Speaker 1: Hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of the sit Down.
Speaker 1: I'm Mattroloca, writer for oz open dot com and I'm.
Speaker 2: Viv Christie, Managing editor of Australian Tennis magazine. And Matt,
Speaker 2: why do we sit down this week with Simon Ray?
Speaker 1: Well, we've always wanted to sit down with Simon Ray.
Speaker 1: I think he's a long term colleague of ours who's
Speaker 1: arrived in Australia via New Zealand, and so we had
Speaker 1: a really wide ranging chat about how he discovered the
Speaker 1: game in New Zealand, the kinds of players he went
Speaker 1: on to work with, including Nick Kirios and Sam Stoza,
Speaker 1: and now that he's moved into the data analysis space.
Speaker 1: So it was Yeah, it was fascinating to pick his
Speaker 1: brain on all of these things.
Speaker 2: This is actually one of my favorite interviews that we've
Speaker 2: done so far for the sit Down. Simon was so
Speaker 2: candid and insightful and his passion for the sport really
Speaker 2: shone through.
Speaker 1: Simon Ray, thank you very much for joining us in
Speaker 1: the studio today.
Speaker 3: Hi Matt, Hi Viv, thanks for having me. Good to
Speaker 3: be here.
Speaker 1: Why don't we start at the beginning and how you
Speaker 1: came to play tennis in a country like New Zealand,
Speaker 1: which may be compared to Australia, doesn't have quite the
Speaker 1: same tennis tradition or visibility at the top.
Speaker 3: No, I think that's really fair.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's been a while since I explored that question
Speaker 4: or thought about that question. I grew up on the
Speaker 4: north shore of Auckland back in New Zealand, as you describe,
Speaker 4: and really stumbled across tennis, almost quite literally. So Dad
Speaker 4: used to walk the dog near the lake. There's a
Speaker 4: natural freshwater lake, a volcanic lake near where we live
Speaker 4: on the north shore of Auckland, and the dog would
Speaker 4: really enjoy being exercised near that lake and the tennis
Speaker 4: courts border the lake Lake Poopuck on the north shore
Speaker 4: of Auckland near Milford and Takapuna, and the dog would
Speaker 4: be hunting for tennis balls and finding plenty that had
Speaker 4: gone over the fence. And one day an elderly gentleman
Speaker 4: beckoned me down to the court when I was there
Speaker 4: with my dog. I think maybe I'd had a rack
Speaker 4: in my hand and I was hitting on the wall,
Speaker 4: the volleyboard, the volleyboard wall.
Speaker 3: You know, which never misses.
Speaker 4: And Joe o' rourke, this great Catholic man from the
Speaker 4: Milford Tennis Club on the north shore of Auckland, said
Speaker 4: to me, come on down, Come on down, and he
Speaker 4: went on, I must have been I don't know, seven
Speaker 4: or eight. And he went on to hit with me
Speaker 4: before school most mornings for the next.
Speaker 3: Three or four years.
Speaker 4: And he wasn't a coach as we know a coach,
Speaker 4: but he was a volunteer at the club. He was
Speaker 4: fixing up the fence, he was fixing the lights when
Speaker 4: they were out of action. He was teaching me life lessons.
Speaker 4: He was a World War Two veteran. I was a
Speaker 4: poor bear at his funeral and he was the most
Speaker 4: remarkable man. And so that was my introduction to tennis.
Speaker 4: He literally, out of the goodness of his heart, introduced
Speaker 4: me to the sport. Became a part of our family,
Speaker 4: or I became a part of his. And so it
Speaker 4: was really that fateful kind of path that led me
Speaker 4: to the sport of tennis.
Speaker 1: What was it that made you stick with tennis or
Speaker 1: that you loved about it?
Speaker 4: Okay, sorry, there was a part of me that really
Speaker 4: enjoyed and this is probably two parts or two sides
Speaker 4: of this coin. I think later on in life, and
Speaker 4: that's perhaps this is me thinking about the grass being greener.
Speaker 4: There's a part of me that wishes I wonder if
Speaker 4: I'd explored a team sport for a little longer, and
Speaker 4: the appeal of the team sport, but I think being
Speaker 4: young and ambitious and driven, I think what I I
Speaker 4: really would have enjoyed was that hard work, which is
Speaker 4: something that I've tried to pride myself on over the
Speaker 4: journey as a solid enough work ethic, the reward for
Speaker 4: effort there. So if you wake up in the morning
Speaker 4: and get to work, whether it's on the volleyball or
Speaker 4: with Joe O'Rourke, who was a self taught man, or
Speaker 4: with my first formal coach at the Milford Tennis Club,
Speaker 4: and the harder you work, the lucky you tend to
Speaker 4: get and the more doors open for you. And so
Speaker 4: I think that was probably one of the things, was
Speaker 4: the competitor in me was growing and evolving and I
Speaker 4: was seeing opportunity out of my hard work. And that's
Speaker 4: always a nice feeling, I think anytime for all of
Speaker 4: us when we get reward for effort. So it was
Speaker 4: probably that. Right back at it now, I'm talking a
Speaker 4: little bit older, probably eleven twelve thirteen, as I got
Speaker 4: into the competitive pathway that existed in tennis in New Zealand.
Speaker 1: And your competitive pathway took you to college, I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: University of Tennessee, Yeah, and then also the New Zealand
Speaker 1: Davis Cup team.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So you mentioned Matt and I think it's a good segue,
Speaker 4: and you mentioned probably part of the limited lineage that
Speaker 4: tennis in New Zealand has experience compared to the incredible
Speaker 4: lineage of tennis in this country in Australia, and I
Speaker 4: think that's really fair. But one of the childhood heroes
Speaker 4: of all of us down in New Zealand was Chris Lewis,
Speaker 4: who made that Wimbledon final in nineteen eighty three. I
Speaker 4: think it was against John McEnroe, and that was a
Speaker 4: moment that all New Zealand has tended to remember. Chris
Speaker 4: ended up and his brother Mark, who coached Michael Stick
Speaker 4: who was the German Wimbledon champion. So there was a
Speaker 4: bit of a coaching royalty between Chris and Mark there
Speaker 4: in New Zealand, and both of those two ended up
Speaker 4: coaching me at seventeen eighteen, and I was a handy
Speaker 4: junior in New Zealand. You know, I was probably final
Speaker 4: of twelves Nationals and semi final of fourteen's Nationals. But
Speaker 4: I was never really the best junior in the country
Speaker 4: until I had started to have a little bit more
Speaker 4: success really by virtue of the fact that I came
Speaker 4: under Chris and Mark's umbrella for a couple of years there.
Speaker 4: At seventeen eighteen, I was finishing my time at Auckland
Speaker 4: Grammar School at the same time, and that was seventeen
Speaker 4: eighteen was when I first broke through to become the
Speaker 4: national champion, if you like.
Speaker 3: In the eighteen took me.
Speaker 4: I was around the mark, but it took me until
Speaker 4: seventeen probably to win my first national title. And off
Speaker 4: the back of that at eighteen, look, I thought I
Speaker 4: was ready and good enough to go and play professionally.
Speaker 4: And I was driven and hungry and wanted to chase
Speaker 4: the dream like every seventeen or eighteen year old did.
Speaker 4: But you know, Mum and Dad probably had the good
Speaker 4: counsel and the good awareness A to know they couldn't
Speaker 4: afford it, and b perhaps to see some of the
Speaker 4: things that I couldn't see and go, oh, I'm not
Speaker 4: sure in their own minds. Maybe I'm not sure if
Speaker 4: they thought that'd be a question for I'd have to
Speaker 4: ask them today. But really, the only path for me
Speaker 4: financially where we were at was the US college system
Speaker 4: and the University of Tennessee. And Chris Marney, who was
Speaker 4: responsible for giving giving me my first coaching job here
Speaker 4: at Tennis Australia, was my assistant coach there in Knoxville
Speaker 4: at the University of Tennessee. So sometimes what's that saying,
Speaker 4: it's not what you know, it too, you know, And
Speaker 4: that's certainly been something that's been true for me in
Speaker 4: my journey in tennis over the two or three decades.
Speaker 3: I've been lucky enough to be in the sport.
Speaker 2: And then you, of course went on to have a
Speaker 2: coaching career. How did that coaching career come about?
Speaker 4: Yeah, well I mentioned Chris really to this day very
Speaker 4: indebted to Chris. So, you know, I mentioned my playing
Speaker 4: ambitions and I probably had one shot at that and
Speaker 4: graduated from the University of Tennessee. I finished my playing
Speaker 4: eligibility in two thousand and four, but I hadn't finished
Speaker 4: my ironically enough journalism degree at that point.
Speaker 3: In time.
Speaker 4: It did go back and finish that in two thousand
Speaker 4: and six, and was really fortunate that the university, because
Speaker 4: it's in their interest they want to graduate their student athletes,
Speaker 4: they would pay for you to come back and do that.
Speaker 4: So look, long story short, we had a really disappointing
Speaker 4: Davis Cup lost there to Pakistan. I think in two
Speaker 4: thousand and four, I had a base in America at
Speaker 4: the time. I had an American girlfriend at the time,
Speaker 4: and I wasn't as resilient. In hindsight, I wasn't as
Speaker 4: resilient as I would hope that my kids would be
Speaker 4: in the same situation. I probably thought, oh, look this
Speaker 4: is getting a bit hard. I'm running low on funds.
Speaker 4: I've got an American girlfriend back here who had this
Speaker 4: really disappointing diabolical park that lost to Pakistan. We're down
Speaker 4: to group two in Asia Oshi only for the first
Speaker 4: time ever. It went a bit pear shaped and the
Speaker 4: team environment. We lost three too, and I was the
Speaker 4: loser of the three ties and the five match rubber
Speaker 4: if you like. It wasn't a great sequence of events,
Speaker 4: if you like. And at that point in time, I thought, look,
Speaker 4: I'm never going to play again. And it was only
Speaker 4: as a byproduct of finishing your studies you were required
Speaker 4: to come and hit some balls with the next student
Speaker 4: athletes that were coming through. So a year or two later,
Speaker 4: I'd started doing some informal coaching with some youngsters on
Speaker 4: the team and found myself a little bit older, perhaps
Speaker 4: that little bit wiser. That's arguable, just a different perspective
Speaker 4: on life. And as I was coming towards the finish
Speaker 4: the later stages of my actual degree, I thought, I'm
Speaker 4: probably hitting the ball better than I ever had before,
Speaker 4: and started to play again. And that's when I had
Speaker 4: just a little bit of really lower level success on
Speaker 4: the future what we called the future circuit back then.
Speaker 4: And look, in two thousand and eight, I had some
Speaker 4: arm problems. That wasn't the reason I realized it at
Speaker 4: twenty six years of age. I think at that point
Speaker 4: in time two thousand and eight, Yep, I'm not good
Speaker 4: enough and I'm never going to be good enough. So
Speaker 4: that can be quite to confronting, or I certainly provide
Speaker 4: a bit of a jolt in your life, a bit
Speaker 4: of a where to next. And for me it was
Speaker 4: quite simple. I'd always loved coaching of all sports, I'd
Speaker 4: always studied coaches, coach k and during my time in
Speaker 4: the States at the Duke University men's basketball program, or
Speaker 4: you name a coaching book. At Paul Rouse's book back
Speaker 4: here in Melbourne, you know, I'd read it. As a teenager.
Speaker 4: I was passionate about coaching, not just tennis, but all
Speaker 4: kind of all things sport. And so if it was
Speaker 4: a case of I think there's a saying for that
Speaker 4: as well. What you can't do, you try to teach.
Speaker 4: So I thought, hey, I'm not going to be able
Speaker 4: to make it as an elite player. I'm not good enough,
Speaker 4: I don't have the ability. I'm not going to kind
Speaker 4: of crack that glass ceiling. Let me try and turn
Speaker 4: my hand to something that maybe I can be truly
Speaker 4: great at. And I don't think i've, by no means
Speaker 4: have I been truly great at coaching. But the opportunity
Speaker 4: that Chris as my assistant coach at Tennessee, had then
Speaker 4: pivoted to become the head coach at what was the
Speaker 4: National Academy in Melbourne back at that time. He was
Speaker 4: short on staff, and he said, hey, look, there's no
Speaker 4: guarantees here some but if you'd like to sue this,
Speaker 4: you can go through the process and try to win
Speaker 4: the role. So I did and Melbourne came home for
Speaker 4: me back in two thousand and eight. So that was
Speaker 4: really what opened my pathway to the last of the
Speaker 4: best part of the last couple of decades here at
Speaker 4: Tennis Australia.
Speaker 2: That's awesome, and you have coached some high profile players,
Speaker 2: including Nick Curios at Wimwooden in twenty he was twenty fourteen,
Speaker 2: he made his run to the quarterfinals. What was that
Speaker 2: experience like working with him?
Speaker 4: Look, I reflect on my time with Nick. It's a
Speaker 4: long time ago. Now it's a decade ago. I reflect
Speaker 4: on my time with Nick really fondly. By and large.
Speaker 4: That's not to say that went challenges along the way,
Speaker 4: and you know Nick is someone that would certainly challenge
Speaker 4: you as a coach. I learned an enormous amount from Nick.
Speaker 4: Just on your first point, I think Brent Larkham, who
Speaker 4: was another person that's been a really big influence on
Speaker 4: my coaching career and given me great opportunity along my
Speaker 4: time here at Tennis astral said to me once, look,
Speaker 4: good players make good coach and I think that's true.
Speaker 4: So I was really fortunate to have throughout my coaching
Speaker 4: tenure at tennis astraight access or opportunity or an involvement
Speaker 4: with some of our better players in the sport. Nick
Speaker 4: loved to challenge, He loved to push back. I learned
Speaker 4: a lot. I think, probably some of the things that
Speaker 4: I thought I believed at the start of my time
Speaker 4: with Nick, and then what I'd learned over that eighteen months.
Speaker 4: And it was only eighteen months, but I learned an
Speaker 4: enormous amount. And I think I'd be better for that
Speaker 4: experience where I ever to re enter the coaching fray
Speaker 4: And as I said, yeah, by and large look back
Speaker 4: on that time really fondly. One thing about Nick that
Speaker 4: I do recall, you know, I think that's probably evolved
Speaker 4: over time and turned into that entertainer and that charismatic
Speaker 4: kind of showman and that alternative style. And I think
Speaker 4: there was an element of that that was always there
Speaker 4: in Nick. There was always kind of a trickiness in
Speaker 4: coaching Nick or applying some rigor or some discipline to
Speaker 4: Neck or Nick would love to argue. I can remember
Speaker 4: talking about language with Neck and why it was important,
Speaker 4: and he would take the alternative point of view and
Speaker 4: argue his case really strongly. But one thing I do remember.
Speaker 4: You know, Nick would be doing a simple training drom
Speaker 4: warming up over at the National Tennis Center here, just
Speaker 4: a few hundred meters from where we are today, and
Speaker 4: he'd be warming up, hitting balls up and down the
Speaker 4: middle with his peers, you know, some of the other
Speaker 4: best players in Australia. And if I were down his end,
Speaker 4: you know, just four or five meters behind him at
Speaker 4: the baseline, and the players missed down the other end.
Speaker 4: This is in the first five or ten minutes of
Speaker 4: the session. He would say things like, you can't afford
Speaker 4: to miss that, just quietly under his breath.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: It wasn't a sledge at the it was almost I
Speaker 4: reflect on that as him being this is the cerebral
Speaker 4: part that I think we has gotten lost maybe over
Speaker 4: the last decade or so. This is the cerebral part
Speaker 4: of neck that was going, I reckon. I know the
Speaker 4: level and that's not the level, and that miss there
Speaker 4: is going to end up hurting you. So things like
Speaker 4: that I've always been able to kind of vividly remember.
Speaker 4: And then the Wimbledon experience specifically in twenty fourteen, Gee,
Speaker 4: that was interesting. And Aaron Kellett, who was the physical
Speaker 4: performance coach, did a great job with Nick because Nick
Speaker 4: when he came into the program at fifteen, Nick was
Speaker 4: flat out doing one push up. And again, you know,
Speaker 4: the clever part of Nick, I think realized over the
Speaker 4: ensuing four or five years, oh, my physicality is probably
Speaker 4: not going to wash based on where it's out at
Speaker 4: the moment. So Nick and Aaron formed a really great
Speaker 4: team and Nick actually got to work on his physicality.
Speaker 4: You know, it wasn't always perfect, and he pushed back
Speaker 4: and challenged Aaron as well, but he knew, I've got
Speaker 4: a hole here in my game. Aaron can help me.
Speaker 4: Let's get to work, you know. And there were plenty
Speaker 4: of ups and downs on the way, but I always
Speaker 4: respected or admired or want to acknowledge that part of Nick.
Speaker 4: You know, he knew what needed to be done, whether
Speaker 4: he could bring himself to do it on a daily basis,
Speaker 4: but he knew He's not silly Nick. He was pretty
Speaker 4: clue onto where he was strong, perhaps where he needed
Speaker 4: room for improvement, and who could help him along the way.
Speaker 1: So Curiosi's Wimbledon campaign in twenty fourteen, he started with
Speaker 1: a win over Stefan Robert and then said heaps of
Speaker 1: match points to beat Richard Gasgay. But you were a
Speaker 1: little bit concerned that he might have a letdown after
Speaker 1: the gas Game match when he played Vessely so.
Speaker 4: And I remember saying to him, mate, Hey mate, our
Speaker 4: time might be come to an end, but I'm not
Speaker 4: going to let this die. I'm not prepared to allow
Speaker 4: you to let go of this golden opportunity.
Speaker 3: Because it was classic Nick.
Speaker 4: It was like Nick against gas Gay in round two,
Speaker 4: underdog against one of the great players, one of the
Speaker 4: elite play. That's his environment, like on show caught to it,
Speaker 4: when we look at what I can do, look at
Speaker 4: what I can bring to this moment. Then it was
Speaker 4: Vessely who was a really really good player, I don't
Speaker 4: get me wrong, really accomplish play. But then it's sort
Speaker 4: of like, oh, this is just a bit more ho hum.
Speaker 4: This is now round three at Wimbledon against someone forty
Speaker 4: six in the world. I'm just making this up forty
Speaker 4: six in the world. Oh, I've actually just got to
Speaker 4: go and win this match to then get through to
Speaker 4: round four and have the raffa opportunity again. So round
Speaker 4: three was the challenge. Raffa and Gasque weren't the challenge,
Speaker 4: and I'm sort of saying to Nick like, hey, mate,
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, but I'm just not prepared to allow you
Speaker 4: to waste this incredible opportunity. I wouldn't be doing the
Speaker 4: right thing by you. And we had a bit of
Speaker 4: a robust conversation and by no means am I the
Speaker 4: reason that he won that match. But there's a bit
Speaker 4: of an insight into some of those conversations. And he
Speaker 4: came out actually after that rain delay and he was
Speaker 4: firing and all silly, Yeah he was, he was. It
Speaker 4: was a different Nick than we saw in the hour
Speaker 4: and a quarter of tennis before the rain delay, and
Speaker 4: it ended up being an incredible note for Nick and
Speaker 4: I to finish on. Obviously, the match over Raffa, the
Speaker 4: win over Raffa was something I'll never forget and speaks
Speaker 4: to I don't know how I don't have that in me.
Speaker 4: I don't know how you can walk on to that
Speaker 4: court for the first time you've never walked on there before,
Speaker 4: and I've said this before, and not think that you're
Speaker 4: going to be competitive. No, no, no, no, you're gonna
Speaker 4: you're thinking that you're going to dominate this guy, and
Speaker 4: you've got no shadow of doubt in your mind.
Speaker 3: It's like, watch me go. Are you coming with me?
Speaker 4: I remember I came in from a run that morning
Speaker 4: and we were kind of sharing an apartment or town
Speaker 4: and he said to me, so I pop around the corner,
Speaker 4: so sow good morning, Nick. I pop around the corner.
Speaker 4: He said, signs come back. I said, Oh, what's going on?
Speaker 3: Nick?
Speaker 4: He said, oh, I'm versing your boy today, versing your
Speaker 4: boy because he knew I loved Rafa and I talked
Speaker 4: to Nick all the time about Raffas.
Speaker 3: Stand That's me, raff is my guy.
Speaker 4: I'm a Rafa guy, like standards day in day out, discipline,
Speaker 4: carry your own bag, do it the right way. I
Speaker 4: love everything that Raffas stands for. And Nick kind of
Speaker 4: knew that, and I said, no, no, no, Nick, you're
Speaker 4: my boy again. So that's just him like just needling
Speaker 4: a little bit or just but it was almost like
Speaker 4: he was sort of saying to me, I got something
Speaker 4: in store for you today, you know, And sure enough
Speaker 4: he did. It was a remarkable performance, and I reckon
Speaker 4: he wasn't far away from Bitten Rayonich in the quarter
Speaker 4: Finals either from memory.
Speaker 2: Sounds like he prepared you for that match against Rafa.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, Well I came back.
Speaker 4: It's actually funny you should say that because there was
Speaker 4: a bunch of us over there. You know, there were
Speaker 4: probably four or five of us the night before the match.
Speaker 4: I remember Todd Larkham, who'd had such a big involvement
Speaker 4: with Nick throughout his developmental phase at Canberra. One of
Speaker 4: the best coaches I've ever had anything to do with.
Speaker 4: And now Tennis Australia Pathway, Mark A. Reid, who's my
Speaker 4: boss today, who was the head of Innovation, who was
Speaker 4: leading up our Triple sm team back then, so our
Speaker 4: sports science and sports medicine team.
Speaker 3: He was over at Wimbledon.
Speaker 4: And Shannon Nettle, who was again a good mate of
Speaker 4: mine today, Stinger and one of the best coaches I
Speaker 4: think we've ever produced in Australia.
Speaker 3: I just I rate Stingers so highly. And we're going
Speaker 3: through the footage. They said to me, how much footage
Speaker 3: if you watched on RAFA and.
Speaker 4: I would have watched fifteen sets by this point over
Speaker 4: the preceding thirty six days. Anyway, we're going through it
Speaker 4: and the sort of four of us are agonizing over it,
Speaker 4: and I'm jotting down my notes in my book. And
Speaker 4: it's funny you should say that if I came up
Speaker 4: to Nick before the match, we had the routine, you know,
Speaker 4: you warm up, and then he'd go and have a
Speaker 4: shower whatever you and then I'd go to my notebook, right,
Speaker 4: and then.
Speaker 3: We're about to have a bit of a chat.
Speaker 4: And it was always very earnest for me, very serious,
Speaker 4: very you don't want to get that wrong.
Speaker 3: That's your moment as you've got a responsibility, right.
Speaker 4: So I went through the report and I wasn't quite
Speaker 4: sure just how well I was connecting or where his
Speaker 4: mind was at. So I said, Nick, just checking him, mate,
Speaker 4: you got all that, like you know, serve return from
Speaker 4: the back of the court. This is the plan A,
Speaker 4: this is Plan B. Keep this up your sleeve. This
Speaker 4: is what I'm expecting. He's at his most dangerous when
Speaker 4: he's dealing, when he's operating in this way. So we
Speaker 4: can't let that happen under any circumstances. Good, you're clear
Speaker 4: with that, to keep it simple. Yeah, so yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: I'm good mate. I got it, sir, big play big,
Speaker 4: I got it. I was like okay, beauty, and please do.
Speaker 4: I've watched that fifteen hours of fifteen sets of footage
Speaker 4: and consulted the other experts in the room, and it
Speaker 4: was like that was him saying, just watch me, shine, sir,
Speaker 4: big play, big back myself, biggest stage in world tennis.
Speaker 4: I'm going to put in something special. So that's a
Speaker 4: really good prompt to reflect on that story.
Speaker 2: That's incredible.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I also remember that.
Speaker 1: I think my undying memory of that match was that
Speaker 1: between the legs when he hit and when you watch
Speaker 1: I don't know what point of the match it was,
Speaker 1: but like he almost half folly something between his legs. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and the commentator whoever it was, was just gone, like
Speaker 1: they were just never seen get by what they saw
Speaker 1: in the way he celebrated, and you were like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was quite as you said, when he walks onto
Speaker 1: the court, how do you come on and own the
Speaker 1: place when you've caught in tennis and you have been
Speaker 1: there was that was almost that moment.
Speaker 4: I'm just in awe of that. I don't have that
Speaker 4: in me, you know, I wouldn't. I don't know how
Speaker 4: you instill that in someone. I'm just in awe of that.
Speaker 4: Capability that Nick has to shine in that moment and
Speaker 4: to produce his best tennis and to have not one
Speaker 4: shadow of doubt that he's going to dominate that environment.
Speaker 4: You guys are kind of really prompting me to reflect
Speaker 4: on these memories that I wasn't sure that I still had,
Speaker 4: because when that shot happened, that's an example of the
Speaker 4: type of stuff that Aaron and I would have been
Speaker 4: trying to say, we don't want that.
Speaker 3: Stuff, and you do it.
Speaker 4: So I remember I was kind of leaning over the hoardings,
Speaker 4: you know, and holding on like this, and Aaron's kind
Speaker 4: of I can't remember if he's half jumped out of
Speaker 4: his seat, and I'm trying not to kind of go
Speaker 4: banana's myself. It's obviously the hell of a shot, but
Speaker 4: I'm trying to play the poker face, right, and I'm
Speaker 4: just kind of hanging under the hoardings, going mate, I'm
Speaker 4: not moving.
Speaker 3: I'm not applauding for that.
Speaker 4: So the rest of the jokers in the stand and
Speaker 4: you're trying to send the coaching exactly.
Speaker 3: So I suspect that was well.
Speaker 4: Time would say that I've fought a losing battle there,
Speaker 4: because there's been more and more of that over time.
Speaker 4: But hey, that's what I believed, and that's what I
Speaker 4: wanted to stand for as a coach, and that's what
Speaker 4: he wanted to stand for as an athlete.
Speaker 3: And he's the one out there playing. So there you go.
Speaker 1: Interestingly, the next player you worked with with Sam stoves
Speaker 1: a polar opposite, much more reserved and.
Speaker 3: Inwood and plays of a Korea different vas.
Speaker 1: In Korean that she was already a Grand Slam champion
Speaker 1: obviously playing, you know, coaching a top woman versus the
Speaker 1: top man. What was that shift like to go from
Speaker 1: working with Nick to Sam?
Speaker 3: A big shift?
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I think I reckon I made some mistakes
Speaker 4: along the way, but happy to share any of those.
Speaker 4: Before I do that, I would just kind of tip
Speaker 4: my cap and marvel at what a professional, what a
Speaker 4: work ethic, what a love of the game, what a
Speaker 4: mentally tough human being before you even get to tennis player,
Speaker 4: Because you know, as Federer said recently at the kind
Speaker 4: of commencement speech, you know that fifty four percent of
Speaker 4: his points at the greatest of all time or one
Speaker 4: of the greatest of all time. And Sam had plenty
Speaker 4: of heartbreaking moments, particularly here in Australia, you know where.
Speaker 4: That was a really challenging environment for her over a
Speaker 4: long period of time to handle being the hometown favorite
Speaker 4: and all of that expect and pressure kind of heaped
Speaker 4: on her shoulders, and she'd.
Speaker 3: Just keep fronting up.
Speaker 4: Like you know, Sam is talk about mental toughness, because
Speaker 4: it's one thing to kind of shy away from that
Speaker 4: or try to avoid, or it's another thing altogether to
Speaker 4: kind of know it's coming, know what you've got to
Speaker 4: deal with, know how uncomfortable maybe it might make you
Speaker 4: in certain circumstances, and to keep showing up. I just
Speaker 4: kind of marvel at Sam's mental toughness, and it learned
Speaker 4: a lot from her because where I was coming from
Speaker 4: and where Sam we're coming from.
Speaker 3: Like Sam.
Speaker 4: I think Sam's attention to detail, professionalism, attention to the
Speaker 4: one percenters, I found those quite remarkable. But in Sam's mind,
Speaker 4: she didn't want any praise for that. That's just business
Speaker 4: as usual. She's just like, no, no, no, I just
Speaker 4: want to know about the next opponent, top three ways
Speaker 4: to break through them, that's all. But I found Sam
Speaker 4: an icon of the sport, an incredible credit to herself,
Speaker 4: to a family I mean, what can I say hasn't
Speaker 4: already been said about Sam? And I learned a lot
Speaker 4: along that journey as well.
Speaker 2: You returned to New Zealand and had a stint as
Speaker 2: high performance director tell us about tennis in New Zealand.
Speaker 4: Today, Well, that was kind of a really I was
Speaker 4: really grateful for the time in New Zealand I had
Speaker 4: a and I was really grateful for what led me
Speaker 4: to this point. As it turns out, I might not
Speaker 4: have realized it at the time. I had a tough
Speaker 4: marriage break up here in Australia, We had a restructure
Speaker 4: at Tennis Australia and I could have reapplied for a
Speaker 4: coaching position, no guarantee I was going to win it,
Speaker 4: but I chose not to. So there was a kind
Speaker 4: of a redundancy involved there. So and I moved back home. Now,
Speaker 4: if you talk to I don't know, if you talk
Speaker 4: to a GP, they'll probably say to you, hey, some
Speaker 4: of the more stressful things that can happen in your
Speaker 4: life relationship breakup, tick, moving house, tick, and lost a
Speaker 4: job tick.
Speaker 3: So that was a really challenging period for me.
Speaker 4: And it wasn't until probably a couple of years later
Speaker 4: that I was able to maybe sit back, take stock
Speaker 4: and see it for what it was. Perhaps wasn't processing
Speaker 4: that period at the time as well as I might
Speaker 4: have been, but I was grateful for the time back
Speaker 4: in New Zealand. It was a small team, it was
Speaker 4: on a shoestring budget. We were really well led by
Speaker 4: Julie Patterson, who was the CEO, who I think you
Speaker 4: guys would have had experiences like this throughout your professional journey.
Speaker 4: We all would have where you may not gel with
Speaker 4: someone early days, but by the time I left, and Anna,
Speaker 4: who's now the mother of our three kids, was pregnant
Speaker 4: with our firstborn. She was over in New Zealand for
Speaker 4: a period of time, but she'd always been really clear,
Speaker 4: if and when we're lucky enough to have a family together,
Speaker 4: I want to do that back in Geelong.
Speaker 2: It's interesting that you talk about the success of New
Speaker 2: Zealand players because it kind of has been this more
Speaker 2: successful period with Daniel and Venus at Tokyo, Aaron Routliffing
Speaker 2: Doubles and Lulu Sun.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: How do you think that resonates back in New Zealand.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it's been huge news. I reckon the
Speaker 4: biggest news since the Chris Lewis nineteen eighty three.
Speaker 3: I think it was eighty three. The reference that.
Speaker 4: I made earlier was Lulu and this run to the
Speaker 4: fourth round of Wimbledon over the last couple of months,
Speaker 4: so it's been front page news on the New Zealand
Speaker 4: Herald back there.
Speaker 3: It's been huge.
Speaker 4: So I think tennis hasn't been in the headlights in
Speaker 4: that way. I don't reckon since nineteen eighty three. So
Speaker 4: even though Lulu's a really recent addition, you know, we've
Speaker 4: seen that in Australia. We've seen the outpouring of love
Speaker 4: and admiration and support for Eiler and Dasher and some
Speaker 4: of these players that didn't always call Australia home but
Speaker 4: certainly do so now and will forever in a day,
Speaker 4: and I think it's the same in New Zealand, and
Speaker 4: just so exciting for Julie and the team at Tennis
Speaker 4: New Zellen who still Julie still heads up the team
Speaker 4: there at Tennis New Zealen. I'm really hoping that that
Speaker 4: can inspire a generation of youngsters like we've seen here
Speaker 4: with Ash and with Leyton and with Sam and with
Speaker 4: all of our our and now it's Alex and all
Speaker 4: of great champions in Australia and tennis. I think at
Speaker 4: a really and I don't know the data and behind
Speaker 4: this at a really simple level, you know, I think
Speaker 4: you want to hold the trophy up like those great champions.
Speaker 4: So I'm really hoping that can be the catalyst that
Speaker 4: has tennis more on the map over the next couple
Speaker 4: of decades in New Zealand than it has been.
Speaker 1: I actually heard an interview they syndicated an interview on
Speaker 1: se n Z so C New Zealand and they got
Speaker 1: Belinda Cardwell, Yeah, the strain up in semi finalists to
Speaker 1: talk about lu Lusan and it was this growing story.
Speaker 1: It was really cool and even to remember the chief
Speaker 1: made of semi finalcy so that that's been actually a
Speaker 1: lineage of good of good results of New Zealand. I's
Speaker 1: just a little bit spaced.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I think I don't reckon there's any reason
Speaker 4: why they can't overcome some of these challenges. Another one
Speaker 4: is it's a wet country and winter New Zealand like
Speaker 4: it's seriously wet. You know, people ask me how Melbourne compares.
Speaker 4: I reckon Melbourne. I don't know the science on this
Speaker 4: I reckon, Melbourne feels colder to me, especially over the
Speaker 4: last few weeks.
Speaker 3: It's been pretty.
Speaker 4: Bitterly cult It's turned this week, which is fantas but
Speaker 4: I think New Zealand gets so much more rain and
Speaker 4: you can overcome that. But you've got to have the
Speaker 4: indoor facilities, and you've got to have your youngsters that
Speaker 4: can kind of access the courts at the right time
Speaker 4: and can get the support from their schooling, and you
Speaker 4: need the tennis ecosystem. And my view is on Kiwi
Speaker 4: sport and they've always done it well. They had a
Speaker 4: terrific Olympic Games just passed again in Paris. They punched
Speaker 4: well above their weight. They do it through coming together. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and I don't think we've done that tremendously well in
Speaker 4: tennis in New Zealand over the last two, three, maybe
Speaker 4: four decades. So that's an opportunity that lies in wait.
Speaker 1: I reckon your focus now is data analysis, and I
Speaker 1: know you said before that's something you're very passionate about
Speaker 1: and you strongly believe in that as part of your
Speaker 1: coaching philosophy. So I just wonder where that why that
Speaker 1: side of the game appeals to you and how that
Speaker 1: kind of came to be in your coaching philosophy.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I think probably the best way I would try to
Speaker 4: answer that was probably HARKing back to what I touched
Speaker 4: on with my time with Nick in terms of the
Speaker 4: you know, the notes and he said, yeah, I've got
Speaker 4: it some. I've done seven and a half hours of
Speaker 4: homework for this moment, and next gone, yeah, I've got
Speaker 4: it some.
Speaker 3: So big, play big, I've got to just watch me
Speaker 3: go to work.
Speaker 4: But I think that responsibility of a coach to be
Speaker 4: as informed as you can possibly be, as rigorous and
Speaker 4: as applied and as specific as you can in your
Speaker 4: analysis of the next opponent, I think that's a really
Speaker 4: heavy responsibility. And I've heard Dave Taylor, who's a coach
Speaker 4: that I admire so much, talk about the responsibility and
Speaker 4: the weight of responsibility that a coach has in their hands,
Speaker 4: and I think that's always something that weighed really heavily
Speaker 4: on me. So a big part of that is the
Speaker 4: work that we do now in terms of what can
Speaker 4: we understand that can help our Australian players and coaches,
Speaker 4: is that trends of the game itself over time, is
Speaker 4: that how player A has changed from twenty twenty two
Speaker 4: to twenty twenty four, so that our Aussies when they
Speaker 4: come up against them, can be prepared for those changes. No, no, no,
Speaker 4: they're not the same player that they were in twenty
Speaker 4: twenty two. Let me show you how they've changed over time.
Speaker 4: And I think some of the talk about work ethic,
Speaker 4: you know, some of the traveling and the rigor that's
Speaker 4: involved in coaching is really demanding, particularly living down here
Speaker 4: in Australia so far from the tennis hubs around the
Speaker 4: world right as the tennis kind of calendar follows the
Speaker 4: sun everywhere. But the work ethic of this team I'm
Speaker 4: involved in now, to be honest, I've never seen anything
Speaker 4: like it. Vivan Matt, you know, and I see you
Speaker 4: in here the first thing in the morning, but I'm
Speaker 4: out of here at kind of early in the afternoon
Speaker 4: or you know, early in the evening. And this team
Speaker 4: I'm working in, you know, Olivia and Shatia, doctor Olivia
Speaker 4: Kan and doctor Shatai Goonku and Levi Hardlesten. These guys
Speaker 4: are working so hard in the back end to kind
Speaker 4: of power these insights, and Levi and Shatia engineering the
Speaker 4: systems and lives working her brilliance to help me tell
Speaker 4: the stories of how players are maybe evolving. So that's
Speaker 4: the part that I think ties in with kind of
Speaker 4: the world that I've known is hey, guys, you guys
Speaker 4: can do some brilliant work in a way, I think
Speaker 4: part of the challenges And I was still having this
Speaker 4: conversation just before I came in here with Live, Hey, Live,
Speaker 4: we could do a fifteen page kind of real deep
Speaker 4: dive on Taylor Preston, for example, is one of the
Speaker 4: Aussies that we're really supporting heavily at the moment. But
Speaker 4: we've still got to be able to make it simple
Speaker 4: enough for it to resonate with the coach like we've
Speaker 4: all only got and Brad's a really clever guy, Brad,
Speaker 4: but we've all only got so much capacity to absorb information.
Speaker 4: So how can we take the wonderful amount of insight
Speaker 4: that lives able to generate and craft and curate and
Speaker 4: distill it down so that Brad's got three, maybe four
Speaker 4: really easily understood clear takeaway. Okay, I need to get
Speaker 4: to work with Tay here, here, here, and here and
Speaker 4: maybe it's just two things for the next three months,
Speaker 4: and these other two can sid on the back burner,
Speaker 4: but in twelve months from now, we need to see
Speaker 4: improvement across these four areas, so that's still part of
Speaker 4: the challenge, is simplifying all of the amazing insights that
Speaker 4: these guys are capable of crafting.
Speaker 1: Well, Simon, thanks so much for being really generous of
Speaker 1: your time, and I'm glad we were able to stir
Speaker 1: some memories in your mind and get you to reflect
Speaker 1: on that. That was really amazing talking to you.
Speaker 4: It's been a lovely opportunity for me to reflect on
Speaker 4: all of these experiences. So thanks for the invitation, Vivan
Speaker 4: Matt I really appreciate this.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 2: Wasn't that a fascinating chat with Simon and all of
Speaker 2: his experiences in tennis.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I often think when we have our sit down guests
Speaker 1: that we could just talk to them for hours longer,
Speaker 1: But I guess there's so much time in the day
Speaker 1: I've got, isn't there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we would love to keep talking all day long,
Speaker 2: but we'll be back next week when we talk to
Speaker 2: John Fitzgerald on Davis Cup and Australian Tennis.
Speaker 1: And in the meantime you can join John on the team.
Speaker 1: This Thursday on the Aoshow Weekly.
Speaker 2: Details for how to contact us are in the show notes,
Speaker 2: and as always, please remember to subscribe, rate, and review.
Speaker 1: Oh and while we've got you here, feel free to
Speaker 1: reach out to us if you've got any ideas for
Speaker 1: who you'd like us to sit down with, and we'll
Speaker 1: see if we can make it happen. We'll see you
Speaker 1: next week, Viv look.
Speaker 3: Forward to it. Matt,