It was nice to be able to speak to Garry Cahill again, who has previously joined the podcast on Episode 10!

Garry is a Tour Coach & former Irish Davis Cup captain, who is currently setting up his own academy 🔥

We talk:

• What he been up to since our last podcast episode
• Importance of having a mentor
• Leadership in Tennis
• Producing top players on limited budgets
• Problems with short term success

We haven't had podcast guests on very often for more than one episode - so it was nice to be able to tie back in with Garry 😃

Check out our previous interview with Garry here

Hope you enjoy it & let us know what you think!

Leave us a review on iTunes 📱

Episode Chapters

1:53 - Life since last podcast episode

11:44 - What makes a good mentoring program?

21:47 - Why some federations produce so many successful players?

32:54 - Problems with short term success

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Have you seen the Functional Tennis Saber?

Check it out here and don't miss the video of Stan Wawrinka crushing the ball

Find us on Social Media:

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YouTube: Functional Tennis Podcast

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Website: www.FunctionalTennis.com

Hello, I'm Gary Cahill and you're listening to the Functional Tennis Podcast.

Welcome to episode 103 of the Fun Functional Tennis Podcast.

I'm Fabio Molly, your host today.

Gary Kahl returns to the podcast.

Gary's a tour coach, academy owner, speaker on leadership, and former Davis Cook captain, as well as former High performance director for Tennis Ireland.

Gary has been busy completing an organizational behavior masters as well as beginning a PhD in what makes successful coach and federation.

We talk about leadership men, mentoring, high performance environments, investing in tennis players, short term and long term outlooks, and a lot more.

If you want to know more about Gary's background and more on his role as high performance Director for Tennis Ireland and captain of the Davis cup team, check out episode 10 of the Functional Tennis Podcast and I'll include a link in the show notes for you.

Before we get started, a shout out to our podcast sponsor, Slinger, who make the awesome portable ball machine, the Slinger Bag.

If you want to know more about it, head over to slingerbag.com and you'll get all the information they're now shipping to more countries than ever.

Okay, here we go.

Hi, Gary.

Welcome back to the Functional Tennis Podcast.

How are you?

Not bad, Fabio.

And yourself?

I'm good, I'm good.

It's nearly, I think it's about 92, 93 episodes.

You were on here about a year and a half ago, soon after we started the podcast, so just before the whole Covid mess started.

And you were starting an academy at the time, a new academy and God knows what else you've been up to, but really excited to have you back on.

And how's life been since.

Yeah, well, a lot has happened since then, obviously with COVID and we, if we could have predicted back when we talked the last time, Fabio, we, you know, we were, we were, everything was normal and.

But yeah, life has changed a lot because I was, you know, traveling at that time.

I was setting up an academy, had just, you know, leased a building to set up an academy and then wallop, everything's gone.

So there's a lot, a lot of changes, I'm sure.

Like, like most people and most coaches that are out there, we've had to really adjust what we do over the last year and a half.

From the stories I've seen, from people I've spoken, it's definitely been a challenge and people had to adjust, but there's been, there's been opportunity there as well, for you to go off and do different things, improve your knowledge and what have you done since?

What's changed or what have you improved on?

Yeah, so what I did was.

And this was before COVID had hit, I went back and I did a master's in Dublin all around the area of organizational behavior and leadership because it was something that I was interested in because I had seen coaching from, you know, the court to what happens in the background that can affect how you, you know, and how people coach when you're.

When you're working within organizations.

And then after I completed that, that was kind of the start of COVID then I went to Dublin City University, and I'm doing a deep Prof.

In Dublin City University.

And that's more around research in the coaching space and around talent programs.

You know, how do we develop talents, you know, systems around talent.

And that's something that just.

I'm just a year into that, but look, it's out of curiosity, you know, I. I just wanted to take a bit of a pause and, and go back and do something that I.

That I've thought about doing for a while.

So, yeah, maybe Covert has helped me to refresh and.

And go back and do some things that I wanted to do.

I think it's a great opportunity because you probably would have struggled to do that had you, you know, you're busy setting up the academy, running that, busy traveling with Vitalia and Simon.

So I think it would have been a bit of a struggle.

But going back to your, Your master's in organizational behavior, we'll talk about the PhD in a while.

Have you been able to use your leadership skills or what did you learn from there that you can bring to a tennis court or tennis academy or when you're traveling a lot?

Because, you know, when you, when you train to be a tennis coach and you go through all of the courses, it gives you a type of knowledge that you need, you know, to give a tennis lesson.

And in a lot of cases, this is kind of done like true formal courses.

So, you know, we would show people how to serve a ball, how to.

What grip to hold, and give them all that kind of technical information.

But, you know, we don't really provide people with the kind of skills that you need to deal with other situations that you're going to be faced with as a coach.

So, for example, you know, a coach progresses and they become a club coach, and suddenly they're leading a program in a club where they're dealing with a committee, they're managing or leading six or seven other coaches, and it's a completely different skill set.

Or, you know, the example where you're on the tour with a player and you're trying to manage all the other things that are going on outside of the court, which is actually taking more time than the tennis part itself, and can have a huge influence over, you know, how you actually coach.

So take the COVID situation.

I mean, you know, you've got to adjust travel plans, you've got to manage all the people around, you've got to manage the parents, you got to manage maybe agents, you've got to manage all of these people.

So where do you get these skills from?

You know, are they just things that you kind of learn on the job?

So I was interested in this, and I suppose, you know, the pieces that I think were kind of important for me so far on this journey is that I think coaches, when it comes to leading, they really need to consider the things that they're good at and need to improve on from those areas as well as just the technical parts.

So, you know, one example, Fabio, maybe, is like, you know, when you're dealing with a player, you have to manage a relationship.

And that's actually one of the biggest pieces, in my opinion, of coaching a professional player on an individual basis, because the player and yourself have to have a good relationship for this to last.

If the player doesn't like you, you're not going to work with them.

If the relationship breaks down, you're out of a job.

So those skills are really, really important to be able to manage.

And I think a lot of that is about managing yourself.

So to be self aware of your own emotions, how to deal with the emotions of other people.

So, yeah, a lot of.

A lot of what I've been doing is around that kind of space.

And I suppose when I look back at, you know, coaching, I think it's something that I would say to young coaches who are, you know, starting their journey that don't just focus on the.

On the technical parts, you need to go outside the technical parts and maybe focus on yourself and your own.

Your own, let's call them, softer skills that you need to be.

To be a successful coach.

Yes, I think some people may be lucky.

They may grow up in an environment where they're taught these skills, maybe at home or they've worked a little bit and they were shown.

But look, most people probably haven't.

Two questions here.

Where can coaches today learn these skills?

Is there courses?

And two, should these skills be part of.

Let's say a level two coaching program, either, I don't know, the ITF coaching program or whatever, the local federation program, should they be incorporated in there?

Yeah.

Well, I'll start with the second question, because I think absolutely, they have to be, and I think it's a piece that we're missing.

In tennis, the job is very different than the course.

So basically, at the moment, you know, you go on a course, you get this information, and it's assumed that you're ready to go out and work on the court, you know, for a club.

And I don't think it really prepares you for what happens.

And there's been a lot of studies on this, you know, where coaches have been asked, well, go back and look at your career as a coach and tell me what really made you a good coach.

And rarely, if ever, coaches will say, well, it was my coaching course.

Yeah, it was my level one, my level two, my level three.

And just jumping in here, would the regular answer be, it was when I worked with X coach?

Yes, yes.

That's one of the things.

So one of the things that really helps people become an expert coach is working with other people.

So, you know, learning from other coaches, listening to your podcast, you know, these kind of things have a greater impact.

But you can't be just the experience, you know, to be out there, you know, face a lot of problems and end up having to find solutions.

But I think one of the biggest pieces, Fabio, in all this is coaches learning to reflect.

And, you know, when you're in a formal kind of course where you get all this called procedure and knowledge, where you're, you know, showing the technique and, you know, you're copying someone else's way of teaching a technique.

It doesn't.

It doesn't, let's say, force you to think for yourself.

And when you're in the real job, you're hit with situations all the time where you have to think for yourself.

And I think this idea of being, like, more of a kind of reflective practitioner than a coach.

So, in other words, coaches go through a process, then they sit, they either talk to a mentor or to talk to other coaches to reflect on what they've done.

And this is a really, really important piece for learning to be a better coach.

But, yeah, like mentorships, you know, being involved with four, five, six other coaches that you talk to on a regular basis that share the experiences, just being out there on the tour, just having dinner with players, talking to players, all of these factors are really the key pieces, in my opinion, to Become a better coach.

And yeah, we definitely don't need all this formal stuff anymore because you can go on the Internet and you can find a video on teaching the server.

It's really easy.

Nowadays you can get that anywhere.

I'm not saying you don't need to understand that stuff because when you start off coaching, of course you need a certain amount of that knowledge to get you started.

But as you progress, it's not the key thing.

The other thing that influences how you coach is how you were as a player yourself.

So like, you see what's happening now on the tour that, you know, you have so many ex players becoming coaches now.

I'm pretty sure the majority of these people didn't do a coaching course.

So how are they able to coach at a high level?

And it's their experience of being out there on the tour of being in situations, in matches, of dealing with tactical situations.

And they've had to think through those situations themselves.

So actually that helps them to transfer that knowledge to somebody else.

But you know, the thing that, that can cause problems as well if the person that is the coach only teaches people the way they play themselves and don't open their mind to, you know, other factors that could influence how somebody plays.

That's really interesting.

And you just get back to the whole.

You mentioned mentoring.

It must be important, like what would make a good mentor?

Like, you talk about having five or six coaches and the reflection parts, obviously that's a huge part of it.

I'm sure there's some bad mentoring programs.

So if you were to put together a mentoring program, what would it look like?

Okay, well, a good mentoring program would be connecting with someone that you respect.

Right.

Firstly.

Now this doesn't have to be someone in your sport.

This could be someone outside of your sport.

But what I would think in another sport or somebody, of course, in your own sport, someone that you trust, someone that you can go to when you have issues on the court that you, you know, you've.

You've had some situations that you're not sure about, you'd like to talk to somebody about it.

And a mentor has to be a good listener.

So somebody that you can actually discuss the issues with that can help you to think through how you might be able to solve those problems if they happen again.

And I think a mentor really has to be that kind of sounding board.

Also, the mentor might be, you know, in a situations where they'll ask you the tough questions that you need to be asked as well, you know, because we all tend to, you know, avoid those questions.

But I think that mentor has to be an honest conversation sometimes as well, where they're able to really get into the nuts and bolts of different situations.

But yeah, it's.

It's a really important piece.

And, you know, we're probably a bit slow to do it in tennis.

I think it happens a lot now, even in, you know, from a business world.

It's really important.

You even see it with the assistant coach system in football.

And, you know, I think tennis, it should be a bigger part of what we do.

It doesn't even have to be formal.

It can be, you know, just a buddy that you trust that you can have these kind of conversations and that makes you reflect as well, which goes back to what I was saying earlier.

And that kind of reflection is all really, really good learning.

It's a way of challenging yourself really, isn't it?

Asking yourself the questions or somebody asking them for you.

You may not have the answer, but at least you're thinking about the answers.

And it's better than just hiding from the questions.

But where can a coach who wants to learn these skills today go off and learn them?

Do they ask their local head coach or do they reach out to an ATP tour coach?

Or is there courses out there at the moment?

Well, I think a good place to start is to think through, well, you know, who would be a good fit as your mentor, you know, who.

Who do you feel that you could actually trust to kind of take this role and, and ask people, you know, because, you know, it almost seems like people are afraid to ask people to help them in situations.

But I think, you know, just trying to find the right person, ask that person if they can help you in situations, maybe to talk to other coaches who you could form a little kind of community of practice with, you know, other coaches who might be in the same situation and ask them if they want to meet up regularly just to discuss culture, no real agenda, just to sit together and discuss coaching.

You know, I think it can be done like that.

It doesn't have to be formal.

I know that some countries and some coach education programs are now bringing in mentorship systems into their practice where when coaches qualify, they have like a cpd, Continuous Professional Development.

A part of that is a mentorship program where they'll connect you with another person or other people that you can, you know, have this kind of support.

It's no different to a business or.

Two examples I have maybe would be one, if you're, let's say, a computer programmer, you Learned your, your coding skills to get in the door.

But a few years later, I have some friends who haven't coded in a few years because they've taken up the leadership role, the manager role, and they've had to learn new skills to move up the ladder.

And it's the one who've been better at leading.

They're the ones who move quicker and do better for themselves and sor of get out of the day to day grind of coding.

And I see coaching, maybe there's always court work involved, but a bit like that.

And two, the whole CPD thing.

My wife works in the medical world and you know, when they meet up with friends who work in the medical world as well, there's CPD points given because they're discussing, you know, ongoing concerns of whatever's trending at that particular time of the year, be it colds, flus, cancers, all these different things.

And so I think tennis is really no different to businesses or other professions.

Yeah, I was, I was speaking to somebody the other day from another federation and you know, he described this as like the post mortem of, of tennis, you know, where like you go through a process and you know, afterwards you, you, you have to get used to having this kind of post mortem of what happened, why did that happen, how did that happen?

What could I change the next time that might improve when I'm in that situation again?

And yeah, they tend to do it better.

I mean, that book Black Box Thinking is a good example from the airline business where they took this piece really seriously.

I know I was talking about medical world, but where the medical world was trying to do a bit of that thinking as well.

It's a really good book.

And tell me, Gary, are you giving talks to federations about what you learn with leadership?

Not really, no.

I've kind of had my head down.

I haven't, I haven't been doing a huge amount of this stuff.

I'm not a, not a massive lover of all the zoom stuff.

No, at the moment I haven't, I said I've been, I've been busy with the academy as well and.

Yeah, busy with the players.

Okay.

And is it something you, you want to do more if you just prefer to be busy with the academy?

No, in the future, I think it's something that I would like to like to do more of.

I feel that it's needed and I feel that there's a place for this in, in coaching and sports coaching in general.

So, yeah, possibly, possibly in the future.

I think that it's something that I would like, I would like to be more involved in and, and potentially how this can be connected into coach education.

And look at, you know, how we can revamp, how we do and how we implement our programs so that, you know, they are more based on the needs of what coaches need now as opposed to what they needed 50 years ago.

You know, and I suppose another thing to think about here is there are loads of different types of coaches.

So I'm thinking about this from the point of view of, you know, the coach who is not just turning up and doing a one hour session with a different player kind of every week.

That's, that's a very different type of coaching.

You know, I'm thinking about the player who is going down the performance route now.

There is a crossover, but I'm thinking about the player that's going down the more performance side of things.

Because in performance, the more players develop, the more other things are happening in the background that you have to lead.

So the school, the parents, you know, the strength and conditioning trainer, you're suddenly in a completely different environment.

And if you don't get those factors right, it's going to be really, really difficult to actually, you know, influence the player as much as you could.

No, you're right.

At that level, it just completely changes.

And also, I know we're talking here a lot about coach to coach, but we hear about players, how influential coaches have been to them.

So that's why it's really important for coach to have these skills.

And that's an interesting, that's an interesting point, Fabio, because I would say that very few of those people, if any, will ever say that.

I remember the coach for the serve grip, I remember the coach for the backhand volley.

This is not what they talk about.

The coach is remembered for other things.

Like the coach was really committed.

The coach motivated me, the coach cares, coach listens to me, the coach understands me.

They're taught about in this way not for the technical skills they teach.

Yeah, no, it was a. Federer talks greatly about Peter Carter.

I know he passed away, but to him he's taught.

I know maybe there's other factors as well, but that was a breakthrough moment where his attitude changed and maybe his career changed from that day.

So I'm sure, look, there's many players out there that inspired by coaches.

We just maybe don't hear enough of the stories.

We hear them from time to time, but they should be spoken a bit more loudly.

Well, I remember going back maybe 15 or 20 years ago I was at a workshop in Vaxo in Sweden, where they brought in athletes from different sports into the.

Into the workshop.

There were some really good athletes, Carolina Croft, tennis players.

And they asked the athletes, what are the most important things you need from a coach.

And it was assumed at this point that the coach already understands technique.

It was assumed that they know what tactics they should give the player.

It wasn't about these things.

It was about the relationship.

It was about the fact that they liked them, they cared about them.

It's all of these things that become the most important.

Coach has another child.

Really, it's that sort of relationship, isn't it?

It is.

Fabio.

It's like that.

You know, if you spend years with a player, it is like you adopt another child.

And actual fact, they probably get more attention than your children.

You know, maybe they need more attention at times.

But yeah, it is.

It's.

It's exactly like this.

And also go back to that relationship piece because one, One breakdown here can destroy all this.

You know, one big argument that can't be solved.

You know, one piece of management that the coach doesn't get right.

And you see it all the time in football where, you know, the manager has a row with the player, he loses the dressing room.

You know, in tennis, it can be the same.

You can have a row with a player that just.

You can't go back.

So you've got to be able to manage that piece really, really well.

It's scale and obviously be a great experience to be around that sort of environment where another coach, a junior coach, can learn.

So.

Yeah, well, hopefully you can.

Well, I may have to do a coaching journal.

I'm not going to now, but I'll leave it to you to do a course.

But.

So that's the leadership part.

So quickly tell us about the PhD.

Like you're going to look into, like what make good coaches and how they learn.

It must be.

It's tied to the leadership part.

But what else is involved?

I'm only a little bit into it, so I'm figuring out exactly the way that I will go with it.

But why do some tennis federations produce players and others don't?

You know, what's the reason for that?

And, you know, we could say, well, it's, it's population size, it's, you know, surfaces, it's this and it's that.

But there are loads and loads of factors, and I'm kind of interested, well, what are exactly those factors?

And I suppose one of the big factors is money and the investment that some federations can make in athletes that other federations can't.

And I suppose I'm curious about that because I. I come from a small federation where, you know, we try to produce tennis players on a budget.

That's not enough, really, to support one player on the tour.

I mean, for a whole federation.

Right.

And tennis has become like an arms race.

If you can.

If you have enough money, you can potentially buy players, or you can give them everything they need, provided you find some talent to help them to become players.

But other countries are just getting left behind, and I suppose I'm curious about that and to see, well, is there anything that can be done?

And, you know, if you look at what's happened on the tour, I think it's becoming obvious that you just need a ton of money nowadays.

So let's take two examples, Canada and Italy.

Canada had, you know, a few great players coming through a few years ago.

They're still coming true now.

And Italy now has, I don't know, eight, nine players in the top 100.

Is it.

I don't know the exact figures, but they've just.

And they're all young guys.

They're all, you know, they're all doing well at Slams.

It must be more than money, because the Brits have loads of money and they're not really getting these sort of players.

Yeah.

And.

No, and that's the point, because I don't think anybody knows, Fabio, what exactly it is.

And, you know, it's not just money.

I know that.

But I would say that if you stripped back the Italian federation and gave them, you know, if you chop their budget right down, would it be possible?

I know the Canadians made a huge investment at a point when they were restructuring their programs.

I don't think it's possible, really, without money.

But when you get to a certain amount of money, then what makes the difference?

I mean, is it the culture?

Is it the fact that you've had past players that makes people believe that it's possible?

You know, is it.

Is it the fact that you have a climate where people can train, like in Spain, they can train all year round outdoors?

You know, there's so many different factors.

And I suppose, kind of curious, well, what exactly are these factors?

You know, is there.

Is there something that we're, you know, we're missing?

And, like, for federations and smaller federations particularly, can they bridge the gap knowing that they're probably never going to have the money?

Gary, I look forward to the day you hopefully have results.

You be first Back on here.

I don't know.

I mean, it seems to be that there's a lot in tradition, you know, and success nearly breeds success.

I don't know if that's right, but there seems to be, you know, that a country who have players, they might have coaches who have experience been with those players who can help the next generation.

But then again, does that generation influence the other players?

So like, you know, if you have in your country, like Serbia a couple of, you know, really top players, does that give a belief to the younger guys that look, this is possible and education doesn't have to be the number one rule because there is a career in tennis, you know, is it that kind of tradition?

I think, you know, success breeds success and no different to a lot of athletes.

Their parents would have been top athletes or some sort of athlete.

You know, it's in the DNA really.

And having top players, I know they just, they can appear sometimes just out of there could be the random one, but I think that makes it a bit easier.

And obviously you say the weather thing, access to outdoor all day, the clay courts, having futures on every week of the year.

I think all those things add up and add up and when you're from the smaller countries, you're at a huge disadvantage because you don't have these things.

And you may have the money which will help you separate yourself from the rest in the country.

But what sort of figure do you have?

A figure in your head that you think federation needs to manage one player?

Like, do they need like 4 or €500,000 a year?

Is there any figure that stands out?

Yeah, like I don't know exactly, but I did see where there was, there was a figure being thrown around of 130,000 a year for one player.

But what about all the other things?

What about the strength and condition trainer they need?

What about the, you know, the, the physiology?

What about all these pieces that are now become equally important?

So, you know, with a guess I would, I would put that up to 200 grand, I don't know, somewhere around there.

But if you look at like federations like Ireland, Lithuania, you know, Latvia, small countries like this, they wouldn't have that money for the whole federation.

So what do you do?

I mean, do you invest that in loads of young kids and then hope that, you know, one of those comes true?

Or do you invest that in loads of young kids and do you send them all to a college hoping that they'll come true from college?

But then where's the traditional piece?

There's, you know, where, where's the kind of ambition there, you know, because you're not really sure that that's ever going to happen.

You know, you're not really sure that you produce a lot of young kids and one of those will come through a different system.

You're not sure that's going to happen.

It's a big gamble.

But you speak of Lithuania, you speak of these other countries, they all seem to have one player that's managed to break through at a high level.

Yeah, but most of the time they have one thing in common.

Those players either have a huge investment from somebody or they would end up where they're in a one to one situation and they might leave and go somewhere where they have the other players that they can spar with around.

So Srikapan was a good, a good example in Thailand where like, there were no other players and you know, they had reasonably good funding and he went to the US and like, there's loads of examples of this, but they almost are the lone soldiers.

They have to do it themselves, you know, because the federation just don't have the resources to invest in that person.

So they have to go themselves.

It's a big bad world out there.

Yeah, it is.

Yeah.

It's definitely tough and a challenge and it's really the top 100 breakthrough.

That's the first milestone.

Once you break that one, then it's.

Anything's possible after that.

Yeah, but you know, unfortunately it's, you know, it seems like a nearly unfair system now that it really depends where you're born, whether you can be successful or not, you know, because if, if I'm born somewhere where I'm in a federation, they can support everything and, you know, I'm gonna end up in a really good program at a young age and, you know, I have a better chance than if I'm born somewhere where they just don't have a structure or resources.

So, you know, there's a lot in actually, well, where is somebody born in relation to whether they can make it or not?

You know, the argument, I suppose is, okay, well, Roger Federer's a massive talent, but if Roger Federer was born in a tennis federation that have zero budget and no programs to develop him, you know, where would he be?

I think I have a player to make, to make an example of.

I don't know him personally, but he's my wife's friend and our Irish parent married an Italian guy and he was born in Italy and a couple of years ago he was number one under 14.

Natalie now trained in Piatti Tennis Center.

You know, high potential.

The Italian federation took him under his belt and he could be, you know, I don't know how well he's doing right now, but again he's Irish genes.

So if he's born here, would he be where he is today?

And the answer is probably no.

So yeah, just backs up what you're saying.

Yeah, and it's not just in the, at a national level, it's actually, you know, at a, an international level as well.

Because like, let's say you are extreme and I've seen so many really talented kids that I'm looking at going, if you could just get them into a structure, you know, what, what could you do with them?

Because like if they do start to play, they can't make a living straight away.

So the tour is set up as, you know, where like you start off in ITF's, you know, ITF junior, ITF and your ITF Junior is not going to get any money and you've got to try and start in international high level tournaments, get the experience.

But what if you have no money to do that?

You're not getting paid every week as a junior and then you go into the ITF futures where even if you win the tournament, you can barely make enough money to live that week.

So how do you come true if you don't have the resources?

It doesn't come down to talent.

Definitely resources.

And that's part of the key, isn't it?

Who do we see with Casper Rood on the podcast a few weeks ago now, it was something I want to ask him, I never got to ask him.

But from a young age if you looked at his shirts, he'd sponsors all over it.

He'd like six or seven stickers on his shirt like so there's obviously somebody saw the talent there.

But a part of the, I think the job of a tennis player or tennis parent at that age is to showcase their kid and say, look, he wants to be a pro.

He's working hard, you know, to find the investment and that's unfortunately part of the job if the federation doesn't have the money.

Yeah, yeah.

And it's, look, it's really tricky and you know, I suppose the sport itself, you know, it would be nice to see some investment from the international Governing bodies to federations to support maybe some exceptional talents.

And I know the ITF have now started a program like that where they're investing in some athletes who are showing promise from a junior, who are from countries that may not be able to afford it.

And I think a system like that would be really useful that like, if you find somebody in Ireland that you feel is an exceptional talent and they're shown progress at a young age, that some money goes back to these players, you know, because we are talking a lot about the itf, you know, level futures guys.

And I know it's been great to see Novak and people like that, you know, considering well we should be increasing the prize money for these players, but then take a step further back and look at children who can't make it because they just don't have the money.

You know, can we do anything for these kind of children because they deserve, you know, deserve a right to play the sport like everybody else.

I think that that's a good program.

Maybe the Grand Slams who make the enormous amount of money, maybe not this year, last year, but maybe they should, instead of everything going back into the country, maybe there should be certain allocation of that that goes to an international fund to help.

Yes.

Okay, well, enough about money.

Gary, I know you're also interested, we mentioned it briefly in short and long term success and something that again I'm going to mention Casper here, where he took a year off.

His dad advised him take a year off when he was like, I don't know, 15, to not play any tournaments that year to get physically stronger, which would help him in the long term.

Yeah.

Tell me your thoughts on people get sucked into these short term success.

Yeah.

And I think it's a massive issue potentially because they're looking for, you know, the success so they can highlight the player's talent.

And it might go back to the fact that they're looking for all the sponsorship etc as well, that it's forcing them to do that, you know.

But there are studies that show people from a young age coming through and you know, there are no guarantees at all that if you're a top junior that you're going to make it in the professional game.

Now if you're a top junior, you have a better chance than players who are not top juniors.

But that depends on also the number of tournaments you play.

So having that short term success, thinking that, well, to be the best under 14 in Europe guarantees me to be a professional player.

It doesn't.

And in actual fact, you know, by going down that route.

You can, you can pause some of the things that might be really, really important when you're, when you're older.

So, for example, if you're training, you know, 20 hours a week on court just because you want to win matches at under 14 and you're playing 40 tournaments a year or 30 tournaments a year to do that, there are other areas that you may not be developing that you're going to need when you're 20 years of age, like physical, you know, like technical.

And this short term approach is only kind of, let's say, fill in a gap.

It's not actually.

Yeah.

It's not getting you ready for the future.

So I think that you've got to be able to play at a certain level when you're young, but you don't need to be like, who remembers who was the best under.

Here's the quiz question.

Federer?

Nobody knows.

Connor Island.

Okay, yeah, in Ireland maybe.

Yeah.

But who was the best in the world under 12?

Nobody knows.

Nobody knows.

So it doesn't matter.

It's about, you know, who is the best at 22, 23, 24, 25.

So you've got to keep the, the end game inside all the time and put the pieces in place.

I do think, though, even you may not be playing 40 tournaments a year, but you have to be near the top.

Because if you're near the top at a younger age, you know, you may get opportunities to practice with the other guys at the top.

And you're in that inner circle from day one.

And I think even you can take this at an international level or national level.

If you see, I'm sure the kids who are in the inner circle at under 10s, under 12s, if they tip over, they'll still be in the inner circle.

Under 18s, they may not be internationally level, but I'm sure at an international level, if you can get in there early, improve yourself, then it comes down to obviously how well you plan your training for the future.

But you have what it takes and how that's nurtured really, and the team around you is really important from what I gather.

Yeah, and I think that's right.

If you can be playing at a level.

Yeah.

You know, so let's say in tennis, Europe, under 14, if you're able to play at category one level and you go through ITF and you're able to play at like, you know, let's say top 70, ITF level, but you don't have to be top five, no you know, you just have to be at a certain level and experience that level and, you know, be in the mix.

You don't have to be like.

It would be very difficult, let's say, to be playing Category 5 ITF on your last year of juniors, and then to make it.

I think this is very difficult.

And I don't know, you know, how many have done that.

But if you look at it through the years, pretty much all the players have been good juniors, but they don't have to be the top 100% agree with you.

And I think also you say top 70.

I think maybe difference between a top 50 juniors, top 15 junior is the top 15 guys played five times more than the top 50 guys.

Most of the time it just comes down to, as you say, funds that they could travel all the time they weren't in school.

And I think it's known, it's also known that a top 10 junior, a grand Slam winner, and junior does not mean you're going to be a top hundred player.

Yeah, 100%.

And, you know, if you, if you, if you look at it, I think a good way to judge the ranking of a junior is to look at the number of weeks in the ranking, not just the ranking.

So, you know, you can get somebody to a very high junior ranking by picking the right tournaments and playing enough weeks.

But it's like, it's like cheating for your junior shirt.

You know, it's good.

At some stage, you're gonna, you're gonna get found out.

Yeah, yeah.

So, you know, it's the number of weeks.

Where did that person get their points?

How many weeks did they play?

You know, not well.

They played 40 weeks and they're ranking at 70.

You know, if they, if they can do that in half, well, even less than half those weeks, I think that's a good indication.

Yeah, no, completely agree with Gary.

That was a very open, honest conversation, different to our usual background conversations.

Really enjoyed that and what you've been up to, and hopefully one day you can come back up to us with some results.

I think if you get any Results with that PhD, you'll have every small federation calling out to you.

Yeah, looking.

Looking for.

Looking for investment.

The secret.

Yeah, you never know.

Quick.

Actually, before we go here, how has the Academy got.

I know it's been really challenging and obviously traveling.

Have you traveled to any tournaments at all?

Not with the Academy.

I've been traveling with Vitalia a little bit, but not with the Academy.

The Academy is great.

Basically, the whole point of the Academy is to give young players the chance to develop.

And we're focusing on young players, mainly up to 14 years of age.

And we've got some great, great talent in the academy.

It's small and, you know, I'm hoping that we can, you know, give a good base to young kids that want to go down the road of the sport long term.

But I would like eventually to be able to provide a path that can, you know, bring them further than what we can at the moment.

But, yeah, I love it.

Really excited about it.

And tell me, are you going to Wimbledon?

Yeah, I am.

Yeah, I am.

Over the next couple of days, I'm heading.

That's good.

Fortunately, won't be able to join you.

Yeah, it's not easy at the moment.

I wish you all the success over there.

Thanks for coming on and, yeah, we'll be back on the future with those secrets.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, you never know.

You never know.

Thanks, Fabio.

Really enjoyed catching up with Gary.

I hope this episode has made you think of who could be your mentor and who you would mentor for.

Have a think about that.

Until then, I'll be back next week.

Goodbye.

Sam.