Speaker 1: Pressure. Is it a privilege or more of a burden?
Speaker 1: Where does it come from? How do we handle it?
Speaker 1: How do we create self belief and confidence that's resilient.
Speaker 1: How do we make complicated things sound simple? When should
Speaker 1: we communicate using lots of words or a few words,
Speaker 1: or no words just a hug. All these things we
Speaker 1: get into with my guests, great friend and ESPN Tennis
Speaker 1: colleague Darren Cahill. Now, Darren has mastered the art of coaching,
Speaker 1: grew up watching his dad. A legend in Aussie rules
Speaker 1: football coaching. He's guided three number one ranked players to
Speaker 1: Grand Slam titles, Laten Hewitt, Andre Agassi and currently Simona Hallem.
Speaker 1: He's also worked with many other top players. His advice
Speaker 1: is constantly sought out by players and coaches all over
Speaker 1: the world. Plus he's one of the best analysts in
Speaker 1: TV sports. This conversation was mostly before the US Open.
Speaker 1: Then we caught our bread circle back a couple of
Speaker 1: days after the Grand Slam quest of Novak Djokovic and
Speaker 1: the Electric Women's final with Emirata and Leela Fernandez. That's
Speaker 1: at the end of the episode. So this is a
Speaker 1: treat for tennis fans and Darren's ideas are as valuable
Speaker 1: in everyday life, in your workplace, or if you want
Speaker 1: to coach your kids. Today, I've got Darren Killer Kjo. So, Darren,
Speaker 1: how would you describe the effects of pressure on the
Speaker 1: mind of an athlete? We start with the easy one.
Speaker 1: See if that easy? Oh yeah? Really, Look, it's all encompassing, really,
Speaker 1: because there are so many different factors that go into pressure,
Speaker 1: And I think the main one is the pressure that
Speaker 1: you put on yourself with the expectation. And every kid
Speaker 1: has a dream of achieving something pretty special in sport,
Speaker 1: and you dream about that NonStop till you get to
Speaker 1: a certain point where that dream might even be possible,
Speaker 1: might even be capable for the point zero zero zero
Speaker 1: one of those youngsters growing up. So it's the expectations
Speaker 1: you put on yourself. It's the pressure you feel from
Speaker 1: the people around you. It could be from your parents,
Speaker 1: it could be from new coaches, it could be from
Speaker 1: outward sources. And I can frame it in a little
Speaker 1: story that I have with Simona and her struggles to
Speaker 1: break through and become the number one player in the
Speaker 1: world and to win her first ever major. She lost
Speaker 1: a couple of crushing finals, both at the French Open,
Speaker 1: one to Sharaff Ober and one to Ostar Panco. And
Speaker 1: I remember that pressure after losing to Ostar Panco, the
Speaker 1: pressure of failing in the big moment and it really
Speaker 1: getting to her and the way she reacted after losing
Speaker 1: that two thousand and seventeen Roland Garris's final, and we
Speaker 1: were sitting in a locker room afterwards and we just
Speaker 1: shut the door. It's just her and I were just
Speaker 1: sitting on the floor and she was in tears, and
Speaker 1: I just remember her putting her head on my shoulders
Speaker 1: and just letting it all out for about thirty minutes.
Speaker 1: And I didn't really, you know, what to say. Normally
Speaker 1: I'm okay with finding the words, and I didn't have
Speaker 1: any words to give her, and all I could think
Speaker 1: about was the suffering that she was going through. And
Speaker 1: in the sport, you know, two people go out there.
Speaker 1: One person comes off and winning, one person comes off
Speaker 1: a loser, and you do everything you can to prepare
Speaker 1: the athlete in the right way and to give them
Speaker 1: the best chance of possibly winning. The following year, we
Speaker 1: get to the French Open final again and right before
Speaker 1: the final, a really powerful Romanian person and a good
Speaker 1: friend of Simona is certainly somewhat part of the team.
Speaker 1: Came up to me and said, we're ready, We're going
Speaker 1: to win this. And I said to him, yeah, I
Speaker 1: think so. You know, Simona is ready. She's playing great
Speaker 1: tennis and she's she's fired up and playing a person
Speaker 1: that she's been a couple of times before. And Sloane
Speaker 1: Stevens and yeah, I think she's feeling great. He goes, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: we need this. You mind about Simona. The country needs this.
Speaker 1: Twenty million people need this. This is really important for
Speaker 1: Romania that she wins this match. And I'm thinking to myself,
Speaker 1: shot a lot. You know, this is a big moment,
Speaker 1: but it hit highly. I got goose bumps. It hits
Speaker 1: home that, Okay, this is important for us and really
Speaker 1: important for Simona, but there are bigger things that play here,
Speaker 1: and and you know she's she's got to find a
Speaker 1: way to get through this. And so if I am
Speaker 1: feeling the pressure, then you know what is she feeling
Speaker 1: in those size five shoes that she wears and going
Speaker 1: out there and trying to get this done. So she
Speaker 1: has remarkable strength to be able to deal with that
Speaker 1: pressure that she puts on herself, which is enormous anyway,
Speaker 1: and then to deal with that outward pressure that she
Speaker 1: felt from a loving country that wanted her to get
Speaker 1: over mine and win her first major incredible mental strength.
Speaker 1: And some people can deal with it, some people can't.
Speaker 1: Some people rise up to the challenge and play their
Speaker 1: very best tennis. Some people cower and freeze in the moment,
Speaker 1: and it's just a natural and it's sort of what
Speaker 1: separates the great from the good. It's a beautiful story
Speaker 1: with a happy ending, as she did get that trophy
Speaker 1: in Paris and make the twenty million people happy, and
Speaker 1: obviously a tree of a life line dream and has
Speaker 1: gone on to do that as well. Everybody has their
Speaker 1: ways of putting themselves in the zone, and that could
Speaker 1: be from the training, it could be from belief, it
Speaker 1: could be from my My big thing when I played
Speaker 1: was I always used to think of myself as a
Speaker 1: bit of a racehorse and putting the blinkers on. And
Speaker 1: so whilst tennis is played between the lines, because it's
Speaker 1: only two people out there and you had this massive,
Speaker 1: big stadium. If you paid too much attention to everything
Speaker 1: that was going on around the stadium, my mind would
Speaker 1: drift and wanders, So before every single point, I always
Speaker 1: used to think of myself as being this racehorse, and
Speaker 1: I had the blinkers on and everything would just focus
Speaker 1: into the person on the other side of the court.
Speaker 1: So all the peripheral stuff sort of faded away, and
Speaker 1: that really helped me, especially in the big moments, and
Speaker 1: I was just concentrating on what was in front of me.
Speaker 1: The thing about coaching is everybody is different. Everybody has
Speaker 1: different strengths and weaknesses, and to be a really effective coach,
Speaker 1: you've got to work out what they are, and then
Speaker 1: you have to build the strengths in what the players
Speaker 1: have to It's not all about focusing on the weaknesses
Speaker 1: being a coach. It's more about building the strengths. We'll
Speaker 1: get into the art of tennis coaching, which you do
Speaker 1: as well as anyone has ever done, including coaching some
Speaker 1: very strong personalities and two other world number ones besides Simona.
Speaker 1: But the interesting thing that's so compelling about tennis staring
Speaker 1: for me is is that that mental battle and the
Speaker 1: struggle within oneself, you see it played out. It can
Speaker 1: be beautiful when it's overcome. It can be hard to
Speaker 1: watch sometimes when a player is fighting themselves, it seems
Speaker 1: that they're fighting their team in the box as well
Speaker 1: as the opponent all of those things, because the tennis
Speaker 1: courk can look like a very lonely place. So besides
Speaker 1: the macro pressure of having to win a title for
Speaker 1: your country or fulfill a lifelong dream, it's the pressure
Speaker 1: in that moment. You have to get your body to cooperate.
Speaker 1: You have to hit a beautiful serve, you hit a
Speaker 1: beautiful backhand in that moment, and then try to push
Speaker 1: that tension out of the body, because that's that's the
Speaker 1: enemy of execution, right or or or Can it be
Speaker 1: a positive? We tend to think of pressure as a negative.
Speaker 1: For most of the time, it's a positive. Can you
Speaker 1: keep talking about the fact that it's exactly the place
Speaker 1: you want to be. There's no other place in the
Speaker 1: world you wish to be than to be taking that
Speaker 1: last touchdown pass, or to be kicking that last goal,
Speaker 1: or to be stepping on the line and serving at
Speaker 1: match point for a big tournament. It's exactly where you
Speaker 1: want to be. So to be scared of that moment
Speaker 1: is is kind of it's not natural because that's the
Speaker 1: moment you've been dreaming, dreaming about for all your career,
Speaker 1: and and that's when the great players embraced that moment
Speaker 1: say give me the ball. This this is what I want.
Speaker 1: Give me the ball because I have a chance here
Speaker 1: to achieve something really special. It takes training the Chris
Speaker 1: as you know, you know, you just you didn't walk
Speaker 1: into this job what you do at the moment and
Speaker 1: be as good as you are by just coming to you.
Speaker 1: You've got to work on it, and you've got to
Speaker 1: work on it all the time. Even when you're away
Speaker 1: from the studio doing what you do. I'm sure you're
Speaker 1: prepping and you're looking at other people that do this,
Speaker 1: and you're trying to get things that other people do well.
Speaker 1: You're trying to improve your craft. Sport is that, sport
Speaker 1: is seven. Sport is always working on ways to find
Speaker 1: little areas that you can keep on improving and keep
Speaker 1: evolving as an athlete. So you know, it's incredibly important
Speaker 1: to learn from your losses and your failures and to
Speaker 1: try to come back and be a little bit stronger
Speaker 1: next time around. It's not always going to be perfect
Speaker 1: for you. You build resilience from those failures and as
Speaker 1: long as you keep on pushing and keep on trying,
Speaker 1: and keep on persevering, you're going to give yourself the
Speaker 1: best chance possible. You stated in a different way where
Speaker 1: Billy Jane King has made famous, which is the pressure
Speaker 1: is a privilege, and folks can nod their heads and
Speaker 1: understand what that means. To win enough to be in
Speaker 1: that moment where you're serving for a title, to work
Speaker 1: as hard as you've had to work to get there,
Speaker 1: and playing the big match and have the eyes of
Speaker 1: the world on you, Yes, that's a privilege, but I
Speaker 1: think a lot of players would say that privilege feels
Speaker 1: a lot like a burden. You can try to use
Speaker 1: code words and techniques that sports psychologists provide you, but
Speaker 1: when you're trying to step up and do it. We've
Speaker 1: seen the great Serena Williams have to deal with tremendous
Speaker 1: pressure and look uncomfortable in doing so, especially later in
Speaker 1: your career. We've seen Novak Djokovic trying to achieve great
Speaker 1: things even fedter in the doll You can see the
Speaker 1: expression of pressure intention on them and have to come
Speaker 1: through it again. That's what makes the sports so beautiful,
Speaker 1: But at times in those moments it looks like a
Speaker 1: privilege I'd rather not have. It looks like something that
Speaker 1: that they're really struggling with. That it kind of makes
Speaker 1: the journey worthwhile, right because those greatest moments sometimes you
Speaker 1: hit a few bumps along the way and the destination
Speaker 1: is more beautiful if it's a bit of a rocky
Speaker 1: road to get there. And we're not perfect. Everybody makes
Speaker 1: mista akes and everybody has bumps along the way, and
Speaker 1: it's it's part of life and part of the journey
Speaker 1: as an athlete, as long as you keep embracing it,
Speaker 1: keep putting yourself in those positions. And the one thing
Speaker 1: that I would always say is and if you can
Speaker 1: put the coaching head on, you can go out and
Speaker 1: have a chat to your athlete right before those big moments.
Speaker 1: How did you get into this position? Why are you here?
Speaker 1: What are the excess and those? And you know, Brad
Speaker 1: and I we always go back to the excess and
Speaker 1: those because they are so important. Is that how did
Speaker 1: you lead six, four or five match point? What were
Speaker 1: you doing to get here? What were the tactics that
Speaker 1: we're working, what were your strengths? Where were you serving
Speaker 1: the big moments? How are you winning your points, and
Speaker 1: if you go back to the excess and os in
Speaker 1: the big moments, it takes kind of the emotion out
Speaker 1: of it as well. And I think simplifying is really
Speaker 1: important in those moments. And if you can just get
Speaker 1: through the code of the player's head that Okay, I'm
Speaker 1: the better player today. I got this position because I've
Speaker 1: been serving to a particular point. I've been using my
Speaker 1: fuehand effectively instead of going inside in the inside out
Speaker 1: is working much better for me. That's what I'm going
Speaker 1: to do in the big moments. I'm going to play
Speaker 1: to my strengths and if my strengths don't work, at
Speaker 1: least I gave it my best shot. Yeah, you spend
Speaker 1: time in selling that in a player so they can
Speaker 1: do it themselves in the momentum. Other sports have coaching
Speaker 1: within the competition. You're one of the few, though, as
Speaker 1: as coach of a very high level women's player, actually
Speaker 1: more than one to step out there and w t
Speaker 1: a tournaments where coaching is allowed on a change over
Speaker 1: if they asked for it, and then try to deliver
Speaker 1: that message in the heat of the moment in sixty
Speaker 1: seconds while reading the situation and figuring out are a
Speaker 1: lot of words necessary? Are a few words necessary? How
Speaker 1: do I how do I turn this around in a
Speaker 1: few seconds? Here? Is it a tactical conversation? Is it
Speaker 1: an emotional conversation? Is it a bit of a pep
Speaker 1: up talk? It could be anything, to be quite honest,
Speaker 1: but less is best in those moments, in the heat
Speaker 1: of the moment, if you can keep your words pretty short,
Speaker 1: give one or two things that the players and grab onto,
Speaker 1: because if you give a whole bunch of words in
Speaker 1: sixty seconds, most of it gets lost. So I've found
Speaker 1: with the on court coaching on the w t A
Speaker 1: Tour that less is best. Be to the point and
Speaker 1: give your players something they can really grab onto. I
Speaker 1: do believe that we are heading towards some coaching and
Speaker 1: the Men's Tour. I don't believe we'll ever have coaching
Speaker 1: in the Grand Slams. I think the Grand Slams, not
Speaker 1: all the Grand Slams, but I think a couple of
Speaker 1: them are really against it. So you need all four
Speaker 1: Grand Slams to be on the same page to bring
Speaker 1: in something like that. But I do believe on the
Speaker 1: a TP Tour and the w t A tour coaching
Speaker 1: is a good thing because we're there to make the
Speaker 1: athletes better. We're there to make the competitions better. I
Speaker 1: think it does bring a little bit of insight into
Speaker 1: the living room of people watching as well, any ways
Speaker 1: that we can help the athletes be a better version
Speaker 1: of themselves. I think it's a good thing. It's been
Speaker 1: such a huge topic in sports, coping with pressure and
Speaker 1: trying to overcome that. Um and tennis name Osaka has
Speaker 1: talked about feeling pressure, expectations, battling things within herself, and
Speaker 1: some things conspiring to take the joy and the enjoyment
Speaker 1: out of what can be a very joyful job, and
Speaker 1: just day to day seems, you know, like a struggle
Speaker 1: where it's not the pressure to hit a shot in
Speaker 1: the moment, it's just living living that lifestyle and then
Speaker 1: trying to dig out of that and turn up and
Speaker 1: do the job. At times, this can seem like a
Speaker 1: very complicated sport. You've lived a sport with me for
Speaker 1: a number of years now, you understand you've probably heard
Speaker 1: me complain a little bit and talk about stories on tour,
Speaker 1: and you know, talk about the stories of my players
Speaker 1: as well. It's a complicated life, right, You would think
Speaker 1: it would be a little more simply simplified because of
Speaker 1: the fact you're only coaching one person. If you're the
Speaker 1: coach of a team, you're looking after a roster of players,
Speaker 1: and you've also got a bunch of assistant coaches as
Speaker 1: well that are taking on some of that responsibility. You
Speaker 1: probably don't dive in to the lives of those players
Speaker 1: seven like we do as tennis coaches, but we take
Speaker 1: on more a much bigger role than just coaching tennis
Speaker 1: balls and coaching how tennis balls are hit. It's really
Speaker 1: a psychologist role. It's a friendship role. Not only spending
Speaker 1: time at the course, but you sent spending time away
Speaker 1: from the courts with that player. You're dealing with all
Speaker 1: sorts of stuff when it comes to that player as well.
Speaker 1: So it's I love it, you know, It's all I know.
Speaker 1: You mentioned earlier that I grew up in a azyr
Speaker 1: rules family and my dad being a player and a coach,
Speaker 1: and and watching him go away about his coaching craft
Speaker 1: back as a youngster back in Adelaide, Australia. I think
Speaker 1: I learned a lot from him, and I didn't really
Speaker 1: know it at the time, but kind of his style
Speaker 1: has been my style through the course of my coaching
Speaker 1: career as well. And one of the big things that
Speaker 1: he was always great at was selling belief and letting
Speaker 1: his players I feel like they were actually a little
Speaker 1: better than what they were. And he was great at
Speaker 1: the culture side of things as well, putting the team together,
Speaker 1: having some real of things in place that the players
Speaker 1: would gather around each other, especially when times got tough,
Speaker 1: and rise up and help each other. And the culture
Speaker 1: is a huge, huge thing in team bonding and team coaching,
Speaker 1: but it's a massive thing on the tennis court as well,
Speaker 1: because if you have good culture, if you have a
Speaker 1: good feeling amongst the team that you have, it just
Speaker 1: helps the player go out onto the court and not
Speaker 1: feel like they're alone because they are alone. It's it's
Speaker 1: one of the few sports where you go onto the
Speaker 1: court and you basically have a conversation with yourself, and
Speaker 1: of that conversation you're having with us with yourself is
Speaker 1: a bad one, and it's like, oh my god, how
Speaker 1: can I miss that? Oh you're so bad. You are
Speaker 1: the worst place, you know, that's just what we do.
Speaker 1: It's really hard for us to hit a good forehand
Speaker 1: down the line and say good on your mate, that's awesome,
Speaker 1: that was a great shot. Tennis players just don't do that.
Speaker 1: So it's you need a good team around you, you
Speaker 1: need to build a good culture, and you need to
Speaker 1: sell that belief. And I think that's what my dad
Speaker 1: is really good at. Yeah, he's got a great reputation
Speaker 1: doing that. That might be the ultimate team sport eighteen
Speaker 1: aside on the field at one time, thirty six players
Speaker 1: out there. I'm glad I never had to announce that.
Speaker 1: I mean, twenty two is enough on the field at
Speaker 1: one time in American football, But but thirty six guys
Speaker 1: out there. How do you think pressure is different in
Speaker 1: a team sports environment versus an individual sport, and including
Speaker 1: the ultimate individual sport. Aren't team sports a bunch of
Speaker 1: individuals anyway running around? Whilst you might work as a team,
Speaker 1: it comes down to those moments where it becomes an
Speaker 1: individual thing, doesn't even in college football it's the quarterback
Speaker 1: throwing the touchdown pass, or it's the receiver taking the
Speaker 1: mark or to catch or whatever you guys call it.
Speaker 1: You know, it's sport these days gets broken down so
Speaker 1: much that it's very much individual and about individual performances
Speaker 1: and and how you perform under pressure. So I don't
Speaker 1: think there's a huge difference between that. I don't see
Speaker 1: a massive difference between a tennis player's for pformance and
Speaker 1: Tom Brady's performance, because it's the way we look at
Speaker 1: it these days, and the way we do the analytics
Speaker 1: and we break everything down with the tape and the
Speaker 1: way that we dissect it as commentators and analysts. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I think the same pressure applies whether you're playing in
Speaker 1: the team or whether you're an individual. I don't really
Speaker 1: think it's much of a difference. This part of the
Speaker 1: conversation was during the Tokyo Olympics, and our talk turned
Speaker 1: to the difficult decisions that gymnastics legends Simone Biles had
Speaker 1: to make with the whole world watching. Through his experience
Speaker 1: as coaching Simona Hallet, Darren says it's important to listen
Speaker 1: and learn and be grateful for Simon Bial's honesty. How
Speaker 1: strong is she though? Just an amazing person, an amazing athlete.
Speaker 1: And I've been around this long enough now, I've been
Speaker 1: working with Simona Howlett for the last six or seven years.
Speaker 1: For me, she is the strongest mentally the strongest, one
Speaker 1: of the most capable people that I've met in my life,
Speaker 1: and an amazing person, an amazing athlete, and I may
Speaker 1: as in competitor, and as I said before, being by
Speaker 1: her side and watching the pressure that she's been under
Speaker 1: throughout the course of her career and her being able
Speaker 1: to deal with it in fine ways to to get
Speaker 1: through those times of toughness when when it was really
Speaker 1: breaking her down. Yeah, I get what Simone is going through.
Speaker 1: I've seen it from a different athlete. I've been around
Speaker 1: it long enough to know that we all have to
Speaker 1: have patience with that. We have to take our time,
Speaker 1: and we have to ask questions and learn from these
Speaker 1: these moments because things like Simone is communicating to us
Speaker 1: at the moment. We can all learn from it and
Speaker 1: we can all get better from them, and the next
Speaker 1: generation coming through will be more aware of when they
Speaker 1: are having these struggles. Okay, it's not just me, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not the weird one. This has happened to athletes before,
Speaker 1: and they'll be able to deal with it much more efficiently.
Speaker 1: So my heart goes out to Simone. I hope that
Speaker 1: she gets through it. They caught the twist is is
Speaker 1: that right what she's going through. I saw some video
Speaker 1: that she released yes today about doing some training in Tokyo.
Speaker 1: One of the places opened up a gym for her
Speaker 1: where she's jumping into a pit trying to get her
Speaker 1: her jumps right and she's landing on the back of
Speaker 1: all things. So can you imagine if she was actually
Speaker 1: to perform and lose her way getting the twisties in
Speaker 1: competition and actually really hurt herself. So yeah, I hope
Speaker 1: she gets through it. Apparently a lot of the gymnasts
Speaker 1: do go through this and they do get out of it.
Speaker 1: So heart goes out to Simone and thanks for being
Speaker 1: so honest and we can all learn from this as well.
Speaker 1: In the culture now, there seems to be a pretty
Speaker 1: disappointing lack of empathy and compassion among people that have
Speaker 1: no understanding what an athlete is going through. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's complicated because titles are one championship, society, legacy is
Speaker 1: built on how you do handle pressure in the moment,
Speaker 1: and man, it could be pretty hard. Should be in
Speaker 1: tennis that the label of choking in the moment. I mean,
Speaker 1: every player has done it, no matter how great they are.
Speaker 1: We're talking about Roger, Ratha, Novak, Serena. They all had
Speaker 1: those moments where they fell short of what they wanted
Speaker 1: to do because the moment they couldn't meet that moment.
Speaker 1: But man, is it difficult and harsh these days to
Speaker 1: be to be judged for that when you've done so
Speaker 1: many other great things and yet people want to remember
Speaker 1: and focus on, you know, two minutes of frailty I
Speaker 1: had andre As actually talked about the a f L.
Speaker 1: Andrea acually did me a wonderful favor where he got
Speaker 1: on with the leaders of the Port Adelaide Football Club
Speaker 1: on a zoom call just like this, and it was
Speaker 1: having a chat to the leaders of the club. So
Speaker 1: there was about ten of the players and one of
Speaker 1: the questions to Andrea was would you walk back some
Speaker 1: of your mistakes that you made throughout the course of
Speaker 1: your career. It was like he was a little bit
Speaker 1: offended by it goes, why would I do that? You know, Yeah,
Speaker 1: of course I've made plenty of mistakes, but all of
Speaker 1: those mistakes I've made have made me the person that
Speaker 1: I am today, and I would never walk back any
Speaker 1: of those because I've learned from them. Now I've become
Speaker 1: a better person from them, and I've become a better
Speaker 1: athlete from them, and I'm sitting here today. He didn't
Speaker 1: say this, but he was sitting there today, and he's
Speaker 1: one majors and he's won an Olympic gold medal, it's
Speaker 1: won the career Slam, of the career Golden Slam. Everything
Speaker 1: that could be achieved in tennis, he achieved it. And
Speaker 1: he only achieved it because there was some big hurdles
Speaker 1: along the way that he had to overcome and he
Speaker 1: had to become better because of that. To no, he
Speaker 1: would not go back and start his life again knowing
Speaker 1: the mistakes he made. Those mistakes were really important for
Speaker 1: him in his growth as a person in an athlete,
Speaker 1: and I thought that was really good. As usual, our
Speaker 1: minds are together. It was gonna, wrote Andrea very soon,
Speaker 1: because you coached Hi when he became the oldest number
Speaker 1: one male player in the world at that time, and
Speaker 1: not many people believed in him that he was gonna
Speaker 1: be able to get back to that moment. But Andrea
Speaker 1: was such a beautifully and still as a beautifully complex person,
Speaker 1: and he's got many facets. He the complexity is one
Speaker 1: of the things that makes him the person who he is,
Speaker 1: made him the player who he is, but also made
Speaker 1: it a challenge, I imagine to coach him at times
Speaker 1: because you know, andre As he talked about in his
Speaker 1: book and has other times. Um, you know, he could
Speaker 1: lose focus, he could lose his priorities where it suddenly
Speaker 1: became not that important to win this match or this title,
Speaker 1: And that's that's the beauty of him. He's not like
Speaker 1: too many people that have ever played any sports, so
Speaker 1: coaching him must have been fascinating at the At the
Speaker 1: same time, he's a complicated genius. He could make the
Speaker 1: difficult really simple. He could just break it down incredibly fast.
Speaker 1: You know, he would think about things for a long
Speaker 1: time and you come back with a solution that was,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, and that makes perfect sense. But he wasn't
Speaker 1: great with the simple. You could make the simple really
Speaker 1: really complicated, way too complicated. And I think that's why
Speaker 1: both Brad and I had some great times with him,
Speaker 1: is that Brad and I are pretty much on the
Speaker 1: same wavelength, is that we like to keep things simple,
Speaker 1: and we like to keep things clear, and our communication
Speaker 1: is pretty clear as well, So we were we were
Speaker 1: a good mix for him because at times he could
Speaker 1: over complicate things and we could come in and go no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: this is how it is and okay, and he would
Speaker 1: move everything into different compartments and just concentrate on the
Speaker 1: task at hand. So it was a bit of a
Speaker 1: ying and yang with the coach and the player and
Speaker 1: getting and it's where it's really important also to get
Speaker 1: the right type of coach with the right type of personality.
Speaker 1: With the player. It's not about how they play sometimes
Speaker 1: it's about the mindset. And so that's where it was
Speaker 1: quite successful with both Brandon myself. I've said this many
Speaker 1: times before. He made me a much better tennis coach
Speaker 1: than I made him a tennis player. And there's no
Speaker 1: question about it, because you have to be on your
Speaker 1: game seven when you work with someone like Andre Darren.
Speaker 1: How would you make it a stinction between belief and confidence.
Speaker 1: Belief is deep, it can come from years and decades. Confidence.
Speaker 1: I think most players and most sports would say you
Speaker 1: can come and go. But it is remarkable as an
Speaker 1: outsider to watch it from sometimes from bright caast booth
Speaker 1: or courtside. Confidence just go like that. It can evaporate
Speaker 1: with one mess and seemingly turn a match around. I mean,
Speaker 1: the mind is a very interesting thing, and as a
Speaker 1: coach you sit there in a box kind of helpless,
Speaker 1: But that just helps shed some light on on just
Speaker 1: the idea of confidence kind of coming and going in
Speaker 1: an instant. Yes, I've got the my five attributes that
Speaker 1: I believe that champions possess. You can talk about speed
Speaker 1: and height and power, and you know, there's a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of attributes that you're not gifted, and some players
Speaker 1: have them, some players don't. But the five attributes that
Speaker 1: I believe that all champions have work ethic And you
Speaker 1: talk about belief, you can't have belief without great work ethic.
Speaker 1: And the champions they put the working. They don't all
Speaker 1: work to the same level because some people are a
Speaker 1: little bit different in the way they go about it,
Speaker 1: but you've got to be able to put the work in,
Speaker 1: and if you don't put the work in, you have
Speaker 1: no chance. At this level. They all have unbelievable purpose,
Speaker 1: and it's about finding the why about what makes an
Speaker 1: athlete tick and coaching for the why, and that will
Speaker 1: make a massive difference in building that purpose for the player.
Speaker 1: Because when I came along, Andre was thirty two years
Speaker 1: of age. He accomplished amazing things throughout his career. You
Speaker 1: said it before. Most people thought that he was maybe
Speaker 1: on the way down. But his purpose was to build
Speaker 1: an opportunity and a life and education for kids that
Speaker 1: couldn't afford it in his hometown of Las Vegas. That's
Speaker 1: what he was playing for. He wasn't playing for himself,
Speaker 1: and he had already accomplished everything you needed to accomplish
Speaker 1: his tennis play. He was playing for the kids of
Speaker 1: Las Vegas. So that was his purpose. And once you
Speaker 1: know the purpose, then you can build a program and
Speaker 1: a schedule around that to keep him inspired to go
Speaker 1: out there and continue to do what he does great.
Speaker 1: The belief you spoke about all the great champions in
Speaker 1: the world, they just have it, and they have it
Speaker 1: through built up resilience as well. That's going on the
Speaker 1: path that we spoke about. The it's never a straight line,
Speaker 1: it's never a normal straight road with no bumps along
Speaker 1: the way. Everybody suffers through those bumps. And you can
Speaker 1: go through the the lives of every great champion and
Speaker 1: every great sport and there will be amazing stories attached
Speaker 1: to those those lives. So you've got to build up
Speaker 1: that resilience and embrace it as something good and something
Speaker 1: that's needed to get there. And the last thing that
Speaker 1: I believe, especially in tennis, that all the great champions have,
Speaker 1: they have a great team around them. They don't just
Speaker 1: have a coach coming in every year or two and
Speaker 1: keep looking for the magic bullet to now, I'm going
Speaker 1: to get into a new coach because this is not
Speaker 1: working for me. I I'm not sure why I'm not
Speaker 1: winning tennis matches. It's time to change things. They have
Speaker 1: a strong team around them that they can build up
Speaker 1: that belief and that culture that we spoke about before.
Speaker 1: And if you look at Federer, he's had several Luthy
Speaker 1: and he's had a couple of other coaches coming in
Speaker 1: as well, but he's had his fitness trainer for all
Speaker 1: his career. Several Luthy has been all his career. You
Speaker 1: look at Djokovic, he's had Mary Invider basically there his
Speaker 1: entire career. If you look at Serena Williams, Patrick Marauderglu
Speaker 1: has been there for the last seven or eight years,
Speaker 1: and before that it was her dad that's been there
Speaker 1: for her and saying for Venus as well, you go
Speaker 1: through all the best players in the world, they've got strong,
Speaker 1: consistent teams around them, and I believe that's really important
Speaker 1: for a continued success. Obviously, this change is player by player, situation,
Speaker 1: but situation, but in general, how would you describe the
Speaker 1: art of tennis coaching in terms of technical strokes, tactical
Speaker 1: the excess and ose, and just the mental side being
Speaker 1: being a cheerleader, a hardass, or a friend or whatever
Speaker 1: whatever you have button you have to push. So I
Speaker 1: think tennis is a little bit different because you're one
Speaker 1: on one and you don't have a roster of players
Speaker 1: changed coming through your team. So I think the window
Speaker 1: of making real change and being really effective is about
Speaker 1: three or four years in tennis. Once you get to
Speaker 1: that moment, you become it becomes more of a managerial
Speaker 1: role in tenner. The important thing after that is for
Speaker 1: the coach to evolve. And we talk a lot about
Speaker 1: tennis coaching in that because you're one on one, because
Speaker 1: the jobs are quite protective, coaches are a bit reluctant
Speaker 1: to reach out for help. So if I'm having trouble
Speaker 1: with Simona and having trouble to improve her, serve the
Speaker 1: first thing I would do is and I've done this before,
Speaker 1: is to reach out to someone who probably knows to
Speaker 1: serve a little better than me and say, hey, listen,
Speaker 1: can you come in and take a look at simonas
Speaker 1: serves see if there's anything I'm missing Because I'm trying
Speaker 1: to get a next to three or four miles per hour.
Speaker 1: That's really important, and I think that happens a lot
Speaker 1: in tennis. So you have to evolve, You have to
Speaker 1: reach out, you have to get other people to come in.
Speaker 1: Otherwise you only have a certain amount of information in
Speaker 1: your bank, and once you unload all that information, where
Speaker 1: do you go to from there? And that's why sometimes
Speaker 1: the limit is about three or four years as a
Speaker 1: tennis coach. So evolving as a tennis coach is incredibly
Speaker 1: important early. I think a lot of it is technical
Speaker 1: and technical, but if you're not addressing the emotional quality
Speaker 1: and we talk a lot about the i Q and
Speaker 1: tennis UM, if you're not addressing the emotional quote from
Speaker 1: day one, you are really neglecting your job because it's
Speaker 1: amazingly important and you've got to be on that right
Speaker 1: from the start, and as you go through the course
Speaker 1: of the next couple of years the technical and the
Speaker 1: technical certainly changes depending on the situation. One major difference
Speaker 1: in tennis is that the coach works for the player,
Speaker 1: his or her incomes society about what the player does
Speaker 1: and what the player decides to pay them, and that
Speaker 1: varies widely. And you are the head of perhaps a team,
Speaker 1: but the team all orbits around the player and the
Speaker 1: player's win. There's so much turnover in tennis coaching. How
Speaker 1: is that dynamic when any any tennis coach can get
Speaker 1: fired at any moment, after any result if the player
Speaker 1: changes their mind. Now, I see a lot of coaches
Speaker 1: around the world that coaches they coach teams complain about
Speaker 1: the length of a coach's contract two or three years
Speaker 1: and the instability of it and uncertain futures. And I think,
Speaker 1: oh my god, to be unbelievable to have a two
Speaker 1: or three year contract, wouldn't it? Because my and I'm
Speaker 1: one of the lucky ones, because I've been able to
Speaker 1: work with three amazing people when late and cured, Andre
Speaker 1: Agassi and Simona Howett. I can tell you with Andre
Speaker 1: that I had a handshake, handshake agreement with Andre for
Speaker 1: five years and that was it. So we could have
Speaker 1: stopped at any moment in time um and I always
Speaker 1: looked at it that whatever time I get to spend
Speaker 1: with somebody like him, regardless of how long it was,
Speaker 1: I was going to walk away as a better person
Speaker 1: in a better coach for it as I moved on
Speaker 1: to my next role. I did mention that to Simona
Speaker 1: a number of years ago about the arrangement that I
Speaker 1: had with Andre, and the first thing she said, I
Speaker 1: want that too, So I actually have a handshake agreement
Speaker 1: with her as well. And you know, we've had a
Speaker 1: much rockier road than what I had with Andre because
Speaker 1: of many reasons, and they've been well documented, but it's
Speaker 1: been about the journey that her and I have had
Speaker 1: to build up that relationship, to have that trust between
Speaker 1: her and I, to build that resilience we talk about
Speaker 1: so often, and we've come out of the other side
Speaker 1: of it great friends and better for it, and hopefully
Speaker 1: she's a better athlete and a better tennis player for it,
Speaker 1: and I certainly believe I'm a better coach for it,
Speaker 1: because to go through those moments, it's an eye opening experience.
Speaker 1: And one of the things I do is I have
Speaker 1: a couple of people that I talked to back in
Speaker 1: Australia a lot about what I'm going through and how
Speaker 1: to handle situations, so I can get different views about
Speaker 1: what is right and what is wrong. There's no there's
Speaker 1: no real right and wrong, because it's really just you're
Speaker 1: an uncharted territory with a lot of the stuff that
Speaker 1: we go through. It's about trying to work out what
Speaker 1: is the best situation and the best way to handle it.
Speaker 1: And I've been wrong a number of times. At the
Speaker 1: US Open when she lost to sharif Over, I think
Speaker 1: it was about two thousand and seventeen, Simona was trying
Speaker 1: to get the number one ranking in the world. It
Speaker 1: was just after the Ostapenko lost at the French Open
Speaker 1: as well. That period between the French Open and the
Speaker 1: US Open, I made the mistake of trying to lead
Speaker 1: by being too strong and and standing up and making
Speaker 1: sure that all right, every day we're going to get
Speaker 1: onto the court and we're going to keep pushing, and
Speaker 1: you're really close and I believe in you, and I
Speaker 1: was trying to be this much a guy. I guess
Speaker 1: that Okay, you know, forget the French Open. It never happened.
Speaker 1: We were so close, let's go and get this done.
Speaker 1: But I wasn't connected to what she was going through,
Speaker 1: and I wasn't feeling the pain that she was. I
Speaker 1: knew the pain she was suffering, but I was trying
Speaker 1: not to show her that I was feeling the same
Speaker 1: same pain. And I was for sure, and that's all
Speaker 1: she needed to see was that I was suffering as well,
Speaker 1: because to her, I was this guy that didn't really
Speaker 1: care that she was going through this this moment or
Speaker 1: this pain. It wasn't true, but that was impression that
Speaker 1: I was giving her. And so after the US Open happened,
Speaker 1: when she lost that match to sharif Over, her trainer
Speaker 1: basically told me that, hey, you've been a dick. You know.
Speaker 1: All she wants is for you to give her a
Speaker 1: hug and tell her that you love her, and and
Speaker 1: that was much better than any coach and you can
Speaker 1: give her at the moment. He was right right. So
Speaker 1: I did that, and I went to locker room and
Speaker 1: told her that I loved her and really proud of
Speaker 1: everything she's done and couldn't be more proud of what
Speaker 1: she's been going through. And I gave her a hug
Speaker 1: and she said she's I've been waiting for this hug
Speaker 1: for three months, and then two weeks later she go
Speaker 1: out and beat Sharif over six two or six too.
Speaker 1: So the hug was the best coaching thing I've done
Speaker 1: in about two years. So you learn from those moments
Speaker 1: um but you only learn from those moments through trial
Speaker 1: and error. That's a great story. The achievement even more
Speaker 1: beautiful and even sweeter because of the rocky road that
Speaker 1: led up to it. That's a handshake deal that that
Speaker 1: was stood what you called shark therapy and the ultimeter,
Speaker 1: so it has to be. It's become a pretty sturdy
Speaker 1: and very nice to watch handshake deal. This generation is
Speaker 1: a little bit different. The coaches do care because they
Speaker 1: are of my generation. Most of us are married, or
Speaker 1: we have families, or we have kids, and to be
Speaker 1: a tennis coach means you've got to be on the
Speaker 1: road thirty five forty weeks the year. So I'm lucky
Speaker 1: again that I'm coaching players at the level that I
Speaker 1: can get paid pretty well. Most don't. Most of doing
Speaker 1: this because they love it. It's it's a tough life
Speaker 1: because you are away from the family for thirty five
Speaker 1: forty weeks a year. Most of making an amount of
Speaker 1: money where you can't afford to bring the family with you.
Speaker 1: I can if I choose to. So I have luxuries
Speaker 1: that a lot of coaches don't. But I do feel
Speaker 1: for a lot of coaches out there. And we talk
Speaker 1: about coaches salaries in other sports. You know, if a
Speaker 1: coach is making the hundred ground a year in tennis,
Speaker 1: they're doing pretty well. It's not the money that most
Speaker 1: people think that they make. If you make better, much
Speaker 1: better than that, but most don't. So I have a
Speaker 1: lot of a lot of empathy for a lot of
Speaker 1: the coaches out there and what they're going through and
Speaker 1: what they're suffering through. And they are damn good coaches.
Speaker 1: All the coaches put in a ton of work and
Speaker 1: they're all trying to get better, and and the relationship
Speaker 1: between a lot of the coaches on on the road
Speaker 1: is really close. Actually, we all try to help each other.
Speaker 1: That's true coaching at the highest level of various sports.
Speaker 1: The money, the ego strokes, the acclaim just not there.
Speaker 1: In tennis. You better be in it for the love
Speaker 1: of it because you're not going to get those inequal
Speaker 1: measures to the coaches and the in the team sports,
Speaker 1: that's for sure. Uh. One of the last things theren
Speaker 1: here you said that a coach's job is to coach
Speaker 1: himself out of a job and otherwords, make the players
Speaker 1: self sufficient enough they don't need to listen to this
Speaker 1: guy any longer. Do you believe that? Yeah? Absolutely, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's more important. What was more important when we didn't
Speaker 1: have on court coaching. On court coaching ups a little
Speaker 1: bit because you can you can change the course or
Speaker 1: the direction of a match if it's not going in
Speaker 1: the right way. And that's where it empowers the coaches
Speaker 1: a little bit more and it helps us improve our
Speaker 1: craft and to give us a little more responsibility. If
Speaker 1: you don't have that, you've got to teach your player
Speaker 1: to problem solve all the time. And you wish to
Speaker 1: do that anyway. Now that's the role and the responsibility
Speaker 1: of a coach. But you'll get to a point. That's
Speaker 1: why I think the window of a tennis coach is
Speaker 1: about three or four years, because you get to a
Speaker 1: point where the player pretty much knows what you're going
Speaker 1: to say before you come down and say it, because
Speaker 1: they've heard it before. Right. It's tennis is about being
Speaker 1: brilliant at the basics, doing it over and over and
Speaker 1: over again. So if you're spending all this time on
Speaker 1: the court with one player, working through practice sessions, working
Speaker 1: through practice matches, going through the tapes of matches they play,
Speaker 1: you're picking out the parts of the matches where the
Speaker 1: players either doing great and you're reinforcing the positives, or
Speaker 1: the players not doing so great and you're trying to
Speaker 1: help them through that to throw different scenarios. Hey, you
Speaker 1: should have played the foehand down the line instead of
Speaker 1: going cross court, because you can't come cross court when
Speaker 1: you approach the net because it opens up too much angle.
Speaker 1: So you know, if your players just called you out
Speaker 1: onto the court and they pit two fourhand cross courts
Speaker 1: and come to the net, they know what you're about
Speaker 1: to say. Stop hitting the cross court forehand when you're
Speaker 1: coming to the net, take that ball down the line.
Speaker 1: So it'll get to a point where when they know
Speaker 1: what you're going to say is when you probably coach
Speaker 1: yourself out of a job and it might be time
Speaker 1: for a different voice and in a different way of
Speaker 1: doing things, in a different way of training, in a
Speaker 1: different way of approaching matches. And that's where I think
Speaker 1: the three or four window was about right. Three or
Speaker 1: four year windows about right. You see coaches seem to
Speaker 1: age about five years within one match as they're suffering
Speaker 1: the flare box over the I don't know how you
Speaker 1: stay so so youthful, so young look and so energized there,
Speaker 1: And you shouldn't. You should be You should be like
Speaker 1: a hundred and ten year old after all the big
Speaker 1: matches and all they complicated personalities and the ups and
Speaker 1: downs the players you've coached in your career, You keeping
Speaker 1: it together to well, my friend, for for all that
Speaker 1: that's the first lie that you've spoken today. Chris Valley,
Speaker 1: Darren says, the players that stress you the most as
Speaker 1: a coach are the ones that care the most about improving,
Speaker 1: and that that's a beautiful thing. After taking a day
Speaker 1: or two to recover in decompress after the intensity of
Speaker 1: the US Open, Darren and Nice circle back to talk
Speaker 1: about the captivating women's final and Novak Djokovic's bid to
Speaker 1: become the first man in fifty two years to complete
Speaker 1: the calendar Grand Slam. Well, Darren, you had an amazing
Speaker 1: courtside position, just a few steps behind the court, very
Speaker 1: near where the players chairs are as Djokovic tried to
Speaker 1: clear the last hurdle of need to get a Grand Slam.
Speaker 1: What an amazing perspective and what could you see from
Speaker 1: that vantage point about his mental state, the wear and tear,
Speaker 1: the pressure that was on him for that match. Yeah, Chris,
Speaker 1: I think it was a number of things. I think
Speaker 1: it really started from the pre match interviews, so on
Speaker 1: one of the a the analyst that are in that
Speaker 1: tunnel on Arthur Ours Stadium and do a couple of
Speaker 1: questions to each of the players walking out for those
Speaker 1: big matches. And honestly, from all the years that Novak's
Speaker 1: played on Arthur Ours Stadium, that was the first time
Speaker 1: when he walked towards me that you can actually hear
Speaker 1: the stadium reverberate through the through the tunnel, and that
Speaker 1: was the first time you could hear the whole stadium
Speaker 1: chanting Novak and he felt that it was like the
Speaker 1: tunnel was shaking, and I actually think that shocked him
Speaker 1: a little bit. As the tournament went along, he could
Speaker 1: feel that he was gathering more momentum and more support
Speaker 1: from the crowd. Things were coming becoming a little bit
Speaker 1: easier as far as embraced the crowd embracing him, but
Speaker 1: he was struggling with his game. But when he walked
Speaker 1: up for that pretty much interview, yeah, he was a
Speaker 1: little bit taken back, and I think I asked a
Speaker 1: simple question, you know, it's been an incredible year, and
Speaker 1: it's been a incredible career so far, but how much
Speaker 1: have you been looking forward to tonight on this stadium
Speaker 1: against this opponent? And yeah, he just took a couple
Speaker 1: of seconds and said, you know, this is what it's
Speaker 1: all about, and his cheeks kind of went a little
Speaker 1: bit red. And it was an amazing feeling. And had
Speaker 1: he won it and won the Grand Slam, it would
Speaker 1: have culminated in the greatest year that I've ever seen.
Speaker 1: And then I had the best seat in the house,
Speaker 1: sitting two rows back. It was about ten ft away
Speaker 1: from him and watching both Medvedev and Djokovic go about it.
Speaker 1: The first game of the match, I think was huge
Speaker 1: and you can always reflect a little bit easier after
Speaker 1: the match has finished. But he had his first service
Speaker 1: game and ended up losing his first service game, and
Speaker 1: that set him on the back foot straight away, and
Speaker 1: I think deep down he knew the tank was not full.
Speaker 1: He had to manage his physical levels all the way
Speaker 1: through that particular match, and there were periods in that
Speaker 1: match when he emptied the bucket to see if he
Speaker 1: could either get it back on level pegging or get
Speaker 1: that early breaker serve in the second set, and once
Speaker 1: he wasn't able to do that. A little bit reminiscent
Speaker 1: to the semifinal match against Zverev in Tokyo, he made
Speaker 1: a huge push late in the second set to get
Speaker 1: that breaker serve back, knowing that his energy levels were low,
Speaker 1: and once that didn't happen, it kind of fell apart
Speaker 1: pretty quickly after that. But just an amazing year. Incredible
Speaker 1: that he was able to do what he was able
Speaker 1: to do. I know that Federer has been one match
Speaker 1: away and had a twenty seven and one year before
Speaker 1: as well, But there is a difference between going one, two,
Speaker 1: three and everything culminating into the US Open with the pressure,
Speaker 1: with the expectation, with the eyes upon him. There's a
Speaker 1: build up of pressure and Serena felt it a few
Speaker 1: years ago and certainly no Vac felt it in the end. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you can't just push a button and find energy, and
Speaker 1: whether it's the wear and tear from the tough path
Speaker 1: to get to that final constantly falling behind a set
Speaker 1: down or that the pressure of the moment. I guess
Speaker 1: we'll never know, because even though he's been one of
Speaker 1: the great pressure players in the history of and maybe
Speaker 1: any sport. Uh, it was a lot for him. Did
Speaker 1: you did you sense early on that there was a
Speaker 1: weight on him, there was something other than the physical component,
Speaker 1: that that maybe he just couldn't find his gaming. We've
Speaker 1: seen him turn matches around so often here You've you've
Speaker 1: been in that same courtside position when all of a
Speaker 1: sudden the antenna goes up, he finds some energy and
Speaker 1: he pivots quickly, and we sort of waited for that
Speaker 1: to happen, and he just never could seemingly find the
Speaker 1: energy or overcome what was going on inside his head
Speaker 1: and his body. So the biggest telltale song for me
Speaker 1: is whether or not he's got balance on a lot
Speaker 1: of these ground strokes. And we'll see him sort of
Speaker 1: get the wobbly boots sometimes with his feet and his
Speaker 1: body as he makes a couple of mistakes. But he
Speaker 1: did that constantly. He spends so much time and talks
Speaker 1: so much about the mental preparation. I think does more
Speaker 1: in that department than almost any athlete, and I think
Speaker 1: he does it because he knows he has to. He's
Speaker 1: kind of a he says. I think he said to
Speaker 1: you that there's a volcano kind of inside his brain sometimes,
Speaker 1: and and and a storm, and I think that or
Speaker 1: Tornado actually said a tornado inside his head. And I
Speaker 1: think that because he's not naturally a calm person. He
Speaker 1: struggles with temper, he struggles with volatility, he's he's practiced
Speaker 1: these techniques that are often very successful, but we have
Speaker 1: under the pressure of this scene that come out. We
Speaker 1: haven't talked a lot about Tokyo, but he did lose
Speaker 1: his cool completely. They're smashing frames through a racket into
Speaker 1: the crowd um. Thankfully no one was in there. And
Speaker 1: then obviously had his moments where he just couldn't get
Speaker 1: himself calm and used those techniques at the US Open
Speaker 1: final as well, and that that I think was was
Speaker 1: a little bit surprising to see because he's done everything
Speaker 1: he can to be ready for those moments and it
Speaker 1: just didn't seem like he could get himself in the
Speaker 1: right mental state. I think it shows that he was
Speaker 1: pretty frazzled by the end of the US Open campaign
Speaker 1: and at Rolling Garriss, he did it. He had that
Speaker 1: amazing match against Rafa, that full set match in the Semis,
Speaker 1: and then he was a couple of sets down against
Speaker 1: Sits a pass and if you remember when he was
Speaker 1: two sets to one down and Stephanels took that toilet break,
Speaker 1: he sat there for about four or five minutes the
Speaker 1: change of ends, just looking staring into the crowd and
Speaker 1: he had a little bit of a rice smile on
Speaker 1: his face, but he had a laser like focus as well.
Speaker 1: And if you were watching that, you were thinking, oh,
Speaker 1: my goodness, this is just going to be paying for
Speaker 1: Stephanis to close this match out, because we've seen this
Speaker 1: so many times before. And you're absolutely right, Chris, we
Speaker 1: didn't see that in the final the US Open. I'm
Speaker 1: sure he tried. I'm sure he tried to get that
Speaker 1: focus and build that energy level back up to a
Speaker 1: point where he can make an all out of sault.
Speaker 1: But when your body is not cooperating, your mind doesn't
Speaker 1: cooperate the way you wanted to as well, and it
Speaker 1: just got to that point. And also on the other
Speaker 1: side of the court, you've got a guy that's playing
Speaker 1: inspired tennis as well. It was a mixture of what
Speaker 1: Novak had left in the tank and how good the
Speaker 1: other guy on the other side of the court was
Speaker 1: playing as well. Yeah, he showed no fragility, no frailty
Speaker 1: to know back, and I think that's what made Jokovic
Speaker 1: realized that it was going to be too tough of
Speaker 1: a client back. He didn't have it in it because
Speaker 1: never dropped his level to give him that hope or
Speaker 1: that belief. And I think the last thing on this
Speaker 1: match ironic you began with the description of the crowd noise.
Speaker 1: He's never got a welcome like that in any big
Speaker 1: match in his life. He's never gotten the love and
Speaker 1: support that I think he's craved and talked about craving
Speaker 1: the same way that feder and the doll have gotten
Speaker 1: that support in those big moments. And it's ironic that
Speaker 1: he finally gets it for a match throughout and he's
Speaker 1: not able to use it the way he hoped to.
Speaker 1: Wasn't able to gain inspiration or energy from it. In fact,
Speaker 1: he's been more successful in the past kind of drawing
Speaker 1: energy from the crowd that is not supporting him. And
Speaker 1: so that's what was too bad. You could see that
Speaker 1: sobbing at the end of the match, really before the
Speaker 1: match was over with one game to go. It was
Speaker 1: quite powerful. Yeah, yeah, it's what really Will said. It's
Speaker 1: kind of that me against the world philosophy, isn't it
Speaker 1: That when the crowd starts to pull for the underdog
Speaker 1: or get on him about a couple of things, that
Speaker 1: he just looks in and goes, you know what, I'm
Speaker 1: going to show you. I'm going to close this guy
Speaker 1: out and I'm going to have no mercy. And that's
Speaker 1: where his greatness comes from. So maybe it was a
Speaker 1: bit of a shock for him, But in the end,
Speaker 1: I think you look back on this year and be
Speaker 1: incredibly proud of what he's been able to achieve. And
Speaker 1: if he has craved that moment, that moment, that standing
Speaker 1: ovation that he got, that welcome from the crowd and
Speaker 1: Arthur Stadium, that will stay with him forever as one
Speaker 1: of the great moments, even though he did lose that match.
Speaker 1: So last start on the US Open, in contrast to
Speaker 1: the heaviness and the historic weight of the men's final,
Speaker 1: there was a lateness to the all teenager unseated women's final,
Speaker 1: with emiratic kind of over Layla Fernandez. They played with
Speaker 1: such joy and abandon and we've talked in this episode
Speaker 1: about pressure and what it does to the mind. It
Speaker 1: seemed that those two, maybe because they didn't know what
Speaker 1: they didn't know, just went out there in that final
Speaker 1: there and just and showed the joy and showed the
Speaker 1: freedom and the lightness that is so rare in a
Speaker 1: big occasion, especially for those that haven't been there before.
Speaker 1: Youth enthusiasm, fearlessness, that the ability to problem solve at
Speaker 1: such an young age was amazing. I think Fernandez did
Speaker 1: that time and time again throughout the tournament. Her run
Speaker 1: to the final was a little bit tougher, but it
Speaker 1: takes nothing away from what Emma did in the final,
Speaker 1: because I thought Fernandez had it in her to win
Speaker 1: that match. And again Rattakan, who just found another level
Speaker 1: every time she had to step up under pressure, she
Speaker 1: found a great shot, She didn't wait for the ball
Speaker 1: to be given to her, and she deserved every inch
Speaker 1: of that victory. And there's a lot to look forward
Speaker 1: to the next five years on the w t A Tour.
Speaker 1: So hopefully the tour they embraced this, they market it,
Speaker 1: and they pushed these youngsters and all these names that
Speaker 1: are doing such great things to the forefront. And the
Speaker 1: great thing for us being in the media is we
Speaker 1: recognize now a lot more names on the w t
Speaker 1: A Tour and it's a much much deeper than it
Speaker 1: was ten years ago. And that's a great thing. And
Speaker 1: hopefully on the A TP Tour we can get the same. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was an incredible energize us open for for so
Speaker 1: many reasons. One of the best. Darren care Hill also
Speaker 1: one of the best a man. Grateful to Darren for
Speaker 1: his wisdom and his friendship. Now, the next episode in
Speaker 1: this podcast series is a toast to tequila, another topic
Speaker 1: that I'm very passionate about. My guest is the founder
Speaker 1: and CEO of my favorite brand of tequila, Costa Riconis,
Speaker 1: Berta Gonzalez the Avis. She is truly a pioneer. This
Speaker 1: is a great conversation about the entrepreneurial spirit, the inspiration,
Speaker 1: the challenges and rewards of that as told through tequila.
Speaker 1: I think you'll enjoy it. Keep an eye up for it.
Speaker 1: As always, I'm grateful to my co executive producer Jennifer
Speaker 1: Dempster and A Jason Whitehill for his editing Skills. Invite
Speaker 1: you to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast, and I'll
Speaker 1: talk to you soon.