. I was told the lesson had to be tailored so that it didn’t involve too much movement as both the Haley’s were part time players at best.

I decided to work with them on developing feel for contact. After a short warm-up to establish their level I began by feeding balls to them and instructing them to either hit the ball late or early.   Once a player has felt the two extreme contact points of late and early, everything in-between is easier. They have an enhanced awareness of how to direct the ball down the line and crosscourt. It was still tough getting the results I was looking for but I put that down to their inexperience.

I felt the lesson went well but the next day I was called to the office of the Head Pro, Sandy Hastings, and asked what I had worked on with the Haley’s?  Sandy had joined the Haley’s for dinner the night before and had asked them how the lesson with Paul had gone.  It seems they were delighted and had nothing but praise for the lesson.  There was however one thing that had confused them at the time… I had kept asking them to hit the ball lighter.  Lighter, lighter I kept repeating.  It suddenly dawned on me that while I had been asking them to hit the ball LATER, my Kiwi accent had sounded to them like I was asking them to hit LIGHTER!

I was the butt of many jokes around the hotel for the remainder of my stay on Maui but I took it in good spirits and still fondly remember my lesson with the son of the Tin Man and my time on Maui.

TUTU FROM ASSAM, INDIA

Anirban Baruah playing at Wimbledon 1993

Anirban Baruah was a member of the Britannia Amritraj Tennis Scheme (BAT) back in the 1990’s.  His nickname was Tutu and when I arrived in Madras in 1990 to coach the team he had already been in the team for one year. Tutu was very focused on being a great player and at 15 years old had already gained 5 computer points on the men’s rankings.  Another extremely dedicated player in the team at that time was Leander Paes who is still a top ranked doubles player today.  Together Tutu and Leander would wake at 3:30am and go through a routine of sit-ups and press-ups by candle light, after which they would  return to bed for a brief sleep, before waking again for morning practice at 5:30am.

Tutu had many quirks that made him unique.  He would not eat on Tuesdays, something that caused him physical problems during our training.  But nothing would stop him from giving 100% in every practice session and he was one of the hardest working players I have ever coached. At one tournament in Brunei, Tutu had a particularly long match at the hottest time of the day.  After the match we were walking to the bus for the ride home when Tutu began cramping.  His whole body was locked in a terrible knot and stayed that way for several hours.

This work ethic and determination paid off.  Tutu began to do very well in the ITF tournaments throughout Asia and eventually reached a ranking of 25 in the world.  This meant he could compete in Grand Slams and the first Grand Slam he played was the Australian Open. I was a bit disappointed that he lost in the first round that year and when he returned I asked him what had happened.  He replied that his opponent was very good and began to describe his opponent as a left hander with a pony tail.  He had played Marcelo Rios in the first round but I hadn’t heard of Rios at that time and bluntly told Tutu that in the future he needed to find a way to win.

Our relationship became very close.  I was able to give Tutu tactics for matches knowing that Tutu would follow them to the letter.  A well known story around the junior circuit during that time concerned an ITF trip we both made to Singapore.  After a match I asked Tutu to go for a run on the running track next to the tennis complex.  Much later, when it was time to leave the courts I couldn’t find Tutu.  I looked everywhere and eventually went across to the running track to see if he was still there.  With much effort I was able to spot him still running around the track in the darkness.  I should have known that if I asked Tutu to run I would need to also tell him to stop!

He later gained a tennis scholarship and has since settled in the U.S.  He still calls me from time to time and we talk about our trips together and the matches he played. Tutu was one of those special players whose commitment and willingness to improve inspired me to be a better coach.

INTREPID & TENNIS WITH THE KING OF THAILAND

I had turned up early in the morning at the Siam Inter-Continental partly because I wanted to be mentally prepared before starting the Volvo Tennis Clinic and partly because the gardens at the back of the hotel were a peaceful oasis in the heart of Bangkok.  This morning seemed like all the others, but I wasn’t to know that it had the potential to be a life changer.

On this particular morning I was approached by an elderly foreign man who I had noticed watching the clinics with great interest each morning.  He was a guest in the hotel and we quickly struck up a conversation.  He explained that he was in Thailand as a guest of the King of Thailand and was gathering information in preparation to write a book on the Kings many projects throughout Thailand. He explained that he would usually stay in the palace grounds whenever he visited Thailand as a guest of the King and Queen but on this occasion was staying at the hotel.   

The man’s name was William Stevenson and he had already written several very successful books, the most well known of them being “A Man Called Intrepid” which was published in 1976 and was later made into a movie of the same name. I also met his wife Monika Jensen-Stevenson a former producer of the CBS current affairs television program “60 Minutes”. 

Each morning we would talk, either before the clinic started or after I had finished and each evening he would have dinner with the King and Queen of Thailand.  One morning he said that he had mentioned my tennis clinics to the King the previous evening and that the King was very interested in our project that took tennis to hundreds of Thai children each year.  Then, almost as an afterthought he asked me if I would be interested in hitting some balls with the King!  If you have ever visited Thailand you would know that the King of Thailand is treated with enormous respect and has an almost god-like stature throughout the country.  I think my reply was something like “you tell the King that if he wants to hit some balls I’ll be there”.  That day I floated home in a daze, William Stevenson was going to ask the King if he wanted to hit balls with me in the Palace!

The next morning William Stevenson was down at the courts early. As we talked I waited for a hint as to whether the topic of me hitting with the King had been mentioned at dinner the previous evening.  It had, and the King wanted to thank me for the offer but had to follow Palace protocol which made it virtually impossible for him to have direct contact with someone from outside the Palace.

Although I never got the opportunity to meet the King on a tennis court, William Stevenson had made sure that he was aware of whom I was and the work I was doing.  I was very grateful to have met William and to be the topic of conversation at the Kings dinning table for a short time.

THE ADVENTURES OF AN ALIEN IN CHINA: 1988

 In 1988 China was a very different place to what you encounter today.  Many mainland Chinese had never seen a foreign person before and merely walking the street created a minor public disturbance.  I was invited to coach the Chinese National Junior Team in 1988 and the program required me to train a selected group of 4 boys and 4 girls within China, and later take them to ITF tournaments in Jakarta, Hong Kong and finish back in China.

I trained the players for 4 weeks just a few miles inside the border from Macao.  Two wealthy Hong Kong businessmen had built a golf course on the outskirts of Zhongshan and we trained on the tennis courts at the Zhongshan Hotsprings Resort. 

The players also traveled to Wuhan and represented their provinces over one week of competition.  I traveled with them and watched them compete against many of the best players in China.  I had to stay in a separate hotel and walked to the courts each day.  Those short walks to the courts would attract a group of followers, sometimes as many as 10 people.  On one occasion I had to enter an electrical shop to escape the followers.  It was a little intimidating when the followers came into the shop also!

For someone like me who likes their privacy China back then was tough.  The team and I had traveled to Guangzhou and arrived after midnight.  We stayed in what seemed like an old university, very much like Harry Potters’ Hogwarts School.  In the morning we came down to the main dinning hall for breakfast and there must have been 300 athletes from a variety of sports all seated at long tables.  As soon as I came into the hall everyone stopped eating.  Every head turned to look at the strange foreigner. When I sat down people on the far side of the hall began to stand in order to get a better view.  I had only just begun to master eating with chopsticks and I was really put to the test that morning under the watchful eye of those Chinese athletes.

I was sitting outside a train station during a break on a trip back from Wuhan when I felt someone watching me.  I looked up from my book at a mother and her small son watching me intently. The small boy was holding a can of Coke.  Suddenly, and without warning the child threw the can at me, hitting me on the shoulder.  I looked at the mother, waiting for her reaction.  None came; I was the monkey at the zoo!

When we toured to Jakarta and Hong Kong we created quite a stir within the local Chinese communities in each city. Many of the elderly Chinese businessmen who had fled China when they were young would invite us to dinner in the evenings where we had to endure 10 course meals.  Eventually I had to decline these invitations as the players where beginning to gain weight from those dinners and the “all you can eat” buffets at our hotel we were staying.

During our ITF tour a Chinese government official was sent with us to make sure the players didn’t defect.  He would hand out the passports to players before going through immigration, and collected them again on the other side.  One day during our stay in Jakarta he disappeared for 8 hours, nobody knew where he had gone or when he would be back.  Late in the evening he returned to the hotel, obviously distressed and looking as if he had been walking the whole day.  I’m sure he had attempted to defect himself but after hours of walking had realized it wasn’t going to be that easy.

I really enjoyed my experience with the Chinese team and can look back with pride that I was one of the first overseas coaches of any sport to have the opportunity to work there.  Within the next 20 years China will be a real force on the professional tennis scene and I will have been part of the early development.