I tried my best to make a career out of the sport of tennis in the 80's but fell well short of the level required. I started playing when I was about 12 years of age, late in any man's language yet I caught up with a lot of other better players through constantly hitting against a wall. In fact I spent so much time against a wall at my parents house in Albany that I wrote a series of chapters about it which I entitled 'The Wall and the court'.
The wall was the garage wall which I would hit against for hours even on a rainy day as it was under cover and the court was one that my parents had built next door on our spare block two years after I started playing. I had it all there for me, everything except a regular practice partner who lived in the same neighbourhood which would have been the icing on the cake.
I used to read the Bjorn Borg biography for inspiration and I would pretend I was playing him when I hit against the wall. Borg inspired me to play. My improvement as a kid was relatively swift as I won a State doubles title in Perth at the age of 15 with my good mate Dale Jones. I remember it vividly as 'Jonesy' would put everything away at the net and I would play 'Borg style' from the back as my volleying was not strong.
At age 16 I played full time tennis at the Coops training facility in Brisbane where Pat Rafter was also a squad member at the same time. I remember the days when Pat would walk through the gates as a young kid who had no height, no weapons, no strengths but a big heart. No one however would have picked that kid to be a future World number 1.
Back then in 1985 I remember the training as though it was yesterday where we would hit many balls and play many challenge matches however if one thing was missing from that program I suppose it would be the mental teaching of the game. By that I mean that there were great coaches who taught us to hit the ball technically correct however we were not taught in enough detail how to either construct a point or how to think our way through situations in a match.
I recall playing not only junior tournaments around Queensland and New South Wales but senior Challenger events known back then as Satellite tournaments and they were tough. I used to watch guys like Fromberg, Stoltenberg, Woodbridge and the likes and it was an education that I will never forget.
Those players even at a very young age all knew how to not only hit a ball technically correct but their thinking was second to none. They could not only hit a ball beautifully but they could almost follow a script from the beginning to end as though it was a well read book.
It got me thinking even back then as to how I could put my shots into a match that I could always hit with no fear in practice drills and practice matches. In a nutshell I knew how to hit a tennis ball however I did not know how to play tennis.
On leaving Coops as an 18 year old with little chance of becoming a professional tennis player I learned the art of coaching through being an assistant at various clubs in Perth, Western Australia. Even at a young age I always wondered how I could teach a kid how to do what I longed to do on a court when I was a teenager trying to fight my way through a brutally tough sport which did not reward mediocrity. I picked up things from guys like Rob Casey who is one of the most experienced and respected tennis coaches in the country on how to teach with substance.
I have been coaching tennis for almost 30 years now and I will often dedicate a lesson with a student to nothing but point play situations and how to think through them. Technical sessions can only do so much. The two however go hand in hand as one is useless without the other.
I am a thinker when I play and I think even more when I teach. It's a shame that I didn't put that sort of emphasis on my own education as a teenager. If ever someone asks me when did I leave school I always answer with the same line "Usually at lunch time to go and play tennis".
No doubt about it I am a tennis 'junkie' who is now dedicated to writing about the sport however I still play a few tournaments here and there to keep my thought process flowing.
I am 47 years of age and I am still learning the art of how to think my way through a tennis match. I believe it's the one thing that we can all improve on to make us more competitive. This book I hope can help all of us with our thoughts when we step onto court in the future.
Tennis, it's all in the mind.......
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