THE GOOD, PART 3 – COACHING ANYONE?
Once I started training with ‘Pan Ulmann’ in 1CLTK, I soon become addicted. So much so that I am still doing it 30 plus years later! On that first day, though, I was in complete shock. First because the majority of courts in 1CLTK, and pretty much everywhere else in the Czech Republic, are clay, and I had never actually seen a clay court before, let alone set foot on one. Incidentally, and contrary to what the English commentators were saying during Wimbledon this year, Czech players DO NOT grow up on hard courts. They grow up on clay, as does most of Europe, and according to most coaches in both the CR and Spain, clay is the surface where you learn how to really play tennis, and once you can play on that, you can play on anything. Forget this old-fashioned comment that the UK commentators like to roll out regularly – ‘oh, he/she is JUST a clay court player’. FFS. Starting life as a clay court player gives you one hell of an advantage, although I have to say it took me about a year to learn how to actually hit a ball that landed on the stuff!.
Second, the coaching itself. Pan Ulmann, once we managed to understand each other well and hold proper conversations, often told me stories of playing doubles with Martina Navratilova, training many of the most famous Czech girls when they were kids, being in a team with Ivan Lendl, etc, etc, etc, and always he stressed that none of that was a big deal. Partly because all the other coaches in 1CLTK (and, actually, most of the clubs all around the country) had had similar backgrounds, and partly there was very little ‘glamour’ attached to tennis at that time, and even though I was stunned about these names (let alone meeting some of them later), they were just regular people to the Czechs.
I remember recognising one rather dashing coach arriving at the club in my early days and thinking that I had seen him before somewhere, and when asking Pan Ulmann who he was, I was told ‘oh he was Jana Novotna’s coach. You have probably seen him on the TV.’ And another, who seemed to be training all day long with various incredible young ladies and who, himself, had been in the top 20 as a professional. He has since trained many of the best girls, including one of the Czech Wimbledon champions, and now he trains players and other trainers to go and train the players. And so it goes on.
These guys, though, do not have egos. Their job was to play tennis (Ok, for many of them, it was during Communism, so it wasn’t seen as a very glamorous profession but more of an opportunity, in some cases, to get a better life). And now their job is to train people to play tennis as well as they can. They all know each other, they grew up together, they competed against each other, and, in some cases, they even married the same woman (not at the same time, obvs). Their families are often connected, and their children often become tennis players, who then marry each other and have more children, some of whom also become tennis players. The Czech tennis world is like a huge dynasty that has been built over a very long time and is unlikely to slow down.
In my own case, I felt on that first day that I went to meet Pan Ulmann, as if I had never hit a ball before, and then I started to learn how. And am still learning. The Czech coaches, irrespective of the level of person they are training, are all about technique, and when, nowadays, I go to watch what is to all intents and purposes the ‘training factory’ – the back courts of 1CLTK which every afternoon see hundreds of kids from about 6 years old learning the skills and then developing through the age groups – I wonder how England, or any other less developed ‘tennis country’ can ever compete.
And it is not just the training. Many of these kids, even the very little ones, are like ‘full-time’ professionals. Every weekend throughout the Czech Republic (and sometimes elsewhere in Central Europe) they are off to play in competitions, and these competitions culminate in championships at the end of the summer – the Czech national under 10, under 12, under 14 and so on. By the time the kids reach 18, if they are still going, they are like old pros. Not for them the nerves of competing, serving to stay in the match or whatever. They’ve done all of that and more for most of their lives. Is that a good thing? Well. You have to read on to find out!
Next up. ‘What is it about the Czech ladies?’.
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