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Speaker:Welcome to the Atlanta Tennis Podcast.
Speaker:Every episode is titled, "It starts with tennis" and goes from there.
Speaker:We talk with coaches, club managers, industry business professionals,
Speaker:technology experts, and anyone else we find interesting.
Speaker:We want to have a conversation as long as it starts with tennis.
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Speaker:Hey, this is Sean with the Atlanta Tennis Podcast, powered by GoTennis.
Speaker:Check out our calendar of Metro Atlanta tennis events at Let'sGoTennis.com,
Speaker:where you can also find deals on equipment, apparel, and more.
Speaker:In this episode, we talked to Luke Jensen, current coach of Coco Van Dewey,
Speaker:an advocate for the Atlanta Tennis Open.
Speaker:Have a listen and let us know what you think.
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Speaker:You mentioned in an email recently that you're working with the Atlanta Open.
Speaker:So can you tell me about what you're doing here in Atlanta?
Speaker:>> Yeah, I'm blessed to have had Atlanta and our family since 1990.
Speaker:My first vacation, I think I was eight years old, one of my mom's brothers,
Speaker:Uncle of ours lived in Marietta near the big chicken.
Speaker:I'll never forget the big chicken and everything.
Speaker:Just a great summer, went to six flags, but
Speaker:went to the Atlanta Open as a kid and got to see John McInero and went to a clinic with Stan Smith and Dennis Ralston.
Speaker:And it was just awesome to see professional tennis, even though I didn't really understand it or anything.
Speaker:But it was just great event.
Speaker:And watching where such great talent really came from in the United States,
Speaker:back in the Al Parker owns the National Junior Titles record,
Speaker:most gold balls in boys history in the juniors, all American at Georgia,
Speaker:played some pro tennis stuff, Michael Perne for us, all everything at Georgia,
Speaker:finals of the French Open.
Speaker:All these talented players and
Speaker:programs are coming out of Atlanta, the weather, the facilities, more importantly when you're traveling and touring,
Speaker:everything direct from the airport.
Speaker:So instead of being up in Michigan where you needed like a stage coach and get on a train,
Speaker:that you got a hike 50 miles, everything's direct, which is great as a pro tennis player.
Speaker:So I've been here since 90 in different capacities, play the Atlanta Open and played
Speaker:Alta, coached Alta and stuff, and just there's such a great energy in tennis here in the subdivisions and the clubs and things.
Speaker:Everybody's so positive.
Speaker:And then a couple years ago Wayne Bryant was like the MC of the tournament for doing appearances for corporate sponsors and for
Speaker:Alta teams and things like that.
Speaker:And he couldn't do it one year.
Speaker:So I honestly was after Wimmelden, I was salmon fishing in a kayak on Lake Michigan.
Speaker:And I get a call from my mom, the agent, hey, Eddie Gonzalez needs a replacement.
Speaker:Can you be here tomorrow?
Speaker:And I'm like, I'm smelling like salmon.
Speaker:Yeah, I'm, I'm rowing my kayak back in.
Speaker:I get in the car, couldn't make it in time for a flight wasn't going to get me there.
Speaker:So I drove all night, get to Atlantic station and start the next morning.
Speaker:I think we had an eight o'clock clinic or something like that.
Speaker:And then we run clinics, do a lot of promotions because they bring in like Coco Gough,
Speaker:they bring in a Sloan Stevens, Maddie keys, Johnny Max spending here.
Speaker:To do like that kick off for the tournament.
Speaker:Atlanta does such a great job.
Speaker:The Atlanta open just getting people involved because it's a tricky market.
Speaker:Tennis players here like the play.
Speaker:And unless you're bringing Roger Federer and Rafa and these guys,
Speaker:they don't watch unless you're bring, you can't bring Roger Rabbit in expect.
Speaker:So they bring Kirios, Jack Sock is entertaining Benoit pair.
Speaker:They bring personalities as well as John Isler's one this thing like 6,000 times.
Speaker:But they have now that the American men are doing extremely well as well as the women.
Speaker:So you gravitate to the JJ Wolves and you gravitate to the Sebi quarters and the Taylor Fritzes
Speaker:and you see the Jensen Brooks piece.
Speaker:So my involvement really has been kind of a year round presence of ticket sales awareness
Speaker:because I live local in Sandy Springs.
Speaker:You know, it's just a it's a home game for me.
Speaker:And it's just I'm blessed to be able to still be part of this tennis community.
Speaker:And you know, whether it's going to your serve tennis and get my rack is strung
Speaker:and picking up my gear.
Speaker:It just running into people that are just playing out and tennis is is our jam here.
Speaker:It really is.
Speaker:And we're just I'm blessed and my family's blessed to have been been here since 1990.
Speaker:I'm still laughing.
Speaker:I don't have anything to say Sean.
Speaker:I'm taking you.
Speaker:Well, you left out the world team tennis too.
Speaker:Luke, I mean, we had a blast doing that with the Thunder.
Speaker:That was always an interesting experience.
Speaker:That's right.
Speaker:Yeah, that place is gone now as a bummer, but yeah, you know, the like I said that you can
Speaker:win here in Atlanta with tennis events, but you have got to get go to them.
Speaker:Give them a reason why to go.
Speaker:You got to entertain them and he entertain their kids and things.
Speaker:And I think Atlanta open has done that continues to evolve and talk with the management.
Speaker:Now Eddie Gonzalez has not moved on after a great run.
Speaker:Just getting it to where it really needs to be.
Speaker:And now with the product, I think Atlantic stations great for the players because you get
Speaker:to stay right there at that hotel, walk down the practice this year.
Speaker:I think practice is at Georgia Tech.
Speaker:So that, you know, in the wild cards, go to the, you know, the players from Georgia, Georgia
Speaker:Tech.
Speaker:So it's, you really start to connect to why I've got to put that on my calendar.
Speaker:As well as bringing in the Cocoa golfs and these WTA players that also gives another
Speaker:look because more than half of our players at play, Alta are women and you got to talk
Speaker:about fashion, you got to talk about team, you got to talk about how to win more matches.
Speaker:Because this place doesn't like to lose.
Speaker:They like to compete and it's just a great place.
Speaker:World team tennis was awesome playing down here, you know, and so I just think in the best
Speaker:in my opinion, you're going to see something very soon coming out of this place as far
Speaker:as like a top rank pro on the male or female side.
Speaker:You're seeing a lot of collegiate players coming out of here out of, you know, whether it's
Speaker:old town and the various, you know, academies and things like that, great coaching and great
Speaker:competition.
Speaker:I've got nieces and nephews.
Speaker:I mean, I had to travel honestly one way to Detroit's five hours, one way to, one way
Speaker:to Chicago is five hours, getting the van and you got to, you know, after school on
Speaker:Friday and you got a match Friday night and you're just still trying to find your legs in
Speaker:the first set getting out of the van and you're playing now.
Speaker:I mean, my, my family, they play in Macon, they play in Rome, they play in Atlanta and there's
Speaker:a, you don't have to go anywhere.
Speaker:You stay right here and get your butt kicked and get better and I mean, there's players
Speaker:going to Notre Dame, there's players going to Georgia, there's players going to, you
Speaker:know, Texas schools all over the place.
Speaker:They'll just be, I think in the next five to 10 years, you're going to see someone really
Speaker:take off and do some special things at majors.
Speaker:So how do you, you know, I told Sean, we did the team loop last summer.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And the effort you put in and I called Miss Patricia that night and I said, just watch
Speaker:him tomorrow.
Speaker:He's going to be sore.
Speaker:I said, we were out there in the heat for how many hours and I said, everybody else is
Speaker:done and then he goes on puts on a serving exhibition and allows everybody to return his serve,
Speaker:lefty and righty.
Speaker:I was like, I've never seen anything like, I'm not young anymore.
Speaker:No, I'm not going to speak for you, but I'm older than you.
Speaker:So I'm like, he's going to be sore tomorrow.
Speaker:I said, so please watch him.
Speaker:But how do you instill that sense of fight and not as a coach, much lower level, of course.
Speaker:But like you said, the, the building, the bricks, chopping the wood, that fact that everything's
Speaker:going to have a purpose.
Speaker:And I think that more than anything, because certainly can't talk about facilities.
Speaker:Kids here got the greatest facilities in the world.
Speaker:How do we instill that fight when these kids get to come from so much that they don't understand
Speaker:what you're talking about?
Speaker:And when they look at you, when you say it out loud, it's the old, well, you walked up, you
Speaker:up hill five miles in a snow storm.
Speaker:We heard of it.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Well, today's athlete is different.
Speaker:I don't care where you are around the world.
Speaker:I'm blessed the last year I've been working with Coco Vanderwaite, over a top 10 player in
Speaker:the world.
Speaker:She's like, I think she's 150 now.
Speaker:She just dropped a bunch of points.
Speaker:But we played all the majors last year.
Speaker:We played Australia this year.
Speaker:So I, I really am jacked up because I've been doing the TV since 94 with ESPN.
Speaker:So that's a different type of access and a different type of intensity, the, the long days
Speaker:and things.
Speaker:I'm really not invested when you start when you're playing and the next thing, the closest
Speaker:thing the playing at that level is coaching because there's even more pressure on the coach
Speaker:I find because you have, you can coach now.
Speaker:You're able to talk to them where they're on your side of the court or you can give signals
Speaker:when they're on the other side of the court, but it's still really tough because you can't
Speaker:really say that much.
Speaker:They're too far away.
Speaker:It's not like you're sitting on the bench with them.
Speaker:And what I've learned is that this player, no matter where they're from in the world,
Speaker:you got to meet them where they are.
Speaker:I think back in the day, there was a, whether right or wrong, you did what your teachers told
Speaker:you to do.
Speaker:You did what your parents told you to do.
Speaker:Your coaches that they told you to run, you ran and you just trusted or I don't know if
Speaker:you even trusted, you just did it.
Speaker:And when.
Speaker:For me at least when I clicked in the harder I work, the better I get when I learn that,
Speaker:that my secret weapon wasn't that I had a big forehand or that I could serve 130 miles
Speaker:an hour with both hands or anything like that.
Speaker:The secret weapon was holy kind of like if I work as hard as I get better, the harder I
Speaker:work that little like the light went off whenever that was in my teenage years.
Speaker:And like until then I was, you know, you lose focus and you wander.
Speaker:And so today's athlete, how can I as a coach connect with this generation and what I say is
Speaker:meet them where they are and then try to move the needle.
Speaker:So is it their brand?
Speaker:Is it their social media thing?
Speaker:Is it there?
Speaker:Whatever that is, their talent can get them only so far.
Speaker:And then you've got to sit down and negotiate that next, you know, chop of the wood that you
Speaker:just got to do it and understand, listen, it's just there's a maturity thing.
Speaker:Some people get it, some people don't.
Speaker:Agacy got it in his 30s.
Speaker:He was just really, really talented and then he found a love for the sport in his 30s and
Speaker:understanding of the magic of competing and losing and getting better and winning and
Speaker:sacrificing all that stuff.
Speaker:Some people have it from the start, from the jump like Raphael Nadal.
Speaker:That dude is a killer.
Speaker:And like maybe a curious never gets it.
Speaker:We don't know, but they have tennis and whether it's the juniors I see wherever they are, they
Speaker:have tennis kind of where they have it.
Speaker:And if the parent wants it more than they do, it's not going to work.
Speaker:If the coach wants it more, just because the kid is talented, does it mean they're going
Speaker:to reach full potential?
Speaker:Whatever that is, the kid has to do their part and that's 50% of it.
Speaker:I've coached in college at Syracuse University for eight years.
Speaker:I know, producing that level to the next level, which is you got to college.
Speaker:Now let's get you world ranked.
Speaker:And so half the players I worked with out of 42, we got 21 WTA ranked and that was not
Speaker:easy.
Speaker:I'm not getting blue chips.
Speaker:I'm not getting kids out of Atlanta that go to Georgia or to Florida.
Speaker:I'm getting kids that are multiple sport athletes that are four star tennis recruiting
Speaker:.net.
Speaker:There's a magic in that too because they haven't had a lot of success and you can have a lot
Speaker:of input and they'll grab onto it because they've lost a lot.
Speaker:They've taken a lot of shots to the head.
Speaker:You take some blue chip that yeah, I could go to Florida, could go to Georgia.
Speaker:I'm kind of, I've already made it.
Speaker:That's another challenge.
Speaker:And so your ability to trick both of them into working harder, buying into the harder
Speaker:I work, the better I get.
Speaker:And the bottom line is if you don't love it, love all of it, love not only the winning,
Speaker:but love the losing and the losing tells you you've got to get better.
Speaker:And then, and then for me, it's like it was always that rocket fuel that said, okay, I'm
Speaker:not doing enough and meet them if they, you've got to be able to like, listen, if they're
Speaker:not, you know, reaching their part of the deal, they're 50%.
Speaker:They're part of it.
Speaker:Sit them down, have a mature conversation.
Speaker:They just want to be communicated with in my opinion when they're acting up or they're
Speaker:not, they're having a bad day.
Speaker:Take a timeout, take it, you know, take a little two minute, timeout and say, okay, what's
Speaker:up today?
Speaker:There'd be stuff in school.
Speaker:There are a lot of pressures on these kids that we never faced.
Speaker:They read their replies.
Speaker:These pros, I'm watching Francis T.O. for last week, we're at the US Clay Courts in Houston.
Speaker:These dude played the, probably the best match I'd ever seen.
Speaker:He played second round, bone crush this guy, bone crushed him.
Speaker:And it's unclaimed.
Speaker:He doesn't have a, Francis doesn't have a great Clay Courts record, but he wins, ends up
Speaker:winning this tournament.
Speaker:As soon as he shakes hands, he goes, right, so his phone checks his phone.
Speaker:That's very important to these guys.
Speaker:And I don't care how much the older generation is trying to say it's nothing but a distraction.
Speaker:I'm saying it's a reality.
Speaker:How can we work with that kind of athlete to get to the next level?
Speaker:Wayne Ferrerra, who's been working with Francis T.O. for the last few years, it's been a
Speaker:process.
Speaker:He's always talked about it's a process.
Speaker:Francis, we're stretching now for the next 30 minutes, no phone.
Speaker:You know what I mean?
Speaker:But Francis is an adult now.
Speaker:He's in his mid-twenties.
Speaker:You can say that to some, he was an adult.
Speaker:That's what they do for a living.
Speaker:He's got big contracts with Nike and Yannick's in other places.
Speaker:He's got his agent now is Serena Williams is old agent.
Speaker:And so he's playing big boy stuff now.
Speaker:But with juniors, sometimes they don't understand.
Speaker:Maybe their things are being taken away from them.
Speaker:Maybe their sacrifice is like, I'm missing out on everything because I'm seeing on my phone,
Speaker:my friends are having fun here and they're going to this party, that party.
Speaker:You've got to somehow find to connect them to the love of the sport and how beautiful
Speaker:this sport is by working hard and continuing to improve because if they shut off, you'll
Speaker:never get them.
Speaker:As soon as they're done, because they get cheated every weekend, someone changes the score,
Speaker:some weird parent.
Speaker:It's the hardest sport in the world.
Speaker:I honestly have teared up watching kids at junior tournaments, walk with their bags and
Speaker:walk with their water jugs and they're walking out there with their opponent.
Speaker:No empire, no scorekeeper, no coach.
Speaker:Every other sport gets that.
Speaker:Tennis is so far behind because traditionally we've never done it.
Speaker:Why would you put your kid out there in that environment?
Speaker:Now I truly believe there should be coaching, whether it's you pay for a coach, you don't
Speaker:have a coach, a parent, should be or a fellow competitor, a buddy.
Speaker:So it's on the court, you know, have some fun, whatever.
Speaker:You go through the courses, you get certified to be able to on court person.
Speaker:And if you act like a knucklehead, they're roving on park and you're out tennis parent,
Speaker:a you're out coach, you know, if something like another sports, like they do in, you know,
Speaker:little league baseball or football, you know, parents have are very much involved in the
Speaker:coaching process and they don't behave.
Speaker:They're out.
Speaker:I think tennis in our sport, we are so far behind every other sport because a kid, I know
Speaker:this because two of my nephews that were very talented, love to play.
Speaker:They got sick of being cheated every single weekend, every weekend.
Speaker:What am I doing it for?
Speaker:I'd rather go ride my jerk bike.
Speaker:I'd rather go hang out with my friends because this stinks.
Speaker:I work all, I work hard after school before school and I get there and it's not even a
Speaker:fair fight.
Speaker:So to be able to manipulate that or work with that as a coach that you've got to listen,
Speaker:a great coach is a listener, a great listener because they're showing you through their body
Speaker:language, they're showing you through their, their, their words, maybe they'll like to practice,
Speaker:maybe they're ball pickups, things, maybe they're going to the bathroom too many times, they're
Speaker:telling you, I don't want to do this.
Speaker:Okay, what can we do?
Speaker:Can we shorten up?
Speaker:You know, they're the, my brother liked to play games to 11.
Speaker:Okay, you don't want to go 100 balls cross court, but we'll play games to 11 and he loved
Speaker:it.
Speaker:So let's find out, you know, what kind of practice partner they're out.
Speaker:So that's, that's a magic in coaching is trying to figure out every little combination
Speaker:of every kid you have.
Speaker:And you know, and you don't like, I see Bobby Don, his head, but you're talking, and I,
Speaker:I would take you to different direction.
Speaker:You say, why would you do that to your kid and put them out there on your own?
Speaker:And I, my first thought is, would you like to short answer or the long answer?
Speaker:Because I come at it from the point of view of, I look at that 10 year old whose bag is
Speaker:as big as he is and he works his way through all the adults.
Speaker:Excuse me, sir.
Speaker:Excuse me, man.
Speaker:Works his way up, makes his way up to that desk and says, hello, excuse me.
Speaker:My name is Sean and I need to check in for my tennis match.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I think that is badass.
Speaker:Yeah, no, it's great.
Speaker:It's great.
Speaker:I just, I just seen the burnout because remember now, you know, especially at the pros,
Speaker:I mean, I, seems to fight tech.
Speaker:This girl's worth whatever $100 million.
Speaker:She's number one in the world.
Speaker:She's got future hall of everything.
Speaker:She's crying, trying to, it means that much to her, but she's, I mean, listen, there's certain
Speaker:losses that, that are going to make you cry, that, as competitors, we all do.
Speaker:But the United Cup, before the Australian is not one of them.
Speaker:And to me, when you see the electrode stuck to your forehead because your mental coach,
Speaker:I mean, in front of everybody else, I mean, I look at this like I would do anything to
Speaker:play her.
Speaker:I would be in, I would have rental space in that, in that cranium of hers and maybe a Polish
Speaker:penthouse.
Speaker:I don't know, maybe like a, like a walk in closet, I would have so much rental space in her
Speaker:headspace by if she's that fragile, I can get right in there as a competitor.
Speaker:I can work that over that.
Speaker:That's how good she's got to be even in spite of being that fragile.
Speaker:That's what I'm saying.
Speaker:That's how good she is.
Speaker:But you take someone like, let's say Jesse Pagula, who doesn't need the money.
Speaker:You're talking about, you know, all these people with me, she just loves it.
Speaker:She's the only one that I see a cocoa goff too that will go and scout their opponents.
Speaker:Most of the time the coaches do it.
Speaker:They'll sit where the coach and they will scout together.
Speaker:They will after every practice, every match before press conference, they will, they will
Speaker:hit practice serves.
Speaker:That's her weakest, their seconds, Pagula's weakest shot is their second serve.
Speaker:She practices it every day.
Speaker:And then after at every tournament for the most part, even majors, she plays doubles.
Speaker:Same with cocoa goff.
Speaker:Who are the biggest risers in our sport?
Speaker:Coco goff and Jesse Pagula.
Speaker:And why did they do, they do, they put in the work, they play the dubs and they don't want
Speaker:to.
Speaker:They just, they know, they listen to the very coachable.
Speaker:And it's, you're right, it's bad ass.
Speaker:The CDs kids walk up there, but there's so much doubt.
Speaker:There's so much, there's so much nerves.
Speaker:And the burnout factor is huge.
Speaker:And I see it at the pro level, see it at the college level.
Speaker:I don't even name the name, a dear friend of mine that I grew up playing in juniors
Speaker:college in pros, his daughter is elite.
Speaker:And I'm watching video and she's screaming how much she hates tennis.
Speaker:And she's in a pro event.
Speaker:And she's screaming and it's like, man, like get her off the court.
Speaker:Just get her off the court.
Speaker:Let's go to a movie.
Speaker:Let's, you know, let's go grab a pizza or something like that.
Speaker:Like let's talk this out because this, it doesn't, it's a 15,000.
Speaker:Like this is the lowest level that you can play.
Speaker:If you really gonna do it, if you're feeling this way here, the pressure is even more the
Speaker:higher you get.
Speaker:The pressure is more and more.
Speaker:So I just, we gotta listen to our players and we gotta love them and we gotta try to understand
Speaker:them because it's a lonely game and it's filled with pressure and I hate to see these kids
Speaker:that burned out and never want to play again.
Speaker:And I think the thoughts, I saw that.
Speaker:I think it was over 70% of college players, D1, never swing another tennis racket after
Speaker:the last ball struck of playing college.
Speaker:All that work, all that sacrifice, they are so good.
Speaker:They are so good and they are done with it.
Speaker:Why is that?
Speaker:I think what, let's do a study on that.
Speaker:Let's really deep dive in that.
Speaker:And so many is we, we, we just see all this player got burned out and they just get kind
Speaker:of pushed aside and we just keep marching forward.
Speaker:And I think we, there's a lot of learning we can do, growth we can do by figuring out,
Speaker:by talking to players that did lose it and lost it for a while and what happened here
Speaker:and what would you have done differently?
Speaker:Were you, did we listen to you?
Speaker:I just think we have to do a lot more and find out how we can stop the burn out factor
Speaker:and these kids are getting scholarships and get to play D1, you know.
Speaker:There's a lot of love.
Speaker:High school tennis is greatness area.
Speaker:I've got these is in nephews that are playing high school tennis.
Speaker:It's so much fun getting in the bus and with kids that are going to play club tennis or
Speaker:college scholarship tennis at the next level or maybe not, but maybe one day they'll come
Speaker:back and play Alta.
Speaker:You never know.
Speaker:This is a sport for a lifetime.
Speaker:Well, there you have it.
Speaker:You want to thank rejuvenate.com for use of the studio and be sure to hit that follow button.
Speaker:For more tennis related content, you can go to Atlanta tennispodcast.com and while you're
Speaker:there, check out our calendar of tennis events, deals on equipment, apparel and more.
Speaker:And you should feel good knowing that shopping at Let's Go Tennis.com helps support this show.
Speaker:You can also donate directly using links in the show notes.
Speaker:And with that, we're out.
Speaker:See you next time.
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