My Journey From Tennis Player to Tennis Coach

This is my first video on The Art of Tennis. Welcome.

I cover my journey from junior tennis player to Australia to a full scholarship at an NCAA tennis Div 2 school in the US. 

Covering my small town background, the influence of my Dads footy coaching and how I ended up dropping out of university in South Australia to move to Darwin to become a tennis coach. 

Cheers

Rick

Transcript

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The art of tennis. The art of tennis. Coaches, this is Rick from The Art of Tennis. This is my first YouTube video. So I'd like to welcome you to the channel. This is all a bit new to me, but it fits in with my next 10 years or 15 years of life, is going to be educating coaches on how to become better at coaching, but also how to become better at business, more business savvy. So tennis coaching. How the heck did I end up a tennis coach? Long story, but let's start at the beginning on where I grew up. So I grew up in the Adelaide Hills in a town called Euraidla, 420 odd people. Small town, not full-on country because it was 25 minutes to suburbia or even less. But country, right? Market gardens, uh, cherry orchards, apple orchards. We grew up on eight acres. We had a hobby cherry farm. Um, and the sports we played were we played tennis in the or cricket in the summer, and we played footy pretty much in the winter, with a few, a few outcasts might go and play soccer, but there wasn't soccer in my town, but they would go across. So it's a very uh like many country towns, sports monstrous, it's like a religion. Um, so I would play my tennis, and then basically you'd finish your tennis, and the netball poles would go in to the to the tennis courts. Okay, so it wasn't a year-round thing. Now, I would keep playing a little bit year-round, but I would never fully commit to I didn't play any winter competition for until I was until well, my whole junior life was playing footy in winter and and tennis in summer. I was training a little bit through that. So, country town, uradler. Dad was a football coach, uh, so he would actually he was coaching the local junior teams, A-grade teams, and some other country towns. He would also coach. So I was exposed to the coaching um from him, and he was great. I idolized my dad, and I would hang out with him while he would be coaching. I would get to sit there as long as I wasn't too loud. And he would also, I would be picking teams on getting putting the positions I think the players should be in. And I was probably seven, eight, nine years old, 10, 12. Um, obviously in no position to be picking the football teams, but I thought I knew what was going on, and I love the idea of changing the team around to maybe uh compete better against certain teams. So my coaching background definitely come from my my dad. Um that's when I first learned what coaching was all about. Now, as far as playing, I I was a good player from the Adelaide Hills, and basically I would win at 10 and 12. I was winning the Adelaide Hills events for the kids who lived there. And then eventually, well, I guess around that period I would win the the country, the country events. So basically, you know, the best the best kid or two in the in a in the country area. Um when you take out the metropolitan kids, it's it's not much of a flex because most of the best kids were in the metro and they were training all the time, getting all the best coaching. But there was a few of us, country kids, who were just competitive sporty kids who who did pretty well at tennis. So uh at 13-ish, I made the transition to play city tournaments, right? So down I go to the the city tournaments, and so at 13-ish age, I made the transition to go play in the city with all the big boys, and it was a bit humbling because I didn't win everything, and to be honest, I got destroyed by the best guys, so I was unorthodox. I was playing two-handed, four-hand, two-handed, backhand, and effectively I just got every ball back. I would run, I would get it back. I had good hand eye, I had somewhat good hands on placement, um, but nothing was too powerful. It was it was sort of a spinny serve and then just rally, rally ball. So these guys in the city would just chew me up the best players. So, but I got to 13, I improved a little bit. By 14, I was more competitive and I was starting to do okay in the tournaments. And when I say okay, I was got to a ranking of between, I think I reached seven for my age in the state. Uh, I guess I was between seven and stage 14 from 14, 15, 16 type age groups. Um, I could never really go close to the top guys. I think basically they they were just another level. They definitely played more and trained more, um, but they're not another level. Now, the number one guy for our age group was a guy called Leighton Hewitt. Now, Leighton barely played in our age group in South Australia, right? I remember I played doubles against him in the primary school championships. Um got two games, 6-2, which was was a highlight. But realistically, he was way above me, and even the next guy who was number two in the country, he was way above. So we know Leiden's story went on to become um a dual grand slam winner and number one in the world. But we had a bunch of other guys, some went pro, like low-level pro, um, and others were just you know great state great players. So I was in that second band, what I call second B grade players. All right, now I I could still play, um, and you know, by 14 I was playing Division I men in the Adelaide Hills competition. Um, we had a team of three 15-year-olds and me as a 14-year-old, and we made the final of that Division I league, which was which was pretty impressive, really. Um at 14 I made started making some qualifying for nationals. Um first nationals I played was in Melbourne on the clay, and my parents said, Okay, we can drive you across, and we stayed in a caravan park, Adelaide to Melbourne, maybe seven, eight hours drive. Stayed in the caravan park, went and played, lost six love, six love. Um come back for the consolation the next day, lost six love, six love. So that was that was humbling again, reaching that national level. Now, one of the guys I remember being really good, he was a New Zealand, uh, one of New Zealand's best kids, and he had wasn't seeded, and he had played one of Australian's top seeds. So it was a bit unlucky to meet him in the consolation, but I was making up the numbers at that level to be fair. So that was sort of nationals. Um I did have another crack in the grass court nationals that year and did better. Um, I think I made like the round of 32 or and so won a couple of rounds, which was nice, and probably should have won the that last round to get to the round of 16. So at least I was competitive then on the grass courts in in beautiful Mildura. So I was never a top top star player. Now, 15, 16, I changed from double-handed forehand, double handed backhand as well, but double-handed forehand, I changed to one hand because I basically kept getting stretched and I couldn't reach with the two hand, and the better guys were just just making me have it having to hit one hand all the time on the forehand. So I made the change, and that was painful change. I slowly transitioned and it was horrible. My forehand was just a disgrace, and basically I would run around and hit off backhands as much as possible. 15, 16. Now, at this age, I was also a reasonably adventurous kid in in high school and particularly on the social front. So at these ages, I was starting to have a little bit of a look at some uh some some house parties and and and music underage gigs and things like that. Um maybe I told mum that I was going to see a movie, I can't remember, but there was a lot of a lot of those times, and I was having a fairly good time, but it it wasn't helping my um wasn't helping my tennis, especially making this change. So 15 to 16, I reckon I was 10% away from quitting and never playing again because it just was too hard. I couldn't really compete like I did, um, and I was just losing faith in that in the process. Um, luckily for my backhand and and I guess served to a degree, I hung in there and and kept playing competition, but nowhere near the same amount as when I was 14. So 15, 16, I started to work it out by the time I really finished year 12, so 17, I started to get a little bit better at that forehand. Um, and I started looking ahead to what am I gonna do? And I really wanted to travel. Travel was it was it's just kind of part of my adventurous spirit was I wanted to see the world. Um, yes, I would still get probably a little bit homesick, but I just wanted to I wanted to get out and explore. Um and US college seemed like a fun thing to do. Um, it wasn't really my aspiration to go to college and continue to play pro because I wasn't even close to that level. Um but it was really to go to college too. That was like the the end point of my tennis journey. But it was a bit weird because at 14 I had some decent results, 15, 16, I didn't play many tournaments, and then I did improve my level, but my college application was pretty much based on based on 14-year-old results and other players that I'd played against who were already in the college system. So this is before there are UTRs which helped to work out people's levels. Um so I did go to college, um, Div2 NCAA, snuck in there, um, and I was nervous as could be, absolutely nervous to to play college tennis. Um, couldn't couldn't wait to get there and and check it all out, but I was nervous of letting people down because I I wasn't confident enough in my game. I just hadn't played enough, I hadn't played enough tournaments in the last year or so before that, and I really I really wasn't confident enough to to believe in myself at that point. However, I was competitive and a bit feisty, and so we managed to to make a pretty good season, and and as a college team, I was playing number five singles, um, and ended up playing in the top doubles with a Romanian guy who had a well ranking, and he was a crazy little dude, and um I guess I was a crazy little dude in a way as well, and so we would get get the high fives going, and uh he would swear in Romanian and all the fun stuff, and so that was that was college. Now we made the we won runner-up of the conference, Carolina Conference. Um, I went to a school called Belmont Abbey College, and then we went to regionals, and it was the same college called Lise McCrae who went with us, the winner and runner-up of uh the conference goes to regionals, and the same team, Lise McCrae, were just way too good in the regionals. So we're runner up and then run her up, um, which was which was great to to play at that level. Uh, we had a team of Brazilians, a Romanian and American and and myself, a couple of Americans and myself. So that was fun. So I guess from a playing point of view, that was that was the pinnacle was reaching the college tennis. Um I didn't necessarily get along so well with my coach in the States. He was right on the end of his career, and he he he was just he was didn't have too much patience, and I probably didn't help things a little bit, but I just I decided that that was that was the end of college after the year, so looked at staying somewhere else for a couple more years, um, but made the decision to go back to South Australia, um, where I deferred uni to to go into uni of SA South Australia to do business marketing degree. So I deferred that deferred that course um and so effectively I came back and tennis as far as chasing high aspirations had finished at that point. Um I did miss a bit that after year 12 after year 12 I took a another a gap year there where I didn't go to college in America straight away. I basically trained every morning uh for the year to get myself up to the level to compete at college tennis. So that gap year was a huge help because it gave me the chance to play, play, play, play and get my level to a respectable degree to a respectable level to go across to the US. So it was the gap year, then college tennis, and then back to South Australia to do the uh international business degree, I think it was. Now, in the end, I only focused, I only liked the marketing part of that. I didn't really like the business forecasting and analysis. I remember that. Um and I ended up pretty much dropping all the subjects except for marketing, and then I started coaching tennis on the side. Uh, coaching tennis, restringing tennis records. So that was my little side side business while I was going to uni in Adelaide. And I really liked it. I liked people calling me and booking in the lessons and getting paid, and it was all very rewarding and the instant gratification of making money as it sort of happened, as each lesson happened. Um, and I had taken some lessons before. I'd taken some lessons as a as a teenager helping our local towns, um, and I didn't know what I was doing, but I was enthusiastic, I could play a little bit, and so effectively I just did whatever I remember doing in my lessons and transferred it to to to the kids I was coaching and some adults. So coaching people on the side, a little bit of restringing, um, and then I was just like, uni, this uni stuff is no good. This is I can't see, I can't see where this is going. So I spoke to a uni counselor who and I said, I'm thinking about finishing up uni. She was like, Well, maybe you're the type of person to go and do something and then study for it. So get a job effectively, and then study so there's a practical part of that learning process, right? So what ended up happening is I went, okay, well, I'm gonna get a job coaching tennis, and then I'm gonna learn and do my coaching course. And that was maybe a short three-year plan in my head, just okay, that'll give me something to do, so I'm not a uni dropout. I didn't really want to go back and work in orchards or market gardens and things that which a lot of people in my town did. Um my dad had an earth-moving business. I could have gone and worked for him. None of this really fit. I was I was reasonably ambitious, but I just didn't I didn't like the the academia, the academic company, company XYZ earns this amount of money, and it's just rubbish, right? I like the the real world. So the decision to go coach tennis and then learn more about coaching was was that was it. That was what I was gonna do. Now, where I was gonna coach, I looked at other places in Adelaide, there were very limited part-time jobs, but I did know somebody in Darwin and spoke to them, and they spoke to someone else, and I managed to land a job in Darwin at Gardens Tennis Complex. Um Darwin had really two, almost three tennis centers, and you know, it was um they were quite big, big places, and so that was it. At 21 years old, I started my first full-time tennis coaching job, and at the same time registered for a coaching course in with tennis NT. So that really was the the beginning part of the journey was playing tournaments, changing the double hander for two years reasonably unsuccessfully, eventually worked it out. Gap year, train train non-stop to get myself up to a level, um, and then go to the college, which did okay on the court, had a had a lot of fun, but there were some downsides, and the the the the coach was one, the the being stuck on college campus I found difficult because I had a car at home and was driving, then not being 21 and not being able to go and do all the fun things that my mates were doing back home. So that put me off a little bit of the the college life. Uh but ultimately that decision to come back to Adelaide, go to uni, drop out of uni and go to Darwin is is where the the where the nucleus of nucleus wrong word where the where the beginning point of full-time tennis coaching started. So then it was off to off to Darwin to the tropics and got up there and thought it was thought it was an amazing, amazing spot. Didn't wear shoes half of the time, unless I was on the tennis court. Uh go to the the markets, going going out, having a great time. That was it. That was how I landed in my first full-time tennis coaching job up in Darwin. Um I was coaching kids, private groups, doing some adult lessons, running adult competitions, driving around all around Darwin and surrounds in the NT to introduce tennis into their schools, which was which was fun, challenging, but but good fun, just just loved it. And it really was the start of understanding that there was a full-time industry, this was a legitimate job, uh, if you took it seriously and you and you you did it properly. So that was my beginning story, I guess, from junior tennis player through to coaching and what would be the start of many many years in the industry. Um yeah, so thanks for listening and we'll we'll chat again soon. Cheers.