NONG AND THE DELICIOUS CURRY PUFFS

“Nong” was a Thai boy named Anuwat Dalodom and he trained and traveled to tournaments with me for two years.  Nong (Pictured wearing cap) came from a well to do family, which in Thailand meant that he would be pampered and would not have to do much for himself.  However he had the biggest, most generous heart and we became very close.

Its worth noting that in Nongs training group there were 4 players whose names were Nong, Dong, Dton and Dtong which, when pronounced correctly in Thai also meant I had to use 4  different tones.  If that wasn’t tough enough for a foreigner Dton and Dtong were identical twins!

Nong also became a very good player. He had an ITF Junior world ranking of 74, was tall for a Thai and had a calm disposition which helped him under pressure.  When Martina Hingis decided to make her comeback to tennis after two years in retirement, her first tournament was in Pattaya, Thailand.  For about 10 days before the tournament Nong and I helped her prepare.  We practiced morning and evening and Nong was the perfect sparring partner, hardly missing a ball and feeding her a consistent pace throughout.

On trips Nong would pack his tennis clothes and equipment but inevitably there would be one bag full of snacks.  This snack bag would contain cartons of dry noodles and packets of chewy dried squid strips.  Nong could live for weeks on noodles and “Squidy” and finding him sitting on his bed bent over a cup of steaming hot noodles was common. He also had a curious habit of taking his mouth to the fork rather than fork to his mouth that I could never correct.

At one tournament in New Delhi, India it was winter time.  The sky in the mornings would be clear, but with the sun only just making it over the distant buildings, temperatures before the matches started were as low as 9 degrees Celsius.  Many of the competitors would assemble near the courts in the morning before the matches, often drinking a hot cup of tea just to keep warm.  Nong and I were staying in the accommodation attached to the stadium so it was a short walk to reach the courts.  On the first morning I had arrived at the courts early and when Nong eventually came up the pathway to the courts I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.  Nong had just showered and his hair was still dripping wet.  He was wearing a light T-shirt, shorts and sandals, hardly suitable for winter mornings!  As we stood together the cold would begin to counter that warm feeling you have after a hot shower and within a short time Nongs’ teeth would be chattering and his lips trembling uncontrollably.  Each morning I would warn him of the risk of catching a cold but he would never listen.

He had started to really enjoy the curry puffs at the small canteen under the stands.  They tasted great and Nong would eat 3-4 curry puffs each morning.  One morning I was waiting near the courts when I noticed an old bicycle propped against a tree. The bicycle had two grubby satchels slung over the back which caught my attention.  To my horror I saw that the satchels contained Nongs Curry Puffs, all jammed together and wrapped individually in a small piece of waxed paper.  The bicycle obviously made its way through the streets of Delhi each morning, through the dust and exhaust fumes, all the way to the tennis stadium… and to Nong.

When Nong arrived that morning I asked him to take a peep inside the satchels on the bicycle and after seeing his beloved Curry Puffs in that condition he never had another Curry Puff on that trip or any subsequent trips. 

THE KILLER CALLED DOI SUTHEP: CHIANG MAI

Running up Doi Suthep Mountain with the Thai Davis Cup Team

Whenever the Thai tennis teams trained for an important event, we often traveled to the northern Thai province of Chiang Mai.  It helped to focus the players by getting away from the distractions of Bangkok and was also ideal because of the opportunity to run up Doi Suthep, the mountain that overlooks Chiang Mai.  It’s a daunting run but always meant that my players were in the best possible shape when competition time came around.

Apart from the regular on-court sessions in Chiang Mai we would conduct an early morning run before breakfast, either a lap of the city or a 5k run part way up Doi Suthep. These morning runs were always competitive and although I would be first on the runs at the beginning of our stints in Chiang Mai, soon the players would be running past me and I would be finishing back in the pack!

Running Doi Suthep was one of the toughest runs I have ever done.  Marina Beach in Chennai, India was difficult because of the length of the beach and the soft sand that made it difficult to get a good footing, but Doi Suthep was tougher.  As you climbed higher up Doi Suthep the air became thinner and the incline steeper.  It was every bit as much a test of character as it was a test of fitness.

I can honestly say that I remember my runs in the various countries I visited with better recall than the matches played there. While in Tel Aviv, Israel I went running through the streets with a woman I was coaching on the tour.  We eventually got lost and as darkness began to fall she began to panic, fearing that we would be stranded miles from our hotel with no way to find our way back. After many wrong turns and numerous stops to ask for directions we eventually did make it back! 

While I was still playing competitive tennis I had a regular Sunday run from the township of Bluff at the southern most tip of New Zealand, to Invercargill.  Someone would drive me to Bluff on a Sunday morning and I would run the 15 miles back home. It seemed to always be either cold, wet or windy, and often all three conditions on the same day was the norm. 

I must have run around Lumpini Park in the centre of Bangkok several hundred times.  It was never boring as the thousands of people in the park kept you motivated with their running styles, unusual running attire and crazy warm up routines.  You had to plan your run so that you finished before 8:00am or started after 6:00pm so that the Thai National Anthem didn’t break your run. The whole park would stand still in respect for the 2-3 minutes and then snap back into action once the music had finished. This ritual is repeated at the same time in parks and government buildings every day throughout Thailand.

But for sheer difficulty Doi Suthep was the toughest. I’m glad I don’t have to do that run anymore.

MY FIRST TRIP TO LONDON 1979

Back in 1979 I had several interests that kept me going.  Tennis of course was my priority but art was a close second.  I was painting oils well enough to be accepted at exhibitions in my province and had exhibited several times.  I was also very keen on learning about the great masters and had a library of books on art which kept me well informed.  I was able to identify artists at a glance and tell the school of painting they belonged to and I still retain that knowledge until today.

So keen was my interest in painting that I decided to travel to England and visit the major galleries in London.  So, during Christmas 1979 I set out for Europe on a flight that would take me first to LA, and onto London.

I spent two nights in LA and stayed at a hotel across the road from the Forum, home of the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team.  It was also overlooking Hollywood Park Raceway (horse racing).  I think it was the first night there that I went across the road to watch the Lakers play the Portland Trail Blazers.  I don’t remember much about the game, I was so far up in the cheap seats that the court was the size of a matchbox; however the goings on around me were enough to entertain.  I do know that the Lakers at that time included Kareem Abdul Jabbar and Magic Johnson

The flight across the Atlantic from LA took the regulation time but by the time the plane got near London’s Heathrow Airport we were told that snow had created a backlog of flights and we had to divert up the Scotland, eventually landing at Penrith Airport and sitting on the runway for close to 3 hours.  Three hours doesn’t sound that much time but coming on the end of a flight from LA most of the passengers were exhausted.  Finally we were given the all clear to take off for London’s Heathrow and once we arrived still had to circle for quite sometime.  The details are fuzzy now, probably because of my tired state at the time but there then came another 3-4 hours of waiting for our bags which according to the airport authorities were delayed because the baggage compartment on the plane was frozen and couldn’t be opened.

When the bags were finally in my hands the next problem was finding transportation into the city, as all transportation was closed due to the weather.  There were no trains running and with the backlog of people trying to get into London from the airport I was in trouble. 

Finally I was able to jump into a private van commuting people into London for cash.  I already had a hotel booking before I left New Zealand and the guy seemed to know where the hotel was.  At last we arrived at the hotel, I paid the van driver and wearily walked up the steps to the front door only to see a notice taped to the window announcing that they had changed address!  My night was just beginning.

I remember standing at the top of the stairs, snow was softly falling and of course it was bitterly cold.  The body however seems to have reserves for times like this and I felt a charge of energy run through my body as I decided to find the new address given on the door and walk through London to find it.  Hell, I was young and this was an adventure!

With the help of my trusty map of London I began the journey and quickly realized that even if I wanted to hail a cab they were all busy taking people to New Years Eve parties and, I imagined, warm homes where their families were waiting.  It soon became apparent that I needed to break my journey in half and try to find the hotel the next day.  For tonight I needed rest badly and started going into every hotel I passed.  Every hotel was full; I couldn’t have landed in London on a worst night!  Finally one hotel took pity on me, the lady behind the counter obviously saw I was in a state, after all I had been on a plane for 33 hours continuously and then spent several more hours getting into London and walking the streets.  I must have looked a sight!

She told me they had one room that was under repair, a window was broken and hadn’t been fixed yet.  I was keen to sleep and convinced her that the room sounded fantastic.  That night I remember turning the TV on and watching a few minutes of England celebrating the New Year, a refreshing breeze swirling over the bed (and the odd snow flake).  When I woke in the morning the TV was still on and the room was even colder than ever but I was in London and my adventure had just begun.  I couldn’t wait!

STORIES AS A DAVIS CUP CAPTAIN

As a tennis coach there can be few experiences that equal sitting in the court as a Davis Cup Captain. You’re an integral part of the drama and at the core of the excitement is the fact that you are communicating directly with the player and therefore participating in the match.

The conditions we experienced in the different countries varied greatly. We were drawn to play Kuwait in an early round of the 1990 Competition during the time of Ramadan, a month of fasting for Muslims around the world.  During the daylight hours you are expected to abstain from drinking and eating which would have been fine if we didn’t have to play the best of five sets in the hot desert sun.  The tie was broadcast locally live on TV and during the changeovers the camera would discreetly pan away from the players and into the crowd, allowing players from both countries to drink water! The timing of our return home was fortunately two weeks before Kuwait was invaded by neighboring Iraq, or we may have been trapped there during the hostilities.

In Iran one year the Thai team was jogging around the tennis complex before a practice session when a horrified grounds man came running to tell us to cover our legs.  It seems it was improper for men to display their legs in public, even playing sport.  On a similar topic we were later shown a far hill with seating for about 6 people, which was the seating used by women to watch the tennis.  It was at least 200 meters up the hill and I guess had something to do with naked men’s legs again.

Crowds play a big part in Davis Cup ties, none more so than in our tie against Sri Lanka also in 1990 when I was lucky to get off the court in one piece.  During the weekend there were 14 over-rules from the local umpire, all going against Thailand! On each overrule I got out of my seat to protest to the neutral ITF referee.  Sometimes the protest was brief but many times a full dispute developed.  In the middle of one particularly heated dispute, with the Sri Lankan crowd chanting obscenities at me, I happened to look up at the Thai section in the crowd and caught the eye of the President of the Thai Tennis Association.  His look was one of “I’m glad you’re out there and not me”!

Having an input in the eventual result of some matches was thrilling; it was like captain and player competing as a duo.  I would use my tactical knowledge and the players would use their physical and technical skills.  Danai Udomchoke was playing an Iranian in Teheran during an opening singles match several years ago.  The local player was built like a bull, huge legs and incredible power in his shots.  Danai on the other-hand could have been mistaken for one of the ball boys.  Despite his small stature Danai was later to reach #79 on the ATP world rankings and is a great player.

I guess the Iranian saw Danai enter the court and could smell victory, after-all his opponent was so small and he had a large group of friends in attendance to witness what would be a comprehensive victory.  The first 2 games went by real fast with the Iranian blasting winners left and right.  Danai looked over at me wondering how to stem the flow of winners.  It also didn’t help that on every winner from the Iranian his friends would bang the tin fence surrounding the centre court in approval. The place was going nuts!

What I did next changed the match almost immediately.  At the next changeover I stood up from my courtside chair and applauded the Iranian as he came to sit down.  This guy was playing the match of his life, in Davis Cup competition and with his friends and family watching on from the stands.  He was literally playing on rocket fuel and now the opposition Captain was acknowledging his superiority! When they returned to the court the Iranian attacked the ball again, only the half-court forehand on the first point completely missed the court hitting the back fence with a loud bang.  On the next point he hit a backhand passing shot into the bottom of the net.  The tide had turned and Danai stormed back to win easily.  For the rest of the match the friends who had been so supportive in the beginning stopped banging the tin fence and fell silent. 

Overall I Captained Thailand 13 times in Davis Cup Competition.  I also Captained Thailand in Federation Cup, Asian Games and South East Asian Games competitions.  But it was the Davis Cup which was special to me and from where many of my best memories come from.

OUR WEEK IN TRIVANDRUM, INDIA

Many of my stories come from the trips I have taken to tennis tournaments around the world.  I have traveled to 24 different countries with a whole range of players.  Each country is different and some really funny things happen on these trips.

My time at the Britannia Amritraj Tennis Scheme also took me to many towns and cities within India.  I particularly enjoyed one trip to the city of Trivandrum in the state of Kerala. Kerala is located in south India and has a wonderful climate and a very peaceful feel about it.  I had made this trip to Trivandrum with a team of 6 boys from our training base in Madras.  We traveled by train and arrived quite late at night.  Anyone who has traveled on trains in India knows the chaos when you arrive at your destination.  Dozens of bag carrier’s hassle for the opportunity to carry your bags for the few rupees you must pay.  Some of these guys balance 2-3 large bags on top of their heads and walk through swarms of people, carts and the inevitable stairways before getting outside the station.

More chaos develops outside the station when you now negotiate for transportation to your hotel.  The difficulty is that you are negotiating a transport fee to a hotel you have never been to before and have no idea the exact distance it is from the station.

When you do finally make it to your hotel you can still be told that there are no rooms available and you must continue to look around the city for other accommodation. Trivandrum was no different on this trip and it was about 1:00am in the morning when we finally got to our two rooms and prepared to get some much needed sleep.

On this occasion I was sharing a room with Bhaskar Chowdury and Anirban Baruah.  We quickly organized our bags, got into bed and turned the light off. What followed next I will remember forever and it has become the source of much laughter whenever our old team gets together.  Laying there in the dark, after a long train journey from Madras we each took our turn saying our goodnights.  When we had finished saying goodnight I let out a audible sigh and said “aah, bed at last”! Suddenly a deafening bang shook the small room and gave each of us a huge fright.  The noise had come from outside and we rushed to our window to see what had happened outside.  We stood looking out the window in disbelief.  Our hotel backed onto the local railway station but not only that, we were directly outside the area where the carriages were shunted together in preparation for their journey. Every ten minutes this enormous collision of carriages took place just outside our window!

After Trivandrum whenever I reached my destination I always checked the view outside my window to see who my neighbors were for the coming week. 

THE SRICHAPHAN FAMILY OF THAILAND

Talking with Paradorn during the filming of "Asian Ace"

When I first arrived in Asia at the start of my tennis coaching career very few Asian players featured on the world tennis scene.  Michael Chang was about to emerge as a top player but he was never really considered a product of Asia.  His parents had left Taiwan for the US many years before and he developed his tennis in the US.  South East Asian countries like Thailand, Indonesia and The Philippines had talented players back then but none that could earn a living on the main tour. 

Within my first few weeks of living in Thailand I remember going to the local tennis centre and watching the Thailand National Championships.  The final was between two eighteen year olds, Woraphol Thongkamchu and Thanakorn Srichaphan.  I was surprised how talented both these guys were. This early exposure to Thai tennis probably planted the seed in my mind that I would one day coach the Thai National teams.  I eventually had a long association with Thai tennis and captained the Thai Davis Cup and Federation Cup teams for several years.

The Srichaphan family was already a prominent feature at local tournaments.  Thanakorn the eldest brother played singles in the Thai Davis Cup Team and was ranked 1 or 2 in the country for many years.  Narathorn the middle brother was already a top ten junior in the world and eventually reached the quarter-finals at junior Wimbledon in 1990.  As Davis Cup Captain I would inevitably select the two Srichaphan brothers for our ties against the other countries.

Paradorn Srichaphan was only six years old when I arrived in Thailand but I followed his progress in the local junior tournaments and he was obviously going to be as successful as his two older brothers. 

Behind the scenes was their father Chanachai Srichaphan who took his three sons to the court every morning before school started.  Chanachai was a tough task master who believed that hard work took you places in life.  He had been a bank clerk in Khon Khaen, nine hours drive north of Bangkok when his eldest son began to have some success in local junior tournaments.  Based on that success he moved his entire family to Bangkok to pursue the tennis dream.  They lived for many years in a hut beside a volley wall at the Bangna Tennis Club.  Somehow Chanachai, his wife, three growing sons and their grandmother lived in that one room hut.  It can’t have been easy but Chanachai had a dream and each son would later invest in that same dream.

I was privileged to watch Paradorn climb the tennis rankings until he became the 9^th ranked player in the world.  Perhaps my favourite memory however is watching Paradorn beat Andre Agassi on centre court at Wimbledon.  Paradorn out-hit Agassi from the baseline that day and thoroughly deserved his win, but it was his father in the players box that stole the show for me.  Here was a man who had risked all to pursue a dream that started many years earlier back in Khon Khaen.  He had sat in the famed players box of the most famous court in the world and watched his son beat the defending Wimbledon Champion and a legion of the game.  The dream had come true for Chanachai.

I have been able to stay in touch with the Srichaphan family since the boys retired from professional tennis.  Thanakorn and Narathorn now coach, Thanakorn back in his hometown and Narathorn in Bangkok.  Paradorn enjoys a life as a local celebrity and is involved in a wide variety of projects, including a small part in a Thai movie as an ancient Thai warrior.  He is known and respected throughout Asia.

I was privileged to meet them early in my coaching career.  They are an amazing family who were blessed to turn a dream into a reality.

GETTING SACKED AND THE HASBRO MAN

My days working at the Hilton Hotel in Bangkok as Head Tennis Coach were numbered when the new General Manager arrived.  New General Manager’s like to announce their arrival with acts of change, whether the change makes sense or not.  I have seen some new General Manager’s cut down trees, replace ponds, alter a lobby and change personnel, anything to demonstrate that they have arrived and they are the boss.

When I first arrived at the hotel in 1986, some 15 months earlier, I had made it my mission to increase the number of hotel guests that took lessons.  In the beginning 60% of lesson revenue came from local Bangkok residents and only 40% from guests staying in the hotel.  To do this I created a register of the guests who took lessons.  I would write to thank them once they left the hotel and returned to their home countries and if they were coming back to the hotel, I had a tennis greeting card under their door when they arrived.  This extra effort was appreciated and many guests began to come back just for the tennis.  Sometimes they would contact me instead of the hotel reservation office to book room nights!  This experience showed me that it was the small things that brought a guest back to your hotel and not the size of the room nor the standard of your restaurants, as these things don’t really vary that much from hotel to hotel.  The guests I made friends with during that time were glad to have someone they knew and could call a friend around the hotel, particularly after a long day of business meetings.

When I finally got the call to meet the new General Manager in his office I knew what to expect.  His wife and son were keen tennis players and I was using the courts more and more as the number of lessons kept growing.  I was told that the contract would be terminated because nobody (from his family) could get on the courts. 

Initially I was disappointed that he had not looked closer at the effort I was putting in to create repeat business but soon realized that I needed to move on with my career also.  I did however want to teach him a lesson.

I began to notify all my contacts that my contract with the hotel had been terminated and that I would be leaving.  This I could have done after leaving but by informing them beforehand I knew a storm of protest would develop.  Sure enough the GM began to get letters (this was pre-email) from disgruntled guests saying that the tennis facility was the only reason they kept coming back and that without the tennis they would change hotels on future visits.  The General Manager was furious but I simply said that I was informing my “friends” that I was moving on.

The best of these protest letters arrived about 3am in the morning.  The phone rang in my room and a well spoken woman informed me that she was Mr. Alan Hasenfeld’s secretary and that he was sending a letter to the Hilton General Manager; would I mind listening to the letter before she sent it?  She proceeded to read the letter which outlined how many room nights Alan’s company, Hasbro Toys, had spent at the Hilton and that if Paul Dale left they would consider changing to another hotel in Bangkok.  Alan Hasenfeld was the president of Hasbro Toys and had a personal wealth of 400 million dollars.  We had become close friends during his many stays at the Hilton Bangkok and he was letting the Hilton know that he was ready to change if his tennis was taken away.

I did eventually leave the Hilton and later that same General Manager left the Hilton to work for a rival hotel chain.  That hotel chain was Four Seasons Hotel Group and through another close friend, I recommended to the owner that he be sacked, which he was.  Revenge was sweet.