This week we speak to tour veteran Joe O'Dwyer. 

Joe was the coach of one of our recent guests Jeff Salzenstein who said we should get him on the show. Joe is also Irish but spent most of his life in the US or touring with players but I had seen him in Dublin on a few occasions. 

Joe is known for his good stories and tennis wisdom. We hear plenty of stories with players you'll know as well as advice for tennis players of all levels who want to be pros and tools they need to get there.

Its definitely one of our more entertaining episodes but also carries just as much advice.

Hope you enjoy it!!

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Hey, my name is Joseph O'Dwyer.

I'm delighted to be on the Functional Tennis Show.

Welcome to episode 32 of the Functional Tennis Podcast.

I'm Fabio Molli, your host.

I don't do a good job of introducing myself every week.

I know we have new listeners every week, so from now on, I'll just try introduce myself.

You'll mainly find me hanging out on our Instagram account, Unctional Tennis.

If you have any questions, drop by there, send us a message or you can get me on Twitter babmol F A B M O L.

This week I traveled to meet Irish coach Joe Dwyer.

Now, I didn't have to travel that far, but it was great that Joe's doing a bit of work in Ireland and the opportunity to catch up with him.

Joe's worked with many top players throughout his career.

He's been based in the States and he offers some great advice and also some great stories.

You're really going to enjoy this.

Joe is such a nice guy.

He's loved by so many players, coaches and people in the tennis industry.

It's amazing how many people know him.

He's worked with some of my own personal friends on a professional level.

Jeff Salonstein, who he had in the podcast a few episodes ago, he helped him break into the top hundred.

And Jeff had his own funny story on Joe.

It's a really good episode.

Hope you enjoy it and look forward to any feedback on it.

But before we get started, big shout out to our podcast sponsors head and if you're new to the podcast, hit that subscribe button on your podcast app that you use.

But let's get started with Joe's story.

Hope you enjoy.

My name's Joseph O'Dwyer.

I'm delighted to be on the Functional Tennis show today with Fabio.

Really looking forward to doing this interview with him.

Heard a lot about him and his work that he's been doing over the last year with his podcasts.

He interviewed one of my favorite players I ever coached on the tour, Jeff Salt, which was a great podcast and his nickname is a seagull.

Seagull who I worked with.

But anyway, great to be here today on the Functional Tennis Show.

Joe, great to have you.

Jeff was who gave me the inspiration to get John here.

Obviously I've known, I've seen you back in Ireland here a few times over the summers when you've been back and you've worked with James McGee in Conan island and so many more players, which we'll talk about.

But yeah, he was telling me a story about how you helped him break the top hundred and how you were with him when he had a good run to U.S.

open.

And, yeah, you mentioned you sleeping in a train station.

Is that a true story?

That is a true story.

Yeah.

It was when something got really confused.

I was going through a divorce at the time, and I was in an argument.

So the person I was meant to be staying with, I didn't get the telephone number.

I had no way of getting out there and.

And Jeff had already gone for the day, and I had no way of getting into a hotel or anything like that.

Jeff usually took care of all the details on the financial side of things.

I don't carry any money on me for those.

For obvious reasons.

But, yeah, I ended up sleeping in the train station.

Went to the match the next day against Fernando Verdasco.

We had the game plan.

Jeff beat him 6, 3, 61 in about an hour.

Played the best tennis of his life.

I did the scouting report before on Fernando.

He tanked his match because he was so confident in Washington the week before he came up, he wanted to play in the US Open.

He was 19.

He was in the quarterfinals of that tournament.

And after the match, he was in shock.

And then Jeff left to go to the locker room.

And all I heard, oh, I heard the smashing sound.

I go, what's going on?

It was like court 13.

And I go around the back of the court and I take a look and there's Fernando breaking every single racket that he had in his bag on the ground and frustration.

And then, as of course, Jeff will tell you, of course, he gets into the.

He gets into the main draw, he gets in as a lucky loser and he wins around.

And we lost to Arazi, I believe, in four set.

I think he gifted Moroccan.

But that's a true story.

There it is.

That's one of his.

One of his good winnings.

Yeah.

Anybody I've spoken to have told me Joe has so many good stories, but then I've read all the resumes that you sent me to the players you've worked with and what great job you've done with this.

So on our Instagram account a few days ago, we put out, we were going to be speaking to you and we were going to ask, well, I asked the fans, would you like to hear Joe's great stories or would you like to hear what Joe thinks you need to break into the top hundred and what tools you need?

And I don't know, 10, 12,000 people saw this.

And the vote came back exactly 50, 50 which left me in a dilemma, like, what do we do here?

I have to make a decision.

So I just think we're just going to talk about both, to be honest with you.

We'll just see what comes up.

Yeah.

Have a bit of fun and hopefully the listeners, yeah, will enjoy it.

I've read a bit of the resumes that you sent me and a lot of people says you can scout players in an hour.

You can even less than an hour.

You know what to look for.

You watch a bit of video, you know exactly how to develop a game plan.

What's the secret in that?

Just, it's experience, it's playing experience.

It's been a total tennis addict to professional tennis, watching loads of matches from start to finish.

And then the patterns will be.

Will.

Will unfurl in that match.

So the players and the coaches will never talk about it on the interviews.

It's like the unwritten code on the tour, on the ATP Tour and on the WTA Tour.

We know exactly when we're playing Kevin Anderson.

We know that the weaker side is Kevin Anderson's forehand.

We will go after that forehand, but when we're playing them, we'll go like, oh, Kevin Anderson, great serve, big forehand, great backhand, great player.

It's going to be one tough matchup, but the reality is we're going taking our attack through his forehand wing throughout that match.

And then the big thing about that, it relaxes the player because they've got a total game plan.

They know exactly what they're trying to enforce upon their will upon their opponents will like.

So they have their game plan, we have our game plan.

We both have strategies.

And whoever executes it better on the day will win.

But everybody has a hole, everybody has a weakness.

There's a weaker side somewhere.

There's some shot that's going to break down before the other side, either the forehand or the backhand.

Tell me, what level, Joe, do you have to be before you can actually really implement the game plan?

Let's say no matter who you're playing, you got to have tools that you can break down opponents.

And is there a certain level you reach before you have these tools?

Because I personally struggle.

You may say, fab, you're going to play whoever it is he's sliced to his backhand, he will struggle.

But if I can't slice that, game plan is useless to me.

That's the whole beauty of the road to the top 100.

That's where the journey gets broken down.

So you might watch I worked with Robbie Gianpe in Atlanta and we do some training now.

Robbie lost in the semifinals of the US Open in five sets and he played five sets in every round to reach the semis.

Won all five set matches.

Now we would practice and he would use a slice backhand.

He would not miss one slice backhand in an hour in the game when we were training yet he might only use that shot five times in the match.

You might have to hit a drop volley.

Drop volley has to be hit maybe five or six times in the match.

It'll be missed.

With the players who are like top, you know, the top 200, they'll miss that ball.

That ball again is never missed.

And every shot is equally unlike as equally important.

So you have to be able to do everything with the racket.

You got to have a block, slice forehand.

You have to have a block slice backhand.

You got to have a long finish on the slice backhand.

You got to have a short finish, you got to have a buggy whip on the forehand.

You got to be able to turn the hand sometimes goes higher, sometimes goes lower.

But whatever stroke the professional players are using, they're going to make that shot.

If they put a racket on the ball, it's usually going over the net.

True.

Yeah.

Well, that's what makes them the best.

That's what makes them the best.

So yeah, let's talk about the part of where we put out to the guests that what makes you a top player.

Like why do some players make it and why do not.

Even though they all train all the time, they all have a coach.

What really differentiates a guy who can successfully break the top hundred quickly?

Coaching, it's in the coach.

It absolutely comes down to the coach and the player and it's individualized.

So at 12 or 13 you should be looking to hire a full time coach and he only works with that player or two other players.

That's the key.

You're with that player for every practice, for every match that that player plays.

When time he's 13, you're watching every point he plays.

So for example, you go, he can't hit a slice backhand.

Well, he has to learn that shot at 13 because by 15 it's already too late.

So you need to be at around 13 years of age at the end of, at the end of your 13th year as a boy.

You need to have basically every shot in the book that you're going to use when you're on the tour.

So when you physically get up there to be 15 or 16.

When you go out on the tour, you have everything.

And so like.

And I mean every single shot in the book.

And so.

And you have the ability to keep the ball deep.

You never miss the ball cross court.

There's certain rules out there.

You never miss hardly any second serve returns are rarely missed on the men's tour, even though the average rally is.

They'll say it's seven shots.

But if you start charting the matches and you take out the first serves way longer, it's way more physical.

They hide the good stats.

Do they hide the good stats?

Basically, that's what happens.

And they hide the good stats.

What are the rules, the unwritten rules of pro tennis for you?

To be a pro tennis player, you.

Make a decision on every return.

You're usually going to return the ball middle.

You're aiming middle with your returns on the return.

So if you miss it, you go middle, cross.

It goes to the safe part of the court where there's no angles.

So people don't realize that.

So if you're at the future level, when you're out there, there's a lot of kids out there don't have the coaching.

They're missing cross court forehands.

Yet when you watch a final at Wimbledon, you can barely ever remember the forehand being this wide in a cross court.

Very, very seldom do you see it.

The slice backhand is never missed.

It's always in through the margin.

You're not creating angles.

And in professional tennis, tennis, whoever takes the ball line first, takes control to the point or gets to use their weapon first like their forehand, like Jim Currier would run around and take complete control of the point with the forehand.

And once he did that, he would win matches.

Serving is huge.

How everyone won the serves like Robbie Ginepri did not have a great serve, Currier didn't.

And what they did have on that, they had an unbelievable out wide serve, an amazing ability to hit the serve halfway up the service box on the deuce side of the court.

If they hit that target, they never lost that point.

So that out wide serve is huge for anybody who doesn't have a big serve.

That serve becomes, that's, that's your number one area to go to work with would be to hit that serve.

But it has to be properly.

Yeah.

Wide.

Yeah.

Because if it goes into the margin, it's in the honey hole.

Yeah, we call it in the honey hole.

So when Fed had that match point against Novak in the US Open and he hit the Serve went through the margin on the two side of 40 15.

And Novak just took a swing.

I mean, he just.

He said, I'm.

It's done.

And he swung it and he hit that forehand for the outright winner.

And suddenly the match changed.

It was like it was a match changer, so.

But a Fed had hit his first serve halfway up.

Game, set and match fed.

Simple.

Yeah.

Inches make a difference.

And then you defend middle on tour, so you defend middle.

That's the other rule.

What do you mean by defending middle?

So when you're stretched out wide or you're way behind on the baseline, you're always going to go back middle.

Unless you've already got a scouting portion.

You know, you're going to hit the ball to the part of the court, it's say with.

With a Marty Fish whose forehand was his weaker side.

You'll make him hit a forehand to win that point at all costs.

You're going to make him hit a forehand.

You're going to make Roger hit a backhand to win the point, if you can.

Even now with his new back?

No, even now.

I mean, Fed can still.

He's so.

He's a gifted shot maker.

He's every shot in the book.

They all do.

That's the difference.

Like Kyrgios has.

Has a great chip forehand.

He's got a great slice forehand.

He's got a great slice drop shot on both sides, which makes him fun to watch.

And then he uses the underarm serve.

I mean, I mean, the guy is.

I remember first meeting Nick in Tiburon.

So here's the story for you, and it's another player, Ilya Bezoliak, this gifted Serbian player.

You won't know his name, but he's gifted enough to play with Nina Zimovic in a live Davis cup tie against the United States.

In the fifth set.

The guy is a rock star player.

Two of them are up in Tiburon, and then that's a challenger.

Nick is probably 18 or 19.

And they both walk in, they're both very striking six foot five guys, but really, you know, And I go, and I go, hey.

And I go, what's going on?

Ilya goes, what are you doing today?

He said, I want you to meet Nick.

He's going to be super.

The next superstar from Australia.

I said, hey, Nick, how you doing?

Doing nice to meet you.

And we start chatting.

I said, well, how you guys doing this week?

What's Ilia this week.

And Ilya goes, I'm not feeling the Joe.

I'm checking out.

What do you mean?

Yeah, my wrist.

And he winks at my wrist.

I'm just not feeling it.

And I go to nickel.

How are you doing this week?

Said, I'm not feeling it either, mate.

I'm.

I'm ready to go home.

I've got a groin strain.

I go, really?

And I said, yeah.

And they wink at me and I go, I think no more about it.

So go out and do the practice with Donald young, with James McGee.

And we come back in, it's three hours later, and I'm hanging around, and the two boys come walking and they're soaking wet.

And I go, like, what are you guys?

Did you go for a swim?

I went, no, no.

We went and played basketball for five hours, not injured at all.

They just had no interest in playing that week.

And as everybody knows, Nick loves basketball.

So he was scheduled to play against.

To play with Richard Krajczek's tournament in Europe.

And he calls up Richard, former Wimbledon winner, and he calls him up, richard, I'm not coming to play your tournament.

He goes, what do you mean you're like.

I said, no.

LeBron James has asked me to train in camp this week in Cleveland.

I'm gonna go train with the world basketball champions.

Nick.

So lots of stories like that out there.

Yeah, yeah.

It's crazy.

The guy's just so relaxed.

He's so relaxed.

You can tell from me.

I'm laughing.

You'll hear it.

And I look at those two guys and they're probably the.

I've seen some of the most relaxed stuff ever.

Ever with these guys.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, now that we have you on a few stories, what's one of your funnier stories from your days on the tour?

Any fun Irish stories?

We do have a good few Irish listeners here.

Any interest in McGee?

We've got some good stories on.

One of my fondest memories was working with Conan Ireland early on, and we were going over.

We were in, and he just reached the semis of a challenger.

And I started working with him in Dublin when it was held.

And then we went to play a clay court, and that pretty much had played nearly the majority of his career was pretty much played on hard courts.

A few clay courts here and there.

So I go to my first clay court with him.

We're warming up at Carlos Burlock and great player from Argentina.

Really, really gifted.

And Connor's just slipping and sliding.

I'm just going like, that's the first day, you know you're going to get used to it.

You've got to put the ball of your foot down, you're going to be able to slide in.

Day two, we're go again and practice with Burlock, same thing.

And then we're getting ready to play the match the next day.

And we're both sitting down in the locker room before we go out and Nyland's feet are looking up and I look at the soles and I go, I'm like, colin, those are hardcore soles, dude.

Not have any clay courts.

I said, I didn't know.

I said, what do you mean you didn't know?

I said, I said.

So we went ahead and bought him a pair of clay court shoes before the match began.

One of those things you'd never think, you just, I took it for natural that, you know, everybody thinks you, you, you know, you use clay, but you don't play in clay that much, or no one's told you you don't know these things.

What was Connor ranked at the time?

Probably I don't remember, 3 or 400, let's say 2 or 300.

He climbed fast.

After I worked.

Connor's work was done on the road.

He did all the speciality work on the road.

People never, never really saw.

They saw him play in Ireland when he won his future and when he reached the semi finals of the challenger, there wasn't that much going on and it wasn't like now you can turn on, you can see the challengers live on the ATP tour at that moment in time wasn't available to many, many people.

He learned everything on the road and he learned about 8, 10, 12 shots, different shots that he didn't have before, and also the right footwear patterns and how to move on the court.

That's a huge part of it, the footwork and doing the right footwork.

How far can a player excel without these shots and footwork?

They're not going to be top 100, like what Jeff says, it's the details.

You're not making it.

If you can't hit a slice backhand, you know, without missing it for eight or ten minutes, you're not making it because when time comes to hit that shot, you're going to miss it.

So.

And it takes time to learn it and you have to buy in to use it.

And a lot of the players in the Futures level will not buy into the tricky shots.

Joe, the tricky shots are the simple should be the simplest shots should be the simple shots.

But for Example, Robbie's gifted.

Ginepri.

Not only he can do anything with the ball.

So for example, if you slice the ball out wide to Robbie on the backhand side and it breaks, it breaks the angle on the court, it goes out and he can hit an absolutely stunning short angle cross court that will open the court up.

In fact, when he hits that shot, the point's over.

I watch it numerous times.

I watch him beat James McGee in the semifinals of the challenger during his last year on tour.

I watched him do that.

And then you could take it line.

So you have to be real careful where you put the ball with these players.

At the Aussie Open last year, I spent a good week there watching a lot of tennis.

And one match between the Murray and the Batista, Murray's technical last match he ever played.

I know he's been back, but one thing I noticed, they were going down the centre, down the centre.

But once somebody pulled the trigger and went wide, the game point was on.

It was on.

And just because you went there wide.

Murray was so good with the wide ball, that actually gave him an advantage once the ball went wide.

And then I see all the top guys, once you go wide on them, you're opening yourself up for trouble.

Yeah, Andy Murray probably has the best out wide defensive forehand in the game.

So when he's 10 or 12ft behind it, he hits that buggy whip with a lot of spin.

It gets right down, either goes right up in the center of the court or goes into the middle, the middle section on the cross court, and he's back into the point.

That's impressive.

That's the difference.

So that running forehand, when you're deep, deep defending at the futures level, they'll drop that short and that's when the players will come in and then it's gone.

Once you hit a ball short with topspin that doesn't have the velocity to carry it really past the baseline, they're going to come in and they're going to hit a winner.

You're out of the point.

Yeah, that's the huge difference is that ability to defend.

We did on last week's podcast episode.

We had a hitting partner, Mike Digby's hit with Federer city pass.

All he said with him, he's only a young lad, but yeah, that's his, his job now.

He says he wants to be a hitting partner.

And anyway, I asked him, what 10 things did you learn from these guys?

And number one and most important was consistent depth.

Depth, depth, depth.

They just, they have it Ingrained.

They go, do they train it?

No, they don't train it because they've been doing it so long.

That's all they know.

It's crazy.

And the other thing then with that, if you don't have that, that's taught very, very early.

The drills are taught very early to hit the ball through the margin.

And you do depth based drills from the time you're 12 or 13.

And you have to hit like a certain amount of balls.

You have to have the velocity to get back.

So I remember working with, watching, I had to.

Luckily, when I was traveling with Jeff, I used to spend quite a bit of time with Herman Gumi and an Argentinian coach, gifted player, top 50 in the day.

And he was traveling with GNO Canas.

Canas, we all know his top 10 in the world.

Great player.

And he would do a drill where he'd go right back to the back of the fence one racket length out and he would just hit the ball deep right on the baseline without much pace.

And Kanius would have to rip the ball with enough velocity that he'd get to ball.

The ball would have to reach Kanius's racket on one bounce or they'd start to drill again.

Sounds easy.

No, you have to need some strength to be strengthened.

You have to be really loose and you have to be able to really rip that ball.

And he's not missing wide and it's not going and enough velocity reaches so that when he's playing then his ball is always going to be crossing the baseline on the crosshair.

That's one of the drills they'll do.

Is Nadal the best in the world at that?

Nadal's the best in the world at that.

Nobody.

You can't beat Nadal if you're a high and heavy topspin player.

No one can beat Rafa.

You have to be able to drive the ball through Rafa.

Let's say the lower.

We're not all playing Rafa every week, but at the lower level, you're playing somebody.

You has that heavy ball that feel like you're getting pushed back.

You don't have the strength to get on top of it.

What can you do in that situation?

You do speciality feeds.

That's where the coach comes in.

So you're fed ball to that part of the court over and over with the same velocity that you'll see inside the top 10, top 20.

So what people don't realize is, for example, Bjorkman was working some with Murray at one of the US Opens, Murray was getting ready to play Feliciano Lopez.

So Bjorkman goes out in the court in their practice before he plays Feliciano and he takes the racket and he starts mimicking.

He hits the inside of the ball like the way the Feliciano hits the slice.

And he is sticking the slices like 60ft in a row this close to the baseline.

Right on the baseline, I mean, right on the line from the service line.

So Murray's getting reps and then he feeds him short because that's what, that's what he's.

That's how the first point, when you get it off Feliciano, if he's going to cough it up, it will come from that slice backhand.

So Murray's already put the reps in before he plays that match.

That's how important the details are for coaching.

So.

And they don't miss a trick.

The top coaches, there's no secrets.

You're not hiding anything from these guys.

The people who've worked with grand slam players, they see everything.

And then if you have a problem like that or you're going to play a particular player, then you will be fed that ball.

You're having the problem with, for example, I mean, Roger's chip backhand cross court is a nightmare for a lot of people.

It was for Rafa early on.

So what did it do?

The team goes in, they stand in the service line and they hit nothing but short slices to Rafa's forehand.

When Rafa sees that ball now, game over.

It's game over.

I mean, he hit the points over, he's ripping the line or he's taking control of the point off better.

You know, that's a really difficult ball for the.

For the.

And then they never train it.

Yeah, and they never train it because.

They don't have a coach.

They don't have a coach.

And so they're all they're doing out in the futures without the coaches is they're just playing sets.

Whereas Andy Murray spends an hour and a half to two hours a day doing speciality.

The stuff that Jeff talks about, the 10 or 15 shots that you will use maybe three or four times in the match, but it's at the most crucial time.

So I mean, if you look at the final when Novak lost to Andy Murray, the difference in that match was Murray's defensive block.

Slice, backhand again, is probably the best in the world.

He neutralizes with that.

Novak in that final was stretched going out and he was stretched, he was half volleying the ball back, came in and sat up in the court.

Andy Murray roped him with a load of spin, had him off to the races.

Novak was cramping by the end of that match.

You better believe Heiden went in the next time.

And now if you look at.

If you look at Novak now, he doesn't miss very many slices, and he uses a lot more.

Same with.

With Rafa.

People think, you know, I watch Rafa do, you know, 15 minutes worth of work, and he sliced backhand every day.

They just.

They're perfectionists.

They're perfectionists.

Yeah.

But you don't know that unless you're told that.

So if you're out there 14, 13 years of age, and you don't have a coach that's experienced or who's actually really coached 20 years on the tour, you're buying into a coach that you won't get the job done.

You're screwed, basically.

And sometimes the best players in the world aren't the best coaches.

They can't explain the process.

That's the other thing you have to look out for.

They're great at doing the scouting reports, but they can't give you the detecting adjustments of where.

Of how it feels to hit.

This shot is basically what you're teaching the players.

Players and what it looks like.

And then it's backed up on YouTube.

But like, the biggest myth that you'll have out there with the coaching is.

And a lot of coaches will say they've worked with players.

Their parents won't do a background check, and that's the kiss of death.

In other words, they won't talk to the former players.

And then you call up, oh, yeah, I was with him one time at a Pro am.

But on the resume, it says that they've worked.

You've run across it all the time.

You run across that even through the Instagram account, where some coaches say they've worked at X, Y and Z, and it's just.

They happened to bump into them.

No.

Somewhere while on vacation.

And I know some coaches have been caught, some pro players have called out coaches for doing this, and it was a certain situation last year.

But, yeah, some coaches have coached so many players.

But I think if you can find out who coaches have coached and look at the results and seeing.

Okay, speak.

Some people, they were never going to make it, and they did.

There's always, like, insight there where the coach can extract the absolute most out of the player.

Like, they can make them better than what they are.

How many times do you hear a player who, oh, yeah, he did as best he could.

Top 400, is that a cop out?

That's all they could reach?

Or is it because they didn't have.

The right, if they have the speed and the wheels to do it?

It's just, they just haven't had the right coaching.

So if you've got the speed to play on the, on the.

You just haven't had the right coaching.

You haven't taken care of the small details that make you, that make you top 100.

Like if I gave you a canvas, Joe, or gave other top coaches a canvas, you know what they're doing and the player.

Let's say they're young, but they're not.

They're not gifted as an athlete, but they do all the right work, they tick all the boxes.

How far can they go?

They can probably make a career in doubles, but singles, if you don't have the speed, you can have all the right shots, but you're not making it in singles, you're just not going to make it.

So prerequisite, you need speed.

You have to have wheels.

And then with wheels you can be, you can be a retriever, but if you don't have any big weapons or you play behind the baseline, you can really get to about 150, 160 in the world.

But you've got to have a weapon after that.

You must have a weapon to break that top 100.

You must have a weapon.

Whether it's a serve or forehand, the backhand, you have to have a weapon.

You must have a weapon.

You have to give the opponent something to be scared of.

Yes, exactly.

Right, right there.

Yeah.

They gotta live in fear.

Like when you see Rafa getting ready to use the buggy whip, it's.

It's like, oh, where am I going?

Is it going to go line or I'm going to be run off the court with it?

When you've caught that ball up to him, you see the attackable ball, you.

See the trigger being pulled and it's.

Yeah, it's.

You see it in your mind and you go, oh, no.

I look at Roger running around to hit a forehand, you go, oh, no.

You know, all hell's breaking loose on the court now.

Yeah.

Does a weapon becomes naturally, doesn't it?

Yeah, you sort of grow up and you find your way up.

It becomes who you are.

Yeah.

I mean, Murray's backhand, double handed backhand, it's the best, one of the best in the games.

Moranka, single hand, the backhand way better than his forehand.

Yeah.

And then they'll play.

So if you go to Oranka's backhand, you better be ready.

Or Marty Fish's backhand with way better than his forehand.

And they could just hurt you with that shot.

They really hurt you because you don't know what they're going to take in line or they're going to rip it cross, really, and they can change it.

Do these guys.

Obviously Rovinka knows his backhand is his weapon.

His forehand's pretty good as well.

Oh, it's huge.

But do they spend even more time working on the backhand or do they try and cover up the deficiency, work on the deficiencies?

Obviously they're going to do buckets and buckets of returns on the forehand and returns on the backhand.

So the coach will serve at and they'll stand up real close to the or just behind the service line.

And we just do reps and reps of serves with the same velocity you'll see in a match.

So in 25 minutes you've done more returning than you're going to do in a five set match in 20 minutes.

And that's the other thing.

It's people.

And then you go to the double side of the game, which is kind of fascinating to me because if all the singles players played doubles, half the guys in top 100 and doubles wouldn't be there.

If everybody was a requirement for the singles players to play singles and doubles, you decimate 50% of the field.

In my opinion.

The guys are that good.

I mean, if Roger and Rafa played doubles, I think, yeah, one thing, if.

They played doubles too, if they actually train specifically for doubles.

So that's the other thing.

Now doubles, you have to.

It's specific training.

It's half volleys, it's first volleys, it's serving to locations, it's crossing patterns and it's teamwork and it's synergy on the court.

And at the end of the day, these guys, I mean, I've been lucky to practice with some of them.

Like Ellis Ferreira.

Probably he's won Grand Slam, probably was number one in the world in doubles.

I would practice him for an hour and a half.

He would not miss one half volley or one first volley overhead in the hour and a half.

That's how good his hands were.

That's how good he was.

Not one, but it's trained.

It's trained.

Pat Cash, I watched him train.

This is a great story on, on Pat Cash, the year he won Wimbledon.

Believe it or not, Pat Cash Was training in Dublin in Carrick Mine's lawn tennis club in the weeks preceding him, going over to Wimble the year he won it.

So I watched him train every day.

I just sat in the back of the court and watched him train.

He would be playing five to six sets of tennis, like for guys who are top 20 in the world, like peaking for women on six sets.

I would watch him play sets where he wouldn't miss 1/2 volley of volley.

During the course of some sets, if you put his racket on it, it was on.

And that's what really opened my eyes of him.

What's a different level?

And then he goes and he wins.

And one of the stories is from Fred Starley.

He's a great commentator.

I was sitting with Fred one time and he said, yeah, did you ever notice the.

After the match when he beat Landel in the final?

I said, well, I said, I mean, he played.

He's an unbelievable.

He said, no.

You look at his knees.

And Pat Cash's knees were bleeding.

He'd gotten down so low to the ball and so many times in that match, his knees were actually touching the ground to get down to hit those volleys.

Knees were bleeding.

It's so hard.

When you do hear these stories of how these guys don't miss.

They can.

I've seen them hit practice cones and you know, like in a minute they can hit it four, five, six, seven times.

You're like, it takes me 10 minutes before I hit one.

Like, they're just so good.

Like, Pete Sampson mentioned this a few weeks ago.

He's known he could hit a 50 cent 50p coin anytime he wanted on the court.

Just hard to believe that.

I know these guys are the best in the world.

That's what you need to be able to do these things.

But even understand how these guys do it is pretty hard.

They understand the geometry of the court and know exactly what they can do with the ball and where to go.

And they know how to manage the ball when it gets to that.

So if the ball comes short, cross court to their backhand side, they're going to slice it and come into the net, either of the middle or through the margins.

Well, I thought about it earlier when you were talking about these guys don't miss.

Don't miss.

No, they play middle.

But what they do do is once they see that early ball, they are on a quicker than a gazelle.

Like, Niki Pilich is a great coach and I learned this off him.

And here's the mentality of these Players, when the ball is hit short, psychologically you go, that's my point.

You're looking for that one weak moment when the ball is short.

And once it's short, whatever your game style is, if you're Fabriz Santono, you're coming into the net off that short ball.

If you're Jim Currier or Agus, you're hitting a forehand.

If you're Raptor, you're going to slice it and come in.

There's another person who knew, who never missed a volley.

So good, so good.

I mean you watch them, you just don't realize until you actually practice with them or you watch them for hours of what they do.

But I mean, going back to Cash, Cash would do those six sets and then you do sprints for half an hour and he'd be thrown up during the sprints.

Up in Carrick Mines, I'm going like.

And then you hear the stories about Jim Curry are like hitting a thousand forehands in an hour, like sets of 30, but like running, hitting forehands, running around, hitting inside out forehands back and forth.

30, 30 balls, 22nd break, thousand balls in an hour, trolleys.

So those are the stories that are, that are fascinating.

Again, it comes down to you have to be lucky enough to find a coach that has the ability to do it all.

You've got to be able to feed the ball the specific locations with the speed and with the depth and with the pace that they're going to see in the pro tour.

You can't just be out there and it's a lot of different feeds.

Very complicated.

Where do people, where do coaches listening, where do they learn these skills?

Is there like a resource online or they can't just.

No, there's actually not that much online.

Pretty much these coaches go away like, you know, Lungren's gone, he's in Texas.

He doesn't really coach anymore.

Anymore.

He's retired.

Peter's retired coach that helped him win the Wimbledon title, he's gone.

And they just take their knowledge, they don't bother.

When they're done with it, they like to go and just roll out the basketballs and do ladies climbing in the morning.

It's a no brainer to do that.

Money's good and the money is really, really good.

Yeah, and it's really good.

So if you don't have that money.

Yeah.

You might as well not go on the tour.

You can try it, but doubles you can do.

You pick somebody.

Like doubles is different.

Like so Johan Buns from Julian Rozier were outside the top one 100 when I met them.

I was traveling with Conor and Ireland.

They would do an hour and a half of drills every single day.

Every day an hour and a half to two hours of just doubles drills.

Then they go play two sets in the afternoon with a super tiebreaker.

They did it for a year.

Top 50.

Ruro Junior went to number one in the world.

Details, details and details.

And using half volley after half volley from every situation.

So every ball you can possibly imagine you get in doubles, they practice the balls dipped at your feet, lashed at them.

They just became really good at what.

They'Re buying, really good at what they could do.

And tell me you are working with an Irish guy, Julian Bradley, at the moment.

Yeah.

Who is such a hard worker.

I know Julian gone back here.

He's actually lived with a good friend of mine for a while and yeah, he's one of the hardest workers.

Nicest guys out there.

But he's making the transition to the doubles game.

Yeah, doubles.

But he's winning his double cycles using his single skills.

Yes, that's what I want to talk to you about.

You're going to give him doubles to us.

I'm starting.

He's only been two years on the tour.

Yeah.

So let's.

And for two years that he's been on the tour, he hasn't had a full time coach with him.

Yeah.

So he desperately needs the funding to do it.

We're trying to get that.

And, and I've helped out, I've given.

I've donated a lot of my time to him.

Year one.

Here's how you know how good he is.

Just before you go in, Joe, Julian took a tennis quite late.

He was 13 or 14.

16.

16, sorry.

Yeah.

When he started playing tennis.

So he's late to the game.

He is very intelligent.

He studied dentistry.

Now, he didn't finish his dentistry course to go pro.

No, he went to finish.

He had to finish his degree in America.

Well, he didn't finish dentistry.

He took up a different degree in the States.

So he could come back to that in the future.

In the future, yeah.

So he's really intelligent but I think he was advised not to go pro by a lot of people.

But that's what he wanted to do.

Full respect.

And he's given singles to go.

He's been traveling a lot in the States, playing week on week, working hard, working with anybody.

I think he told me last year he spent like he slept in 170 different places and with different people.

He's just crazy guy, but nice.

But now he's working with you, you're going to give him the tools.

He's going into his third year in the tour.

Yep.

So what tools, like, are you going to give him?

Well, he's already developed at the end of this year.

So his second, his first year he played in three doubles finals, and that's it.

Which was.

And one one this year he played.

The end of the year, he played in 12 doubles finals, winning seven.

So when you see that kind of progress, and that's when I said, okay, I'm going to spend a lot more time now working on his weapons.

His serve will be.

It's going to be a huge factor for him.

We've been really working hard on that.

He's now got a really, really good serve, that the forehand has become a weapon.

He's continuing to develop.

Now he's developing, finally the slice backhand.

He's getting a real feel for the variations on that.

And I'm working really, really hard on giving him his first volleys, the ones that will be low the net, doing multiple hours on first volleys and half volleys, knowing exactly what his options are on those low volleys, where he can go, which I think he'll have a super year this year.

I'm really excited about this year.

I'll meet up in February and March.

I'll go back out on the road with him.

But whenever he's not on the road, he's with me.

So same with Jeff.

Jeff had a great comedy, said, I don't care where you move to.

If you move to Timbuktu and I'm not playing on the Tour, I'm going to come work with you.

So that's what he did.

That's what Nyland did.

That's what McGee did.

So people don't realize that just because they're not playing tournaments that week or two or three weeks, they're actually with them coach for nine days, doing two to four hours a day, working on the skills that they.

That were misfiring, say they were misfiring.

The.

The backhand slice approach.

They missed too many of them.

You go do that until you just.

You don't miss them anymore.

I think most players, let's say, work hard, they put in the hours, but I think it's down to what they work on is where it's like I know that let's say the junior levels there I've hit with a lot of juniors over the years.

Years and what I'd say, what do you want to work on?

And it's like I want to play points and that's it.

It's never rarely a kid who wants to say, look, my slice cross isn't working.

Let's just work on that for an hour.

Give me some low feeds or low balls.

It's really hard to come across kids who really know what they need to work on.

They just don't understand.

They don't.

The parents don't understand the process of the time.

A private coach.

It's set play coach, set play coach, match play, situation drills with the coach, which are 24,7.

It's the same in every other sport.

You have a coach and a team.

Tennis is that it's an individual sport and you can do doubles, but it's still very specific training for the doubles.

It's not going out with, you know, 10 kids on the court and two coaches.

That's not going to work.

You have to have the individual coaching and the individual individual feeding.

I mean there's no group coaching for Roger Federer and Andy Murray at like at 13 years of age it was Andy Murray, his mom, the other coaches at the back of court and what we call a stick on the other end or a former player who would just be there to spar.

While Andy Murray was working on maybe on his.

He was doing sets of his buggy beforehand, like sets of 50, buggy beforehands on the run, sets of 50 block slices of start to point.

How important is it for the young kids, these 12, 13, 14 year olds to be hitting with former pros consistently?

Essential.

Essential.

I'd say it's the most important thing for myself as a former player, the biggest progress I ever made and the best decision ever made was only to play with adults.

When I was 13 years of age, I didn't play any juniors for a year.

All I did and these adults would beat me, beat my brains at like Tommy McGill, who's where we are now backed if I want to Give Tom, Tom McGill a big shout out.

He's the tennis director here in Beckt of Lawn Tennis Club and he would beat my brain silly for a year.

I didn't beat him till I was 15.

But what it did for me, it taught me how to compete.

And when I came back the next year I won Every single under 14 tournament in Ireland and I played internationally For Ireland that year from not even being accepted into Fitzwilliam the year before, which is the most prestigious tournament in Irish chamus.

I wasn't accepted either.

Ah, there you go.

We both have that in common.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But yeah, no.

So I do see the value in that.

But I kind of see if a kid's like really good, 10, 11, 12, and they're the best, then there's more inclination to that and maybe the parents and they may get money to do it, but it isn't expensive.

If you haven't proven.

You know, you may have to dream, but you haven't proven it.

Results to.

All of a sudden I need a full time coach and then we need to play a X pro or X, you know, whatever level pro.

But they can hit these big balls.

They're older, they've done the tour.

Get them on the court as well.

It is an expensive sport.

It takes money to do.

I mean, that's what I'm saying.

You have to have in your bank account you.

You have to have the funding to.

To have the coaching.

Because you don't see anybody at the grand slams or without a coach.

Let's just be honest.

Sometimes they're two and three deep.

It's.

The coaching is the most important part.

Before that, let's say grand slams there if it's Junior Grand Slamster, 16, 17, 18, but 12, 13, 14 year old, that's where they need a coach as well.

And that's where they need.

That's when they need.

That's when they need.

Yeah.

So either the.

The associations fund you or you.

Unfortunately you do.

Some of the contracts are draconian.

So like in some of the countries they'll.

They'll see super talented players with no money and business will come together and they'll say we'll fund you everything on the tour.

Your coaching, everything.

But we want 80% of your earnings from the time you're 18 till you're 30.

That's some of the contracts that some of these players have signed.

You've given me a name on that before.

Yeah.

Are we allowed to talk about the name?

We can give the name.

Yeah.

I would say.

I mean, I give you two names.

I know Tommy has 30% of his earnings till he was 30.

And I'm Burlock.

Carlos Burlock I think was about 80.

80% of his money had to be paid back until he was 30.

It's crazy.

Pretty harsh contracts.

Yeah.

I didn't know.

I never.

Maybe it's out written knowledge about Tommy.

I Didn't know that a Carlos.

No, no.

And that wouldn't know.

Not too many people would know that.

I have a lot of fighting go.

I mean it's, it's, you can't do it.

That's the proof in the pudding there.

He would not have.

Carlos Barlock would not have made it without the coaching.

It's a bit of a chicken and egg situation, isn't it?

Yeah, but these players and what people don't you know.

The left handed player, what's the right?

Char Paloma.

I always get names.

Yeah.

He was playing futures of 14 in quality.

This is a question I have for you.

Junior potential 12, 13, 14, they're really good top in their country.

Should they go straight to futures or.

Should they go straight to the futures?

Yeah, take the coach and go.

If you're strong enough to be able to hit the ball and you're strong enough at 14, you go, there's no point in doing the Junior Slams or the junior itf.

That's great.

As far as I'm concerned you're just wasting money.

And it's a false sense of illusion because meanwhile all the other 14 and 15 and 16 year olds, they're playing the tour with their coaches.

They're not bothering with the idea they might play and get their.

They'll have enough points from the tour to play in the ITF Grand Slams.

They'll go play in those.

But even then, like I've watched players who were semi finalists in junior Wimbledon, I've watched them not get anywhere on the tour.

I, I used to what they would come out and get cleaned in the qualities by these 24 year olds who've been out there for, for four and five years.

Watch them get cleaned, watch them come off the court crying and not understanding why.

And then yeah, it's a big jump, it's a massive jump from the.

I'm the top star here at Junior Wimbledon.

It's from being a star at Wimbledon or the US Open, being one of the best, all the attentions around you till the next week or the next year.

You're playing the futures.

Now if you're lucky, you'll get a few wildcards as some of them do and some may be lucky, they can win a few matches but from what I'm seeing, most don't and it does take.

You do have to graduate.

It's like going to university.

You can't just graduate.

You do have to do your three.

Or four years and there's no way around it.

And that's what I, I'VE been with my players in semifinals of futures, and it's just myself, my player and the other coach, just the two coaches and the players in the semi finals and finals and maybe eight or 10, 15 people watching the final of the futures.

It's tough.

That's tough.

So that's really.

And then you've got to recognize when you're, you're top 100.

There is, you know, I mean, the most beautiful thing, I guess about the tour is generally speaking, the players really respect one another that are inside the top 100.

I mean, when Jeff was top 100, I mean, I'll never forget, like he shared the story, but I don't know if he mentioned this part.

It was like when he said, hey, Roger, my name's Jeff Salonstein.

He says, and Roger just no coach that weekend.

And Roger goes, jeff, I know exactly who you are.

Yeah, and I'd love to hear that you and Jeff and this bantering.

I see you're playing the lefty.

I'm the lefty said, yeah, I'd love to hear with you tomorrow.

See it tomorrow.

So we go out, we practice.

Like there's 600 people watching the practice the next day.

Thomas Johansson, zero.

It's like, that's the difference.

Yeah.

And Federer was only a kid.

Federer, yeah, yeah.

He just won Wimbledon that year.

Yeah.

So I mean, but that's how nice he is.

I mean, Stefan Edberg would be the same.

Unbelievably nice to like he'd go to Cincinnati and in Cincinnati or in Memphis, where the locker room, there would be locker people in the locker room helping take care of the players.

He would always find out what their shoe size, shirt size, short size and grip size.

And he'd leave a racket, a shirt and a pair of tennis shorts for the guys.

Unbelievable guy.

Those are the stories you don't hear.

You know, it's a lot of stuff that goes behind the scenes, but it's details that tell you that's what kind of guy.

That Stephan that sat at it, that's Stefan Edberg is Karim Alami from Morocco, was playing in Germany.

He was driving buses at Bolleter.

He went back into touring and then became really, really successful.

He's in Germany playing some young and up and coming German kid who got a wild card probably into Stuttgart or one of the tournaments in Germany.

And the kid is so nervous, the kid can't get up and he loses like, oh, no.

And Karim turns to the crowd and there's a lot of people there and he goes and he grabs the microphone, he goes, hey, about, hey, guys, how about we do another set here, huh?

And so he goes out and he plays another two sets with the kid and the people stayed and there was lights out.

The kid played great tennis.

It was a real match.

Like, it was like, it was like four and six.

That class.

That's pretty, that's, you know, so that's why.

That's just.

You don't see much of that now.

No, it's a too professional.

Yeah.

A two professional professional.

Yeah.

But that, those are some of the stories that, that are out there that make the tour fascinating.

You just never know what you're going to find from one week to the next.

You just don't know.

And Joe Tom, did you enjoy traveling?

Yeah, I love traveling.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But I, I'm find that the biggest thing you have to look out for is that you don't want to be doing it week in, week out, which a lot of players will do.

Try to tell Julian is try to do three or four weeks max and then take two or three or four days off and then just don't touch the rackets and then go see your coach and then do a training block and go back out again.

The key is managing that schedule.

That's another thing that people don't look at.

So you need to make sure you take some time off, like one day off a week.

We just do not touch those rackets.

But a lot of problems with the futures is they'll overplay, they'll have no coaching into futures.

And then when they lose, say, in the first round, they'll go out and they'll, they'll go out and get, you know, to feel sorry for themselves and they'll go out and party and they won't play the next day.

That doesn't happen with my players.

We go out.

If you lose 7, 6 in the third set in the first round of the tournament, you go out and you play the same amount of sets again the next day.

You do it six days a week because that's the only.

That's how else you're going to be ready to play.

To win the matches on the tour, you've got to do the workload.

Yeah, not true.

I once.

So it's really funny.

A lot of the players, oh, I'm not, I'm done.

It's.

I know.

It's a top level as well.

You do hear stories of.

They lose and they go awol and I played a futures in Greece, God, about eight years ago now, I was With a lot of Irish guys was great fun, as in have the team, all the Irish guys back there.

But I remember I roomed with an Australian lady and he lost first round qualys.

I didn't see him for four days.

He disappeared because week two was on the same place.

So we were hanging around there and I was like, Harrison, where have you gone?

I didn't hear anything back.

And eventually he goes, oh, went to meet a mate in Athens.

We were in Heraklan at the time, went to meet.

So he flew to Athens, went on the piss.

It's boozing for those who are drinking for those who don't know what the piss is.

And yeah, came back and sure lost first round next week as well.

Gifted player but just any excuse to.

Time management is what they don't understand either.

So here's the other thing about now.

I mean if you're on court at Roger Federer, you are never.

I've never been late for a Tour practice in 20 years on the ATP Tour at the Futures level I'd be getting phone calls from the guys that don't have coaches like.

And when we agreed to meet at 8 o'clock, at 8:01 the phone rings and they go, oh, I'm too tired, I can't make it today, sorry.

Well, could you imagine doing that with.

With Roger Federer, who's not a champ, would he ever practice with you again?

First of all, so I never.

So when you run into a lot of that and then people don't realize also you only have the court for an hour.

So when you've got a coach on one end and a coach on the other end, the players don't pick up balls, that's another thing.

So they hit balls continuously, non stop for 15 minutes or seven and a half and they change sides.

They do another seven or eight minutes that first thing, 15 minutes they've hit more balls in that 15 minutes.

Then the kids are going to hit like in.

In.

If the kids that don't have coaches, they're walking around going, getting balls, do the time management, do them.

See the amount of times that these guys are top 100, they hit way more balls in that hour than do the math.

Yeah.

Anybody's out there saying it's into mathematics, we should probably do a study on that and be.

It'll be fascinating.

Get back to Fabio on that one.

Yeah, let me know.

That's why I think it's even important, even at the lower level, have more balls on the court because you don't have to go Pick them up.

Even if you're just playing sets or drills, have like 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 balls which just constantly going.

And it does make a big difference because you can, you know, at the lower level, you can hit a few balls in the net quickly, like, yes.

And then you, you're like, oh, go again.

That was just a waste of time.

Two minutes.

Yes.

So loads of balls and keep it going no matter what the level is.

And they don't have to be new balls.

Like I've gone to Sorry Joe.

Training centers and some of the balls they have are terrible and so I.

Some of them do replenish them every so often, but some wait forever.

So it takes you a while before, if you're playing with your own fuse tip sets of balls, it takes a while before they get really bad.

I mean, that's one of the unwritten rules.

We have a hopper of balls with us wherever we go.

We always have 50 or 60 really good balls that are being used in the tournament.

So the first thing we do when we go to a tournament for three weeks is we find out what the ball is.

We go ahead and we get 100 brand new balls.

We have a hopper with a slingshot.

Oh, it's usually in a cardboard box at the Grand Slams.

And you see them just check there.

You put a card down, whatever your ID, you check out 70 or 80 balls and.

And off you go.

And then you never see that here and at the futures.

That's what I'm saying.

That's the difference.

You'll see.

Yeah, details, details.

You'll see in preseason.

I've seen preseason pictures all over the world of videos now, especially just from December.

And how many coaches had Aussie Open?

20, 20 Dunlop balls.

All the top guys had them.

They're practicing with the ball a month before.

I know they have the advantage of Australia because they have this break to do it.

The others not so much, but they still get.

Once they move on next term they get that ball, they start working on it.

So they have a huge difference.

Like so cheap balls.

Like I'll never forget, like hitting.

Doing a practice training session with Robbie the.

The club had decided to buy these balls which were not used on the, on the, on the tour.

And I made a mistake of feeding them.

He saw the ball bounce and then actually he just hit it out of the stadium.

He's come on, Joe.

But going on, I said, ah, yeah, that's how, that's how.

Where they are.

I think all those little minor details.

Time management ball, the coaching I mean, it's.

And when you put it together now you see why these guys make it.

I mean, Tim Henman had a private coach at the time.

He was 13 till he.

For his whole time and that transition up to the tour.

And Stuart Doyle, who you've played against, actually practice, practice with, he played Henman when they were both 14 and beat henman 2 and 2.

Did he.

And then he means Stuart blew out his knees.

But it was.

It also wouldn't have made any difference because we did.

We have no coaches here in Ireland who spent 20 years on the tour.

We don't have access to them.

But what about these coaches?

You know, you see, I know there's an Irish guy who.

Irish Italian guy who plays in Italy.

The mothers Irish, they moved.

They married an Italian guy, they moved to Italy and he's grown up over there.

But they're in a club in the countryside.

One coach takes both sons.

I think last year, like there were number one guy was like one or two in Italy under 14, which a huge achievement.

But I don't know the coach had any really tour experience.

But the kid bought into the coach.

That's the part of it.

The coach, they buy into the coach.

It's a relationship and it has to be fun for the coach, players and the coaches.

It's not an easy skill to code.

You have to make it fun.

They have to be laughing and relaxed on the court.

They got to be having fun with you.

Otherwise, one of the biggest things you have to have as a coach, believe it or not, is a personality that's going to make your player laugh.

Because if you don't have that, they're not going to.

They're not going to travel with you.

I have seen you do it now just recently with the kids out here where you do play some Star wars game with them, make it fun for them, which that's what they need.

That's they're into, rather than being all serious.

And then the kids eat again.

We're here and, you know, we get inspired here in Beck All Tennis club because we've got, you know, Lenser, Bechte and Wesley.

Oh, Wesley's rugby team is training out here so that the kids, when the pitches aren't empty, we take the.

We'll take 40 tennis balls and we'll walk around, pretend we're trying to convert, you know, tries through the goal posts with the tennis balls.

The kid loved it.

The kids loved the game.

It's that creative aspect of it.

You know, Robbie would love to shoot for Targets.

Every Friday, myself and Robbie Ginepe would go out in the court and I never beat him because Obviously he was 13 in the world.

But we would play for bottles of wine.

He would always show for that.

For that last hour on Friday, I was a way to get Robbie out.

He'd come because he's a great chef, great cook, great guy, great player.

And he would always show up.

That's the only way I would get him out on the Friday because that would, that, you know, cuz otherwise it's, you know, it's a week can.

He's done it all, he's seen it all.

He's, you know, he's getting ready to retire.

So you have to find some way to motivate him to get it out.

To get it out.

Bottle of wine and targets.

Sounds good.

Yeah, it's good.

Yeah.

It's a bottle of wine of his choice.

Yeah.

Case he's got a cellar full of it by now.

Say he has some good wine there as.

What are things you see pro players all the years on the tour use to motivate themselves?

Oh, they'll definitely, they'll definitely use music.

They'll, they'll definitely, they'll definitely listen to something.

They'll definitely do some yoga.

A lot of them like to do yoga.

A lot of them do a lot of stretching.

Like a lot of people.

What people don't realize is and it's active, it's not passive stretching.

Like if you're going to go hit With Lopez, I remember myself and Conan island went out in the Australian Open and we were practicing with Lopez and the very first ball the coach fed in.

Lopez hit the ball at 120 miles an hour.

His arm was already match play loose.

We'd gone in, we didn't know that with Lopez was like that.

So we hadn't warmed up, we'd warmed up the legs, we done, we got on the bicycle.

Everything was done but the arms.

So Conor was hoping to have the short tennis warm up and then move back in the baseline.

So was I.

No, straight back in the baseline.

Straight in.

120 miles an hour.

That's why waste time warming up when you could be warmed up.

I can see what do the same thing.

Like if you went on the court and practiced with Andre, the first ball was coming at you Mach90.

So I'm practicing with you.

You know, it gets a bit heated.

What sort of techniques, what would they have used?

Would they use money or money or numbers?

So for example, I'm going to slice the ball to you 30 times down the line and you count how many angle backhand passes you hit.

That's the motivation.

So you're trying to get to 30.

So we'll do two or three sets and then if you get 30, 30, 30.

Here's the funny thing about that number.

You want to repeat it the next day.

So there's no.

It's never going to be perfect.

As soon as you miss, it's like the number PI, it's to infinity.

You start all over again.

There's no perfection in tennis.

And that's one of the big things.

Mentally you have to teach to players.

But if I'm slicing the ball to you and you're trying to hit a cross court backhand passing shot and you're only making 8 out of 30, sorry, that's not going to be.

That's that number.

So that it has to be quantifiable.

Those are the stats within the set, stats that you don't see from the 13 to the 18 year olds.

That's there every point.

They play a static.

So if they have an unforced forehand there, it was the wrong finish, wrong footwork, wrong part of the court.

You're too late.

It should have been a buggy.

No, you can only should have chipped that.

So the pattern unfurls in a match play situation.

So it becomes really important that you're, that you have measurable goals and the players buy into it and attainable goals.

Everybody is a starting point, including me.

So if you can't hit, you know, 30 drop volley, backhand volleys in the road from below the net, you've got to get it up and over.

And the fact if it goes too deep, the player is going to run it down.

So the professional level, it's the margins is like it's half of what it makes all the difference.

We had this fun.

We did it last week with the young kids, which was a bit of fun.

I was working on the shot and you're right, if it's not good enough, anybody can run it down.

So it has to be perfect and you need to work hard at them.

So, Joe.

Yeah, we're going to end this soon.

I've taken enough of your time.

Any other stories we can end this podcast on that our listeners would enjoy.

I think that you're always trying to find like story storytelling is a huge part of being on the tour and I have loads and loads of stories to share.

But this is one of my favorite ones was on the tour bus and we were Going out and we were in Shanghai and I was with Jeff and Jeff had won his first round match and then he played Philipusos and lost in the second round.

We're on the tour bus.

It was a big bus.

We all.

Because the hotels are, it's like a 30 minute ride from the hotel to, to that Shanghai site where they used to hold the master series.

So we would get the, the bus out there and I remember setting, setting down there with Scotch raper, left hander from Australia and we.

One of the stories we always share, what's the worst match points that you've, you know, you've had and you've actually lost a match.

And Scott goes, I've got one for you.

You're not going to believe this.

And I go, what is.

I was in Cincinnati in a first round playing Roger and I'm playing, playing the best tennis of my life and I match point up and I win the match.

I hit the ball.

Roger's taking the racket out of his hand and he's walking towards me with his hand held out to say well played Scott, great match.

And the umpire overrules the call and made and said no, the ball was in and they went back and replayed the point.

Roger saved that match point again and actually won the match on one Cincinnati.

Ouch.

That hurts.

That hurts.

Another one that was really brilliant was panate was 13.

This guy's, if you want to know, look at somebody really elegant, a little bit of history.

Look up Adriano Panata, the Italian player legend.

Yeah, he's a legend but one of the stories that people don't know about him, he was 13 match points down in the first round of rome, saved all 13, went on to win Rome and went on to win, to win the French Open.

Another great story.

His nickname is Iron Mike Russell.

I mean this guy, he's a great top 100.

He's in there for at least five years and I'll always remember him telling me he was 15.40match too much points down in French Open.

First round of qualies saves him Qualies in and has coin, has two match points on Guga.

Curtin loses those match points in the fourth round.

Guga saves the match points, goes on and wins the French.

Those are just some of the stories.

I mean how often does that happen?

A player saves match points, digs himself out of the grave and wins the tournament.

It's does it give you.

There's no better.

I think there's no better feeling than that.

I mean, James McGee did it twice in.

In a challenge over.

He reached a semi final to save match points in the first round of Qualys.

Won that match quality then.

And then he had two match points down.

In the quarterfinals of the challenger one saved against Kozlov.

Okay, Michael Jarzy, our jersey.

It's the big tall.

Yeah, both guys are.

Yeah.

Top 100 guys.

Yeah.

Yeah.

There's something about saving.

Something about saving.

Match fight two in one week.

I mean, in two in one week is Mickey, like, it's your week.

Mickey had a great week.

It must give you a sense of freedom where you just, you know, no matter what happens, I should be out of here.

Yeah, but what about that feeling also of having match points where you miss.

You miss a terrible ball or you get a bad call and you're like, the job's done.

That's just, you know, that's heartbreaking.

That's tears.

I mean, if you're at a Grand slam, that happens.

There's a lot of tears in the locker room in those, like, you know, maybe not on the court, but everybody will go into that locker room and find some place you'll be.

There's a lot of tears when that happens.

You did, you did start a story saying, who's the guy that smashed all his rackets?

Oh, yeah.

Fernando Verdasco.

Yes.

Sorry, you started a story with Fernando smashing all his rackets.

But at the Aussie Open last year, Isner played.

I can't remember now.

Yeah.

Who's the other tall American?

He won today as well.

He's.

I can't think of his name now.

Sorry.

Oh, Riley Opelka.

I know.

Exactly.

Is it Riley Opelka?

Yeah, yeah.

So he's been coached by Johnny Zebome.

He's one of his coaches who I used to coach.

Okay, we'll cut into that.

Yeah.

So I'm at the Aussie Open last year, speaking your story of Vedasco smashing his rackets and Opelka beats John Isner.

And it was one of these seven, six, six, seven, seven, six, seven, six, six, seven matches.

And I'm walking through the tunnel and I see Isner behind me.

And I'm sorry, he's walking.

I'm like looking back, I just see him take his bag off his shoulder and the guy lets loose on all his rackets.

Now, you never see that on court.

No, you don't know.

That's what they do.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

I was like, this be a great video for functional tennis with John.

I just kept walking.

I didn't even look back.

I was afraid of getting a racketron at me.

Oh, you see a lot of that.

You see, like, lockers being smashed, like, lockers being smashed with rackets.

Just smashing the locker in the locker rooms.

But, yeah, players will lose once they get off that stadium core and they've had match points and they've lost a tight match.

They keep a great face because they know they're on cameras, but you know, when they.

When they're not on camera, mayhem breaks loose.

Mayhem breaks loose.

Let's leave the podcast for there.

That was really interesting.

Enjoyed it.

And thankfully, we got podcasting.

We got the tips in.

Yeah.

And we got a few stories in.

So let's see.

Hopefully the people like it and they want more.

We can give them more.

Give us some more.

Yeah.

Thank you for having me on your show, Fabio.

Really appreciate it.

Thanks a lot.

Yeah, great.

Thank you.

What a great episode from Joe.

Hope you picked up some tips on what's really needed to become a top player and the hours you have to spend working on all these specialty shots.

This is all new to me, and I've been around the game a long time, and it was just great to hear this.

So really hope you picked up something from that.

I'll be back next week, same time, same place.

Can't wait.

And until then, go out there, hit some tennis balls, and have some fun.

Bye, Sa.