TENNIS COACH FIGHTS WITH BLACK BEAR

The team of Sharad Kohli, Ameya Chandravakar, Paul Dale, Zubin Engineer and Vikrant Chadha

It was always necessary to have a local coach attached to the tennis program in India.  Many times getting things done was impossible for a foreigner and we needed the “expertise” of a local.  At the Britannia Amritraj Tennis Scheme in the early 1990s this person was Zubin Engineer.  Zubin came into the program around the same time as I arrived.  What he lacked in playing ability he made up for with his commitment to the boys and the program and very soon he was an integral part of the team. 

He would sometimes travel to tournaments in India with the boys and go to extraordinary lengths to make sure the boys were looked after.  On one trip he returned to Madras from a two-day day train journey having traveled back in the carriage reserved for stock!  Tickets had been impossible to acquire so he and the players had sat in the straw beside the animals. During his first few nights back home in Madras blood ran from his mouth as he slept on his side.  A visit to the doctor revealed that he had developed a stomach ulcer from the stress of the trip.

On a trip to Lucknow once the train had just departed Madras Station and everyone was settling in for the arduous two day journey. About 30 minutes from Madras Zubin approached me, his face white with anguish. He had lost the bag containing the money for the entire trip!  If you have never been onboard a 4^th clathe ss, non-air-conditioned carriage in India you can’t imagine the chaos.  People and bags are everywhere.  Finding an elephant would be difficult but trying to find a small bag with thousands of rupees would be almost impossible.  Zubin and I starting walking through the carriages (were we even heading in the correct direction?).  About 5 carriages into our search I noticed a guy sleeping with a bag poking out of his pillow.  I called Zubin over and pointed at the bag.  The relief in his face told me we had our bag back!

Most Zubin stories however were more humorous.  On another trip away from Madras, Zubin and the boys would cut through the local zoo in the mornings on their way to the tournament venue.  This was the best time to see the zoo because it was not open to the public yet and Zubin’s team had the whole zoo to themselves! Each morning they would enjoy their detour and eventually got to know the animals quite well.  There was a huge black bear that would always be sitting at the fence watching them walk by.  Most impressive was the huge claws of the bear, which could be clearly seen wrapped around the metal bars.

One morning our team of tennis players stopped to examine the bear a little closer. Zubin had an idea; he took out one of the tennis racquets from its bag and tapped the bear on the claw. No response from the bear.  Zubin tapped some more. Suddenly, and as calm as you like, the bear trapped the head of the racquet with his claw.  Zubin pulled the racquet to free it but the bear held on.  Most annoying was the fact that the harder Zubin pulled the more calmly the bear held on.  Several of the boys held Zubin around the waist and pulled in unison. Still the bear held on.  This scene continued for several minutes, Zubin and the boys trying to release the racquet from the bear in the early hours of the morning in the deserted zoo. Finally, more through boredom than anything the humans had done, the bear released the racquet. 

I often wondered what the zoo keeper would have thought if he had arrived at work that morning and found the bear holding onto an expensive $200 tennis racquet!

FUN WITH THE LANGUAGE & THE THAI NATIONAL ANTHEM STORY

Girl holding a donation box in a Bangkok mall

The huge billboard on the expressway to Bangkok’s old Don Muang airport always made me chuckle.  I could picture the Thai workers diligently putting it up in the hot sun, but not really knowing too much about its message.  The picture was of a muscular guy standing proudly in his underwear, six pack tensed and with the caption below reading “MEN  SUNDERWEAR”. 

For several years I entered my apartment block where a sign on the front door asked those who entered to be “QUITE PLEASE”.  This was a sign brought from a business supply store and I can only imagine that several thousand of these erroneous signs were sold around Thailand. 

I often wonder why many of these businesses didn’t have the English checked before putting signs up in public, like the restaurant near my home with the street sign out front saying “BOND STEET STAEK HOUSE” and the donation box for stray street dogs announcing “MEN’S BEST FRIENDS NEED HELPS”. 

Another donation box I saw recently in a local department store asked people to “DONATE TO THE MENTALLY RETARDED”!

Some advertisements can be so politically in-correct as to be off the charts.  Like the advertisement in the back of a motor-rickshaw in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.  Some entrepreneurial people had got their hands on discarded rocket launchers from the war and created a unique business.  The sign in the rickshaw read “ROCKET LAUNCHER FIRING RANGE: YOUR CHOICE OF TARGET, CHICKENS OR COWS”.  I only hope the cow at least had a chance to run away.

Some food menu’s can really make you think twice or at least consider what you are about to eat.  The “NOODLES (THICKEN SOUP)” sounds tasty but may have been tough to swallow.  

For years my name appeared in Davis Cup programs and on my team tracksuit as Pual Dale.

But the laughs can happen both ways.  I have also had my share of embarrassing gaffs with the Thai language.  

I was presenting tennis awards to a large group of young players once and announced a girls name incorrectly.  As soon as I said her name I saw a horrified look descend over the entire gathering.  Instead of pronouncing her name correctly I had mixed my tones up (Thai is a tonal language) and instead of saying her name I had described the act a lowering a coffin into a grave.  Not a good thing in ghost sensitive Thailand!

I also got things horribly wrong many years ago when I was learning to speak Thai.  I was particularly keen to learn the Thai National Anthem so that I could sing along with my players at the opening of International tennis events.  

My wife taught me The Thai National anthem which I was able to memorize ok, but I didn’t know the meaning of the words.  

The first chance I got to actually perform the song to a live audience was in Pakistan for Davis Cup.  Both teams were assembled along one service line and the national anthems were played while the crowd stood silently as a mark of respect.  As the Thai National anthem started up I was pretty confident I could go through the whole song without a problem.  I could also sense that some members of the crowd were watching me to see whether or not this foreign coach could speak Thai or knew the words to the national anthem. 

I began to sing but immediately realized the words I was singing were not the same as the rest of the team.  The player to my right< Narathorn Srichaphan,  gave me a sideways glance which caused me to stop singing.  

It turned out that my wife had taught me the words to a children’s nursery song which went something like “Chang, chang, chang, chang, chang, nong koey hen chang lue plaow”? This roughly translates into “Elephant, elephant, elephant, elephant, elephant, young boy have you seen an elephant before”? Very embarrassing at the time!

So, while I see Thais' butchering the English language all the time I think back to my embarrassing  first attempt at the Thai National anthem knowing that it's not an easy think to learn a second language! 

SEA GAMES: EPIC DOUBLES ENCOUNTERS

The 1995 Thai SEA Games Men's Team, Chiang Mai, Thailand

The South East Asian (SEA) Games are held every two years and are fiercely contested by countries within the region.  Countries such as Thailand, The Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Laos, Singapore and Myanmar compete in a wide range of events, including tennis.  It’s a South East Asian version of the Olympics and without the bigger countries participating it gives the smaller, emerging countries a chance to shine and to gauge whether they are improving. 

I first captained the Thai team in 1989 when the SEA Games were held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Of the 7 gold medals available in the tennis competition we picked up 3, more than any other country that year. The biggest prize was the Men’s Team gold medal, beating the Indonesian Men’s team in the semi-final and The Philippines in the final. The match against Indonesia went down to the final doubles after the two singles rubbers had been split one all.  Indonesia had qualified and played in the Davis Cup World Group that year and gave a really good account of themselves against Germany which included Becker and Stich, both eventual Wimbledon Champions.

The doubles against Indonesia went down to the deciding third set and both teams were on serve at 3-4 in favor of the Thai’s. I was becoming concerned that at the end of every point the Indonesian team were finishing closer to the net.  This meant that the Indonesians were beginning to dominate the net exchanges and would therefore be more likely to break serve in the deciding set before we would. At the changeover I decided to ask Wittaya Samret, our doubles specialist, to attack the return of serve down the line as forcefully as possible.  I had a lot of faith in Wittaya and sometimes players at this level only need to be told what to do and they will find a way to do it.   

Moments before his first attempt at returning serve Wittaya looked over at me for reassurance.  I gave him a confident nod and tried to look like I only expected a positive outcome.  The first serve landed in deep and bounced high. Wittaya ran around his backhand and hit the biggest forehand of his life, the ball passing the player at net so fast he never had a chance. Wittaya looked at me exhilarated by what he had done; I nodded once again with my poker face on.  The Indonesian at net gave us both a sarcastic look as if to say “that was just luck, you could never do that again”. We played a good point on the other side and the score was 15-30, Wittaya to return again.  This time the server went to Wittaya’s forehand sensing that Wittaya would be expecting another serve to his backhand and try to run around it again.  Wittaya was too experienced for that, again hitting the return as hard as he could at the Indonesian net man.  Again another sizzling winner that almost cost the Indonesian his life!  We broke serve that game and those two crucial returns had put us through to the final where we eventually beat The Philippines for the Team Gold.

I captained Thailand again in the SEA Games held in Chiang Mai in 1995 where we picked up 4 of the possible 7 gold medals, and helped Thailand capture another 4 gold’s in the Brunei SEA Games in 1997.  Brunei saw the emergence of Paradorn Srichaphan and Danai Udomchoke into senior national teams but I will remember Brunei for another doubles match against our old foes Indonesia.  Once again it was one rubber all and the doubles would decide who would win the Team gold.

It would have been like any other Thailand versus Indonesia SEA Games encounter but for one thing, the centre court was full of Thai and Indonesian laborers who were living in Brunei supply cheap labour for the building of roads and to work on construction sites.  They had been given a few days off work to watch the SEA Games and few would have witnessed a real tennis match in their lives.  Few would have bothered to watch this one either if it wasn’t for the Srichaphan brothers Thanakorn, Narathorn and Paradorn who come from the same area of Thailand as them, the North East. 

The noise between points and sometimes during points was deafening.  The Thai part of the crowd were getting the better of the Indonesian section of the crowd and several times the Indonesian players stopped play to protest to the umpire but it was impossible to do anything. Narathorn began conversing with the crowd in the unique dialect from the north eastern part of Thailand, fanning the emotions even more.

Thailand won the encounter easily that day and a lot of Thai workers went home happy, proud to be Thai, and with bragging rights on the construction site the next day!

TAMARINE TANASUGARN: THE THAI GIRL THAT COULD

Tamarine Tanasugarn with Paul Dale during the 1995 SEA Games in Chiang Mai, Thailand

The first time I noticed Tamarine Tanasugarn she was on a court with her father practicing early one morning before school.  Her father, Veerachai, would feed her balls to hit from an old bag placed on the ground beside him. There was an intensity about her then at 9 years old that she retains even today. I saw more of her 2 years later when I did a tennis camp in Bangkok for Thailand’s top juniors, and it was obvious to all that she was extremely talented.

There was one funny incident at that camp that could only happen in Thailand.  One morning during the warm-up I called for everyone to organize themselves into single-file and “leapfrog” their way from the back of the line towards the front.  In my innocence I thought that this would be a fun way to warm-up and would be a change from the usual jog around the courts.  There seemed to be a problem however as all the players, “Tammy” included, would all fall off the side of the person in front instead of leap frogging directly over their head. After I stopped them several times to demand more effort and to ask that it be done properly, the players still continued to fall off to the side of the player in front.

Only after some time, and seeing how frustrated I was getting, did an assistant Thai coach explain to me that because all Thai people wore sacred Buddha amulets around their necks, the players were uncomfortable passing themselves over top of a Buddha image.  In Thai culture your feet and lower extremities should never be higher than a Buddha image!

Tammy went on to enjoy an amazing career, reaching a world ranking high of 19 in May of 2002. What has been remarkable is that she has done all this with a game that is built on using the pace of her opponent and reflecting the ball into the corners. With this unique style Tammy has beaten many of the world’s top players including reaching the quarter-finals of Wimbledon in 2008.  Several players have gone on record as saying she is an extremely tricky opponent, particularly on her favorite surface of grass.  During Tammy’s best years Thailand also witnessed the rise of Paradon Srichaphan who became the darling of Thailand for his exploits on the men’s ATP Tour.  This was a great pity as her accomplishments were probably slightly over-looked by the Thai public during that time.

Tammy is now ranked around 100 on the WTA ranking list and will probably retire from professional tennis within the next few years.  She has represented Thailand around the world and been a fine example of the best characteristics of Thailand and its people.  Always smiling, gracious in defeat and never taking herself too seriously, Tammy can be proud of what she has achieved in her tennis career.