In the monthly or weekly, or whatever it is, ATP online publication Deuce, there’s an item about Kei Nishikiori’s training at Nick Bollettieri’s academy in Florida. Nishikori is the 18 year old Japanese player who bolted from number 289 in the rankings to number 63 this year.
His team at the academy consists of the following people according the Gabe Jaramillo, the man in charge of Nishikori’s training:
Nick Bollettieri is in charge of strokes, Red Ayme for daily practices, Glenn Weiner as his traveling coach, Sybil Ayme, his yoga teacher, Dr. Angus Mugford for mental conditioning, Steve Shembaum for media training, Sally Parsonage is in charge of nutrition, Kevin Murdock for physiotherapy, agents van Lindonk and Ben Crandell, Sato Nakajima liaison with the family, Juan Herrera biomechanics and Yutaka Nakamura physical conditioning.
Okay now, if you’re wondering why your serve looks like crap or your shoulder is hurting, it’s because you don’t have a biomechanical expert to pinpoint the problem, a physiotherapist to put you on the ultrasound machine and break up the scar tissue resulting from the problem, a yoga teacher to stretch you out, and a media training expert to coach you on explaining your problem to the media in a way that will show your openness and cooperation but fail to give your opponents anything in the way of concrete information.
I’ll tell you, it makes me feel much happier being the crappy recreational tennis player I am. How the hell am I supposed to develop consistent groundstrokes and a devastating serve if I don’t have a dedicated coach for my strokes, let alone a conditioning coach who can whip me into good enough shape to run around for hours in the blistering Southern California sun?
And then there’s my temper. I’m sure I wouldn’t be replacing my second racket in a month after smashing it into the court if I could have weekly sessions with Mr. Mugford.
Most of all, I pine for a traveling coach. No matter. I now have a built-in excuse.
Source: MVN
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