THE CONTINENTAL GRIP SAGA

During the Britannia Amritraj Tennis Scheme (BAT) days in India it was really difficult sometimes working with the Amritraj family in that they were very old school regarding tennis.  What had worked for them in their rise to the top would work again was their philosophy.  One story that caused quite a headache at the time was the Continental Grip Saga

Every so often one of the Amritraj brothers Anand, Vijay or Ashok would return to India to visit their parents.  This would always mean a visit to the BAT program to see the progress of the boys and most of the time they would want to hit with them.  This hitting session would be more in the realm of a workout for the brothers after their long flight from the US rather than a “coaching session” This was fine with me because there is nothing worse than someone coming in with no knowledge of the program and the topics we were working on, and try to “coach” the team.  However it did happen sometimes.

On one occasion we were drilling players on approaching the net and finishing the point with a volley.  Our coach was feeding a short, low ball so that the player could approach the net and play the volley.

In the middle of the drill the Amritraj Mercedes pulled into the complex and out stepped Anand Amritraj and his mother.  They must have seen the drill as they drove up and were obviously irritated by the time they got out of the car.  I was summoned and immediately asked “what is this Paul”?  I wasn’t completely sure what the question meant but knew they were not happy so I asked how they would like the drill to change.  Mrs. Amritraj said that she would like to see the ball fed deeper and faster, obviously at odds with our desire for the players to experience a realistic situation.  We wouldn’t want them to come to net on a deep, fast ball like that anyway!  But the Amritraj family were not used to being challenged on any topic and it would have been pointless to do so now so I walked to the fence and instructed the coach involved in the drill to feed the ball fast and deep to the baseline.  He gave me a strange glance but knew something was up.

I will always remember the look on the face of the player receiving the first ball at the baseline.  He was still looking for the “short approach shot” to take him to the net. When the first feed almost hit him on the foot he looked up at the coach with a stunned look of disbelief, a look asking “how am I supposed to approach on that ball”?

This was the type of situations that we had to put up with and it happened all the time.  The BAT program achieved great results over the years because of the coaches and their ability to get the job done despite the nonsense around them.

Some months later we had a visit from Vijay Amritraj.  As he was standing at courtside watching the boys hitting he asked me “What grips are they using”, to which I replied that western and semi western grips were mostly being used.  In Vijay’s opinion they would be hitting the ball a lot better if they were using continental grips.  I mentioned that no player in the top ten (at that time) used a continental grip and he asked me to name which players didn’t use continental grips.  I began to name the top ten from number one to number ten but was stopped at about number four.  “You’re naming exceptions” he said, to which I replied as politely as possible “I’m naming the top ten”.   It was no use, Vijay began to insist that the boys all change their grips to continental grips!

I remember walking home from practice that night totally confused with how I would handle this new dilemma.  To change the boys to continental grips would ruin their games, and in some cases it would be doubtful if most of them could ever play at their usual high level again.  What was I to do?  Late that night I even thought of calling Peter Burwash, founder of our company.  Perhaps he had enough authority to get Vijay to see sense.

By the morning I was still unsure how to approach this new crisis.  I knew that changing the grips of players at this level would virtually ruin their games for good.  I also knew that Vijay would turn up for the afternoon session and expect to see some progress with the new grip changes.

The afternoon session arrived and as I stood the boys in front of me to make the Change of Grip Announcement I suddenly had an idea.  I knew that a change of grip would mean a lack of control for the boys.  This lack of control would be made even worse if they tried to hit harder, and would result in horrendous mistakes.  We would give Vijay his continental grips after all!

When Vijay finally arrived at practice the boys were already out hitting groundstrokes with their new grips.  It wasn’t pretty… balls were flying everywhere, particularly skyward which happens because the new grips present the racquetface open on contact with the ball.  The faster you hit, the higher the ball goes, some were even landing on the road outside the courts!

After a few moments Vijay enquired why the boys were hitting so poorly.  I put on my calmest voice to say that it was nothing to worry about, merely the result of changing from their normal grips to the new continental grips.  “How long do you think it will take them to adjust to the new grips”? asked Vijay.  Again, as calm as could be I replied “It shouldn’t take that long, perhaps 3-4 months”.  There was silence, long silence.  Vijay asked “Do they have tournaments coming up”?  I was winning!  “There are some tournaments next week” I said.  Vijay had seen enough, he asked me to make the grip changes in small increments and over time.  I knew this would be the end of the continental grip saga.  Vijay wanted results from the boys and this was going to interfere with results.

Continental Grips were never mentioned again.