On this weeks episode I speak to a good friend of mine Garry Cahill. Gary has been at the top level of Tennis performance training in Ireland for over 10 years with the National Federation and is now setting up his own performance business, Prodigy Tennis, which he will work with not only with players, but academies and Federations outside of Ireland. He speaks to us about all things tennis and gives great advice for players, parents and coaches. 

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Hi, I'm Gary Cahill and you are listening to the Functional Tennis Podcast.

Welcome to episode 10 of the Functional Tennis Podcast.

This week we speak to a good friend of mine, Gary Cowell.

Gary, up until recently, was the performance director at Tennis Ireland and has nested up his new venture, Prodigy Tennis.

Gary's experience ranges from being the Davis cup captain, working with top juniors, seniors in Ireland, as well as top hundred players, speaking at top coaching conferences on high performance and leadership.

He talks about all these areas.

He also gives great advice for players, coach and parents and.

And you'll definitely come away from this podcast.

Learn something.

If you're new to the Functional Tennis Podcast, please hit the subscribe button.

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It would mean a lot to me.

Let's go.

Hi, Gary, how are you?

Welcome to the Functional Tennis Podcast.

Hi, Fabio, how are you?

I'm very good.

Great to have you on board.

To everybody listening, Gary's an old friend of mine.

He's allowed me to train in the National Tennis Centre.

I know, for the past nine years, roughly.

So it's been a.

It was a great opportunity.

I thank him for allowing me to hit with some of his top juniors and senior players over the years.

And Gary is now starting a new role, his own venture, Prody Tennis.

But first, let's talk to Gary and ask, where did he start in tennis?

Where did tennis start for you?

Gary describing as an old friend.

He's not that old, Fabio.

Ten years.

No.

Tennis started for me in Hollingar, which is a small town for people who don't know but an hour outside of Dublin.

And we had a tennis club in the.

In the center of town, Mullingar, which was really a hive activity for people from the local area.

And most of the young kids in town drifted into the tennis club at some stage.

You know, for me, it wasn't that I came from a family of tennis players myself.

My brother started playing tennis and, you know, at that stage, we played mostly without coaches.

We just learned to play ourselves.

And that's where I developed the interest in the sport.

And I suppose, you know, to a certain extent, you know, I also developed the interest in coaching myself because I wasn't coached that much.

So I had to learn a lot of these things myself.

And when did coaching start for you?

Yeah, my first tennis lessons that I can remember, I think I was about 12 years of age, you know, and it was only once a week, maybe at that stage, you know, when you look at, in comparison to what young children do now, they would have a few lessons a week already at 8, 9 years of age.

So back then we were a little bit behind as regards to the coaching piece.

Everything was less organized.

People tended to just play as opposed to now, which is mostly children go to tennis for, for lessons as opposed to arriving to the club just to play.

Yes, correct.

It's a set up a lot better now.

There's a lot more guidance and structure.

So you played a few junior tournaments.

Did I see your name?

I saw Gary Kale on the Castle Knock men's club champion.

Is that you?

That was me, Fabio.

That was me, yeah.

Yeah.

Well, Castle Knock was, was my club outside of Mullingar because if you see the way it's geographically situated, it's the first club you meet really coming up from the country.

And a lot of players from the country at that time played for Castle Knock, but yeah, that was my club.

Yeah, I don't remember what year it.

Was, but yeah, I won't say it wasn't that long.

I did like you're in good.

Like I see James McGee is up there.

You've some, you, some good names alongside you there.

So you did, you did quite well.

When did you actually start coaching?

Yeah, I started coaching quite bit a.

Quite young.

I was still playing at the time, but you know, I was coaching to, you know, make some pocket money.

And when I was like 19, 20 years of age, I was helping some young kids out by sparring with them.

And when I look back now, I wouldn't call it coaching, but I was hitting with kids at this age, you know, so I was young.

Yeah, I was like 18, 19 years of age when I started giving lessons.

Was that in Dublin or down in Mullingar?

Started in Mullingar, but quickly I was doing it in other places as well.

I was, I was doing it Dublin.

Yeah.

By the time I was 20, I was given lessons as well.

Yeah, great.

Okay.

And that's.

That morphed into becoming the performance director of Tennis Ireland about 10 years ago.

And you helped set that up.

How was that journey?

Yeah, I mean, that was very different because you start off coaching and then you end up in a, in a very different role because structure in an academy or a performance center, a lot of it is leadership management as opposed to coach.

And so I'd say I got kind of thrown into the deep end at a certain point there where I went from, you know, teaching on court to having to structure the first national center in a country that, you know, we started from a, from a greenfield site to building a facility, expanding the facility, starting with, you know, a few players who were mad enough to train.

The number of hours we were looking for because, you know, when we, when we started that venture, we spoke to parents of, you know, talented children about training, you know, a few times a week.

These parents thought we were crazy because the culture at that time was only training once or twice a week.

We were looking for them to go to five days a week.

So there was a lot of cultural changes at that time, you know, trying to increase hours, build expertise, trying to build a really, you know, good high performance team from scratch.

Because with, with a center like this, one of the fundamental things is to have a, is to have a good team of coaches.

You know, whereas it was a coaching role, I would say that it was really about building a management system, building a structure that would be there, you know, long term.

Well, you did a good job.

And there is, I don't, I think looking back, you probably look back and go, it's great to be thrown into the deep end.

We have to learn, think on your feet and just get the job done.

I think it stands to you right now, rather than waiting for the opportunity, you just took it and you learned on the go.

I think it's a major advantage.

Yeah, that's right.

Right.

You learn a lot of the lessons that, you know, they stand to you now when you look back at those things.

But there is, you know, there's no real roadmap for setting something like that up because every country is different.

And, you know, setting something like that in Ireland with a slightly different educational system, et cetera, is different than setting it up another in some other country.

So, you know, there is no exact way to do it, no exact science.

So I think there's a lot of lessons you will learn on the way.

And particularly for me, you know, I think a huge part of this journey is about making sure that you have parents who are educated around the sport.

And we're doing our best to involve parents as much as possible because when their children are committing to, you know, a tennis life of like this, five, six days a week, you know, they need to be a part of this as well.

And I wouldn't be of the opinion, like some people, that the parents don't.

You don't need to spend much time.

I actually think it's the opposite.

I think you need to really work with the parents.

Yes.

So transparency is important, really, that the parents Knows what's going on?

Yeah, absolutely.

They know what's going on.

They trust the coaches.

They understand what the big picture is.

You know, they understand what the final goal looks like for their children, and they understand how to support their children.

You know, they understand the things that are necessary for a parent to support, you know, like understanding what's too much pressure, for example, on their children.

How do they know when they're putting too much pressure?

How do they know when you're supportive as opposed to pressure?

And if they don't come from a sporting background themselves, you know, sometimes they can be doing things that, you know, they think are helping their children when actual, actual fact they're not.

And going back to the earlier point about years ago, when children used to turn up the tennis clubs and play by themselves, they were more independent.

They were doing a lot more things themselves.

And I think it's important that we, you know, still have that independence in the children.

And parents have a huge role to play in allowing children to.

To be more independent.

I do think that's very important, what you say there, because too many times I see myself where the kids are dependent on the coach, and I feel I've seen some instances where they can't even think on their feet.

Be it simple, what are we going to work on today?

And their eyes look up to the stars.

They don't know.

So I think teaching kids independence is really important.

And also that they know why they're training and what they need to work on and various bits and pieces.

Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely.

And so you did, when you started back as performance director 10 years ago, you had some great players to work with.

Conan Island, Barry King, McGee, OB, James Klosky.

And it must have been quite exciting having such.

I remember being in there and having such a big group showing up in preseason, the freezing cold DCU.

What's changed for you over the past 10 years with getting players?

I think the lack of players in Ireland right now at that level, is there anything that stands out?

Well, when you look at back then, more of those.

Like those players, the majority of, actually nearly all of them went to college, and the majority of those players all played after college.

There are a lot of players in Ireland who are in college, and just coincidentally, those guys all decided to play after college.

But the majority of players that have come through college in the last five years haven't played.

So I would say that the standard and the level of players is better than it was there.

There are a lot of good young players coming through now.

But it's the same issue that when you go.

When these guys or ladies go to college, you know, it's whether they will actually commit to playing professional tennis afterwards and whether they have the resources to play the professional tennis game afterwards.

But, yeah, back then, there was quite a few guys at that time who just happened to be coming through college at the same time and decided to play.

And.

And maybe part of that was the fact that, you know, they were friends as well and they were willing to travel together and support each other on the tour.

Do you think that's the main reason or is there external influences?

People are being guided not to go pro anymore?

Is there a bit of that?

Yeah, I don't know.

It's really down to, you know, if it's individual things as well.

Like finances are hugely important here.

If, you know, if athletes don't have the finances when they finish college to go from a few points right through the tour, then it's really difficult or almost impossible for them to do it.

So I think it's a number of things.

It's financial, it's how they drive still to play full time.

After those number of years in college where they're playing all the time, do they still have the drive to go on the tour?

You know, I think it's a.

It's a number of.

A number of factors.

But, you know, I see it changing.

Like, for example, you know, recently, one of our players, Sinead Lohan, good Irish player who was a very good college player, she actually stopped for about a year, went to work in an office and now has decided to come back playing, which is really good to see and hopefully we'll see more of this.

But maybe, you know, maybe for.

In Sinead's case, it was, you know, gone into a job where she realized that there were worse ways to make a living than playing tennis.

I think she's right there.

She wants to give it a go.

She's young, she did quite well in the college tennis.

She was top five.

Was she?

She was, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm actually due to practice with her today.

Two o' clock today.

I'm practicing with Sinead on the new clay court.

Fitzwilliam, don't ruin her.

I wouldn't do that.

No, she.

Even the past year we practiced a bit like half six in the morning.

We used to practice that in Fitzwill over the past year.

So she still actively loves the game, still hits an unbelievable ball.

And touching back onto a podcast, that James Clusey, when he had his brief Podcast series.

Last year he spoke to John Millman.

And while Millman was injured, he went to work for a friend of his in an office down in Australia.

And he said, I need to get back to the tour as quick as I can.

I can't do this office job.

So, yeah, it can be tough.

Recently you stepped down as performance director of Tennis Ireland and start up your own venture called Prodigy Tennis.

And tell us a bit about Prodigy.

What's in store?

What's the plan?

Well, yeah, I mean, Prodigy Tennis is basically set up to, you know, help people who are working with prodigies effectively.

You know, so supporting parents, players and coaches through providing different services.

So for example, you know, one service we provide is we go to academies or clubs and help them to review their performance programs.

And not just review it, help them to review it firstly, but then help them to implement performance gains in their programs with their coaches, with their performance team and then to put a review process in place where we continuously help them to review their programs.

So I suppose it's using the experience of structuring our national center to help other performance programs evolve.

And I've brought together a really good team of people.

Most of them are Irish.

I've got one external person with us and they are specialists in different areas.

So we also offer services to players, profiling services where we will profile the players from a physical, from a technical, from a tactical point of view.

And also they have the opportunity to work with a psych.

And we offer training camps, training programs.

And the next piece will be building coach education programs where the idea will be to form a community of performance coaches and run education systems, pathway courses for performance coaches.

Because I really feel that in performance coaching, you know, people get their qualification, but there's not a huge amount after that.

Okay, you learn from coaching and you learn from being on the tour and.

But if you don't have the opportunities to do that, there's not really an education pathway in place for performance coaches.

So I want to try and try and develop that.

So that's the idea.

I really like the sound of this performance education platform teaching because I see on Instagram right now, I see what's going on out there and what's working really well is high performance coaching tips on the top players, top juniors.

So there's a lot out there.

I don't know whether it's right or wrong.

I'm not in a position to answer that.

Would it be good to have a platform out there that these coaches, coaches can go to and learn from vetted coaches, from people who've been there, done that.

Some people put up the information, have been there, some haven't been there.

So you got to take it with a pinch of salt.

A lot of wrong information out there.

So it'd be good to have a place where they can come sign up and get all this great information to help them become take their coach into the next level.

But tell me, Gary, is prodigy tennis for Ireland only or is it going to be based in Europe?

If I'm a club in France, they have an academy there.

Can they contact you?

Absolutely.

And that's, you know, that's the idea.

It's not just going to be Ireland.

I've already had contacts from some other nations to help.

But, you know, I would like to have prodigy influence in other countries and then to put a system in place to connect these prodigy centers, if you like to call them that, or countries or clubs that we support and connect these countries as well.

So we could, you know, help each other as regards tournaments, etc.

But no, it's not going to be just Ireland.

You know, we're willing to help in other countries and other clubs, academies, and we look forward to the challenge of doing that.

That's exciting.

I think there's a lot.

There'll be a lot of business for you out there.

And will you have a base in Dublin?

You know, this is only very new.

The idea long term will be to have a base and run a lot of the programs in our own base.

But originally we won't have a base.

Will not need a base originally.

But yeah, long term, that is the plan.

Right.

I hope you'll have Daniel Glancy and Julian Bradley give a talk on traveling around the world on with no budget, how you don't need a big budget to travel.

But so moving on.

So you've other experience.

Obviously you were the arch Davis cup captain.

You've worked with top hundred players.

Vitalia Diyachenko, you've done so much.

You give talks on leadership, you speak at the big coaching conferences.

So let's touch a bit on Davis Cup.

How did you find being Davis cup captain?

I loved it.

I have to say, for me, that was probably the best experience I've had.

I loved it.

Firstly, you know, representing your country in an event like that was incredible.

The idea that you're with a team of people preparing for an event like this, it was just phenomenal.

And what I love most about Davis cup is I felt as a coach that you actually can have a lot of influence at the event, you know, the fact that you're sitting on the chair, the fact that you're in the match with the players.

In actual fact, I would say his coach is the most nervous I felt was Davis cup, you know, because you feel like every shot you're playing.

Every shot.

Yeah.

You know, when you finish a Davis cup tie on Monday and Tuesday, you just can't move.

You feel like you've played was incredible.

The nerves, the adrenaline, the winning, the losing as a team, I just can't describe it.

And I would say for coaches out there, you know, it should be an aspiration, a goal for everybody.

It just feels like you're in it together with a group of other people.

Yeah, it was, it was fantastic.

I felt, though I learned a lot as a coach from Davis cup, you know, because particularly the doubles part is, is so important and if you're working mostly with singles players, you don't get a enough time to really spend time in this.

And I understood very barely and particularly, you know, you had some players like James and James Clusky, you know, who were double specialist.

I felt that I had to really spend time trying to work on my doubles coaching and doubles knowledge because winning that doubles tie was often the difference between winning and losing Davis cup and Fed cup matches.

So there's a great learning in Davis Cup, I have to say.

It was, yeah, it was incredible experience.

Such a great opportunity and do you think, I know the WTA Tour they have coach are allowed on court.

Do you think one that should be led on the ATP Tour?

What's your thoughts on that?

Yeah, I mean, look, it's a very tricky one.

I have mixed thoughts on it as a coach, of course, I'd love it.

It would make the job really, really interesting because, you know, you're often sitting in, in a match and you have all these ideas in your head and you can't really do anything about it.

Well, you know, legally you can't really do anything about it, you know, but some people do, but you can't do anything about it.

So you, you're sitting there with all these.

And then afterwards.

Yeah, and afterwards you throw out one or two ideas to a player and you know, you know, I could have told them that in the middle of the match.

Yeah.

So from that point of view, I think it would be really interesting.

But from another point of view, there might be an unfair disadvantage for people because not everybody is traveling with coaches.

Okay.

At the very top level and the Grand Slams.

Yes.

Majority of people have a coach or a Parent.

But if you go slightly lower down the levels and even into challengers, not everybody's going to have a coach.

So it could lead to having an unfair disadvantage for some athletes.

But at Grand Slam level, I think it would be great fun actually, if the coach was able to go on the court.

Yeah, I think if it's an even.

You're right there.

If it's an even playing field, let's say at Grand Slams where everybody, most people have coaches, it can be very good and entertaining.

But I do agree with your challenger level where maybe only 30, 40% people have coaches.

It's not fair on the others, but it's great for a player, something players, some of the women players choose not to have a coach on court because they know once it comes to Grand Slam, they're not going to have anybody there that can make a big difference.

But yeah, I'm not sure what way that I can't see it changing, to be honest.

But you never know.

So you've been at Davis cup and also you've worked with Vitalia.

I was down with you at Roland Garros this year and at Wimbledon before.

And that must be a great opportunity to work with such a talented player.

Yeah, I mean, that's, that's been a journey.

I've been with her for like 6 years, but not full time.

Like, I'm not traveling full time.

I only do some weeks with her.

But now I possibly may do a little bit more with her.

And yeah, it's been very interesting.

I would have preferred it if I was able to do more.

You know, you're at a tournament with a player like this and you maybe have two weeks or even only 10 days or a week, then I don't see her again for another three or four weeks normally.

So it's difficult to do what you would really like to do when you're not with somebody like that full time and you have another job in a center, an academy or a federation.

But yes, it's really interesting.

She's been doing well, unfortunately, has struggled a bit with injury.

And you know, that's also another really important point because, you know, we're talking about the coaches on the road at this level.

But it's also a massive advantage to have your own physical trainer or physio on the road at this, this level.

And you know, the top players who can afford to do this haven't seen any statistics on it, but I'm sure they're injured less than the players who, who don't have these resources to travel with a, with a medical or a physio team.

We spoke to Rome Bapana a few weeks ago and he said the biggest change for him has been having a physical trainer on the road with him every week.

It means he does his pre match, post match stuff.

He has to, he's forced to do it.

Even if he doesn't want to do it.

It means he's doing the right thing because he's right.

Guidance there.

And three, it means also so his form is right.

So when he's doing the exercise, he knows he's getting the most out of it and he says it's just helped him so much.

So I can imagine if you have them from an early age, that can make such a big difference for these guys, these players.

Yeah, absolutely.

And you know, what you say is right there from an early age, because if you don't have it when you're younger and you end up with, you know, potential issues as a result of not doing the right work when you're young, then you're patching up as you get older.

And yeah, so that for me has been a bit of an issue.

And when you're dealing with someone who's like just inside the top hundred, they're not making the kind of income to be able to afford a coach and a physical trainer, a physio every week.

So I would say that, yeah, for the relationship with Dalia's been really good and really enjoyable and she's done well.

It's, you know, I would say at this level having physical trainers would really be a huge benefit to these players.

Yeah.

Hopefully we can get up a few more ranking points to afford the physio.

We did talk to Anthony also a few weeks ago and he mentioned he was working with Lighthouse.

He tried, traveled with him for the first six months a year and then he had to give some attention to his academy in South Africa.

He says it was only fair.

Like, I know you work with Italian, you also have your own players on the road.

You're the player, you have Simon Carr, Amar and some of the girls as well.

And how do you manage to split your time?

Because obviously you were building the structure for the academy.

Plus you're on the court a lot with these guys every day and plus you want to travel with some as well.

How have you find dealing with the split there?

It's tricky to switch modes, you know, to switch from leading the center, then the next day you're on a flight, you're going off with one player, then you're going back.

Back into that environment.

And when you're actually on the road, I'm sure you had the same problem that you're dealing with, all the issues that are happening back at the base, you know, and that takes your focus sometimes away from what you're doing on the road.

But on the other hand, the variety is good.

You know, that you're actually out there seeing what's happening.

You're able to be with your players, to really analyze your players in the real environment, because I don't think you can be a very effective coach if you don't see them competing in the real environment.

So in an ideal world, yes, to be able to do more weeks in a row with the players would be more valuable.

But reality for me was I was never able to do that.

I was never able to go for even the six months.

I couldn't have done that.

I chose to split it up differently and do maybe two weeks of a month away and two weeks in the center, as opposed to the six months and six months.

For me, that worked better in our system.

But, you know, I can see the advantage of doing the straight six months.

But, you know, you almost need to split the role and to have a travel coach.

Yes.

And somebody else that's working with them as well at the base.

And, you know, it's easier if you're.

If you're able to do this.

Yeah.

I still remember seeing you in Geneva.

Must be 10 years ago now.

You and Amy Botel.

Amy Motel used to be Irish number one, who.

I think if she was still playing now, she'd be.

She was top 50 material easily.

I don't think she'd spoken to you in three days.

Was that right?

Oh, that was normal.

Yeah.

But it's just.

I know it's just tennis players, but it was just what I used to deal with.

Yeah.

I mean, it.

Sometimes it can be tough on the, you know, relationship when you're out there and you're with each other all the time and, you know, you know, you shut down.

Yeah.

Sometimes it's nice.

I mean, some people like to be on their own and shut down.

Yeah.

I actually still remember.

I still remember that.

But, yeah, it happens.

And as long as, you know, you.

You go through these problems in a relationship with an athlete that you can patch them up, you know, and you still have the respect for each other that you're able to do that.

So it wasn't too bad because we still worked another 10 years after that.

I think pity injury probably got the better her Because I used to enjoy.

She hit such a big ball, it was amazing to see.

And even every now and again, I'd send her a video of some player and she's like, God, I beat.

I beat her at some st.

So she had some big wins under her belt from a young age.

We're going to quickly talk about the elusive top hundred carry.

I think it's one thing coaching a player that's top hundred or, you know, nearly there, but I think coaching your own homegrown player from an early age, that must be where I think the Mecca lies for a coach.

You've been very close to it a few times.

What do you think?

Ireland and Ireland coaches in smaller countries with no budget.

What's needed to break a player into the top hundred?

Well, I mean, I think the first thing is you have to find somebody that's talented enough to be able to go there, you know, because no matter how good of a coach you are, if you don't have a talent, you know, that's not really going to make it easier, possible.

I mean, in some cases to do it, I think it's.

You have to have some raw material.

That'S the main ingredient.

Really.

Yeah.

And if you don't have that, like, it's.

Yeah, it doesn't matter where you're from, you need the.

You need the raw material.

And, you know, part of that raw material for me is someone who has the same ambition.

You know, if you have somebody who their ambition is to get to the top, then you have a chance.

But as a coach, if you're working with someone that, you know, you have a different ambition than they have, then there's no chance.

So, you know, if you're working with someone and you feel, I want, as a coach, get so many into the top hundred.

Well, but them as a player, they're great talent, but they're happy to play at a good level, then there is no chance.

No.

So for me, you need alignment.

You need to align both goals, and that alignment has to stay the same because the different phases, that can change.

When you're starting with a kid, a lot of kids will tell you, you know, I want to be the best in the world.

But as they get older, other factors start to happen that may not be the case anymore.

So you might need to ask them a little bit more than once what they want, what they want to achieve.

The girls, the Guinness, and even in Ireland, the other sports, they all want to play Gaelic now.

So I think you're even fighting within Ireland.

But you have a talented player, they want to, you're aligned with them from a young age.

What's next?

Well, you need a coach who knows what they're looking for.

You know, because the coach has to have experience enough to be able to bring this player from that point to the next stages now, doesn't mean they need to have the same coach all the way through.

If you start with a 10 year old, you need at least a coach who knows how to get players to a very good level under 14.

And when I say a very good level under 14, I don't mean that they have to be number one in tennis Europe.

I mean they're developing a player who has the potential in their game to be a player in the future.

Not necessarily somebody who is the best ranked player in that stage.

And that's a very different job.

It's a really difficult job.

In actual fact, I can safely say that I think, you know, some of the best coaches in the world are the ones working with young children because it's so complex.

They have to understand how to develop the game, the strokes, the mental side in some case, the maturity side, the tactical side.

They have so much work to do.

So at 14 years of age, you know, when somebody else or they continue with them, they have a very good base because it's really hard to catch up.

So for example, you have a kid at 14 who has no serve, really bad technique.

It takes a long, long time if you can ever catch up.

So, first job, get a really good kid, a really good coach who knows how to develop young athletes.

And then from that stage of transition, a player from 14 into the, like the ITF tour, okay, you still need obviously a really good coach, but you need to choose the route and the structure of competitions really well here.

And I also think that players at this stage have to play for a certain amount of time on clay, because play is for me the best way to develop a young player.

And if you're in countries like Ireland who don't have a lot of clay courts, you have to move outside to get the clay courts.

You have to play a lot of tournaments on play.

You have to make sure that you manage your circuit so that you are getting enough time on play.

And I feel that from that 14 to 18 stage, you have to push them outside their comfort zone.

So when they get to a stage of 16, 17, they have to start futures already.

You think that's what's helped countries?

Let's say like Moldova has Alba, George has Bazlashvili, they have Clay courts there.

And you think that that actually makes it a lot easier for them because already they're not playing tree stroke tennis on a wet artificial grass court.

So already they have an advantage just by the courts that they have nothing else changes just to the court.

Yeah, I think they do.

But you know, when you go back to that point, like about countries have one top hundred player, like I'm not sure if that is because of a system.

You know, if you have one top hundred player who has come through the country, they may not have even trained in the country.

They may have been in another environment and they may be, I'm not saying in this case, but they may be from Moldova or Georgia, is the case here, but they may have trained in another country or another system.

The way you can measure if a system is, is working is whether you series of players, a sustainable series of players like Serbia who are coming through the same system.

So I don't know if it's the case in these countries because.

But certainly, absolutely.

I think countries who have more clay courts have a better chance of producing players.

And what has like the Italians now seem to have player upon player coming out of nowhere.

They obviously you've done a bit of work with the Italian federation.

What's their system look like?

I think what they've done really well is if you look at young Italian children, they have a really good fundamental games.

By 14 years of age they've been doing very well in the big tournaments already.

They have very good technical development, very good physical development, very good tactical development.

Okay.

Depends on the individual.

When it comes to the mental development, they have a really good system.

Because I remember being in Italy 20 years ago doing all the Portes and Giorgio Livorno, Correggio, all the junior tournaments.

And the Italian players did not have the fundamentals that the young children have now.

So their coach education system has really, really improved.

And I know they've invested a lot in this.

And how long does, let's say the Italians, given the blueprint?

This is what we've done.

This is exactly how we do it.

The country has the capable coaches to execute.

How many years does it take to actually see the results?

That would take at least 10, 10 years because yeah, it takes at least that before you see anything.

Because you have to start firstly by, you know, you educate these coaches and then, then they have to start with 8 year olds, 7 year olds takes 10 years for them to be 17, 18.

It takes a long time before you see anything.

And what you're seeing now in Italy is the result of a lot of work that the coach education system over the last 10 years.

And all you have to do is look at their Italian coaches conference.

It's the biggest coaches conference in the world.

Everybody wants to find out what they're doing.

Canadians also.

Well, yeah, sorry, yeah, the Canadians, Canadians have done an incredible system.

Sorry, incredible restructure as well.

Their talent system is very, very good.

Their pathway document is really, really top class.

Yeah.

And you can see, yeah, they've, they've done a, they've done a great job.

And you're starting to see the results from a similar, a similar restructure and blueprint in Canada.

It's good hard work.

It just takes time, patience and a good team to execute.

Mark Pesci did say we didn't really get into it too much, but he was saying all this money that the LTA have they unlimited resources to him, he felt it's a waste of money because they don't have the coaches to execute the plan.

The whole money thing, just because you've all the money in the world doesn't mean guaranteed results either.

Yeah, absolutely.

But there's a certain amount that you do need with players and we're talking about the pathway and I was saying until like 18 years of age what it should look like.

But then if you get players, and this has been one of our major issues, we've got players to Grand Slams and Junior Grand Slams and you know, that's fine.

But how do you get your player from 17 or 18 to the top hundred?

Well, it takes a huge investment.

And it's not the countries that are the most economically sound like Ireland, that have the most investment in sport.

We have players that came through our system who are traveling for, you know, week in week out in Tunisia, Turkey, countries where, you know, for four or five weeks they're going to stay in a tennis compound on their own without coaches to develop their game.

And this makes it almost impossible to get there.

You know, you need basic things.

You need coaches on the road with the players.

You can't expect to have two talents the same.

One is with their team and their coach.

The other is on their own.

You can't expect the guy on their own to get there faster.

No, you do need the team.

Even Holger ruined it.

World junior number one says 16 year old travels with a sports psychologist now.

Like, that's right.

That's.

They just build the team like so he, he's really getting that early advantage, get to build the team quicker earlier, which I think widens the gap then with the other players.

You don't have that sort of a team.

But.

Absolutely, absolutely.

What I'm hoping, I'm hoping from an Ireland point of view we do get a top hundred player sooner rather than later.

Because I think even if it's just one player, even if they, even if, let's say they didn't train, Gary, they don't come from you.

But I think that will push up the level and insp so many more kids because I know the Irish, the tv, the newspapers, they go mad for that sort of stuff.

And if they, the guy getting first round, second round turned around at grand Slams, I think it'd be crazy and it would encourage other players, even players that aren't top hundred yet, but to push through.

Just give them the dream.

Just make the dream possible.

I think, and I think, I think that's all that's missing is just that one person who can break through will inspire so many more.

Yeah, absolutely.

And you're right, like it doesn't matter where they come from or who they come from.

If they're Irish and they're, they're playing for Ireland.

In my opinion, it would really change the sport.

I mean there is an argument, and I've heard it recently that, you know, would it make any difference to Irish tennis if somebody made it?

Well, I think it really would as a country.

Okay, we have a job to get more people playing tennis.

But how do you get more people playing tennis, more people watching tennis?

How do you get more people watching tennis?

Have some players of your own who are doing really, really well.

Some kids want to be like them.

So yeah, I believe that role models and getting somebody true or a couple of people true.

Yeah, it could really change the sport.

And it's the reason it's not happening is not because we don't have talent.

Said we're look at junior sl, we have players but it's what happens after that.

And there is not enough support for our athletes in that transition from junior to pro level.

We'll get there, we'll figure it out and get there.

Will you figure that it will happen?

It's only a matter of time, but it will happen.

We're going to end this shortly.

But I just got a few more questions, mainly from the advice route.

A lot of times people get offered advice for players, which I'll ask you for, but also for coaches and parents.

Like what do you tell a parent who has an aspiring 14 to 16 year old?

What's your advice for parents?

Well, I think the first thing is listen to the coach.

Don't try to be the coach, because you often find that parents start the journey and if they don't have a background in tennis, they have to trust and let the coaches make the calls.

Because for a coach, they need to feel that they're able to do that.

Support the coach in any way that they can, and obviously support their child in any way they can.

Take the pressure off the child is really important.

Look at the big picture.

What's it all about where you're trying to get to what's your ultimate goal and, you know, be realistic about it.

It's not easy.

There are very few players who are going to make the top hundred.

In actual fact, it's only eight people who come in and out of the top hundred every year.

That's an interesting stat.

But for their child to be one of those eight, you know, it's not that big of a chance.

So be completely realistic about it.

That's absolutely crazy.

Eight players, that's.

It's really a spot that once players get into, they don't want to.

They don't want to get out of there.

And it's probably easier to stay in than get out.

Yeah, yeah, that's true.

Once you get in there, it's easier.

And, you know, parents need to be given that big picture of what it is really like.

You know, it's not to say there's not a chance and there is, but, you know, to be very realistic about it, keep the pressure off their children, what it is.

So understanding the challenge of it is really important to keep the pressure off the child.

But what about from pushy parents who nagging their children?

What's your advice for them who obviously expect their child from a young age to get.

They're not getting the wins.

Like, how do you advise them to give their kids space?

Let's say.

Well, yeah, they're the tricky ones to deal with, you know, because you can advise them, but sometimes they don't listen.

You know, again, it's to try to really get them to understand what is helping and what is not helping their child.

You know, nagging your child and, and pushing your child like that is actually not helping your child.

The motivation has to come from inside the child.

And the more they can do to bring that motivation from inside their child, the better.

So, you know, reward the effort.

So they go on.

They play really well.

Reward.

Reward this.

Not just the results.

It reminds me.

This reminds me a little bit of my sister's husband who Was Irish captain at soccer for 16 to 20.

He was player of the year junior.

He played for Villa but then he got glandual fever and his career ended at I think 21.

But he was, came from a Gaelic background.

So in Kildare.

So all his brothers played football for Kildare.

They all played for the local team.

But he got into football and his parents were like, what are you doing playing football?

You need to play Gaelic.

And he used to have to go train for his local club, P10 and they would not drive him to training.

They'd say if you want to go soccer training, you got to walk.

So you have to walk three or four miles to go training.

And he did for a few years.

So you could see there, there was dedication there.

The parents didn't push him to play, he just had the passion to play.

Suddenly the passion was rewarded for many years.

Unfortunately injury got the better of him.

But it just shows you're right there.

The child has to have the inner drive to want to play without any interference from the parent at all.

Yes, 100%.

What about then for touching on the player?

What advice do you have for a 15 or 16 year old player who.

They can be quite moody at times.

Sometimes they don't want to take instruction.

But what is the one piece of advice you'd give to a player?

So the kind of child who, who doesn't like to be coached, told what to do?

Yeah, yeah.

Well, you know, I think with, with this kind of kid they need to be convinced of things.

You know, one of the reasons I feel that this kind of child who's not really listening stuff can be that they're not always convinced.

So you have to have some agreement with this kind of athlete that you know, when the coach is giving you advice that they understand what they're doing and they're giving it to you to help them to get better, you know, and, and I would spend more time as a coach with this kind of player showing them the reasons, you know, this is why I want you to change.

This is how it's going to help you in your game.

Now, are we in agreement on this?

And if you go on this route, you're more likely to get them to buy into the changes as opposed to you must do this and this is the only way approach.

I would be more of the opinion that yeah, it's a buy in process.

With a child like this.

You don't, you're not, not necessarily going to change the personality, but you have to work with it.

Everybody's different.

You have to find ways around, around this kind of personality.

And it's often a buy in.

And one of the ways to do this is to question them as opposed to telling them.

And also show them evidence as to why you think that this should change.

Show them statistics of matches.

You're not making enough for serves.

We need to work on the first serve.

You're not making your forehand line.

Enough of these situations.

Look, here's the statistics now do you think we should change?

It's a buy in process.

True.

Well, you're very good at that because I'm sure, I know you've had to deal with players over the years where you've had to deal with that.

But I do love when a junior player actually, and you hear so many good ones even at transpires and senior levels where they question everything that's been done.

So they question you, Gary, why am I doing this?

Why, why, why?

And I think that ultimately helps them to understand the game and appreciate your work.

To see.

Well, we're doing this to help you with this, with that.

And that's a good characteristic for a junior player to have to actually question you everything that you do.

Yeah, it's, it's a, it's a good thing to be stubborn, actually.

You know, that they're not robots, that they're stubborn enough as well.

But then there's a line where, you know, being stubborn.

Yeah.

And being stupid, you know, you know, okay, yeah, you can be stubborn, but.

I think that's obvious.

There's a point there where you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And you know, I often said there's no point in finding this out when you're 50, you know.

Yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's important.

Yeah.

That they understand it.

You just give them the evidence so that they really know why they're changing.

Once you get the buy in with this kind of personality, they'll change.

But you need to get that right.

Just takes work, patience and knowing what you're doing.

But lastly, last question, advice for coaches.

Too many times we don't hear any advice for coaches.

But with your experience, what advice do you give now?

A junior level coach who has a player who could have potential, what should they be guiding the player with?

Okay.

And it's an interesting question because that's kind of fresh in my mind the last few weeks, just looking at a lot of junior players in tournaments and I still see some of the same issues, I think for young, for coaches working with young players coming through.

They have to make sure that they're developing the whole game because there are too many children, junior aspiring players who have areas of their games that were never developed and areas of the games that coaches spent spend too much time on.

So for example, you know, seeing children who can play effective, aggressive backhands with good serve fundamentals at a young age, who can already play with good slides, can approach, play with good volleys, you know, having the complete game.

So as coaches not spending too much time on one or two shots, developing the whole athlete, the whole player, making sure that they have, they have all the game, that they're not going to have any apparent weaknesses as they get older, as opposed to developing the young player who's going to put enough balls on the court to just win the tournaments at a young age.

For me, that is the most important piece of advice because you will get to a stage in your career where you get found out if you take the approach of just putting enough balls on the court to win the matches and not developing the whole player.

I think that was, wasn't that the Dominic team approach where at junior they just decided to go out there and hit the ball as hard as you can, keep going with it disastrous times, time.

But eventually the game starts coming together and then these guys, he start taking down these other guys who had that strategy of I'm not going to miss a junior level.

I think it happens a lot.

You see players where they're like that and they just never break through into senior level because the game was never evolved enough and they're too far behind.

Yeah.

And I'm going to link that point to the parents.

Okay.

Because there's a, there is an important factor here.

And I had a conversation recently after a match with a parent and you know, the parents said to me, well, that's fine, but you know, we do want them to win and they, they just have to buy into that as well, that is it more important to be the best in the world under 12?

No one's ever going to remember you.

Or is it your friends to get there later?

Yeah, your friends will.

Yeah, but, yeah, but they got out of tennis, so they won't be your friends anymore.

But yeah, your friends might be, but the, the fact is the parents can influence what a child will do to win, so they need to be bought into this.

So asking the children, were you aggressive?

Did you come to the net?

Did you use your full game?

I think you have to work with the parents on this.

And I, I love that story of Rafa and Tony where Tony tells Rafa to go on serve volley for a whole match and he does it and he loses and then they're in the car afterwards and, and he's, he's a bit pissed off because he lost a match for doing something that he knew he could want it in another way.

And Tony was obviously very happy that he had experimented, tried new things and was prepared to do them even if he lost.

I hadn't heard that story.

What I have heard is something that you mentioned that you mentioned there, the importance of not chasing the win.

All good coaches seem to say and seem to get this message across to players.

Do not chase the rank ranking.

If you work on your game, the ranking will just happen as a byproduct of it.

So if you work on the game, build a full game, you don't need to worry about the ranking, it will just happen.

So yeah, that's right.

And 100 agree with this.

100.

And if you, if you improve the game, the ranking actually you can get, you know, if you, if you think about in terms of futures, you know, you played 15 weeks and you know you're just doing the same thing every week, you're going to get the same points every week.

But if you're, you're, you know, the first seven weeks you may not be getting the same amount of points as you were, but you're developing things and then suddenly you can over three or four tournaments get more points than you would have the whole of the year because you're doing things a lot better.

No, true, true.

So look, I think a lot of people, including me, you know, you get greedy being not just tennis, it's so many other things.

It's goal setting really and need to keep the long term picture always in your mind and working towards it and you will get there.

But Gary, I'm going to end that now.

Thank you very much.

That was really insightful.

We touched on a lot of areas there and your experience really shines true there.

I'm going to wish it the best of luck with prodigy.

I'm sure you'll see me around at some stage very soon.

You could be a prodigy still at 50s level, mate.

We start working long term towards the 50s, but not for the next while.

We've a baby due in just two weeks now, so to be.

No, to be no last minute hitting sessions for me for a while this year anyway.

But no, thank you very much, that was great.

I hope you found that interesting.

I certainly did.

There were so many good points made by Gary and if you're not already a subscriber, please hit the subscribe button so you don't miss out on next week's episode.

Until next week.

Goodbye.