Introduction and Todd's Career my coaching philosophy when I started coaching was really you need to have a great serve and a great forehand and I spent a huge amount of time educating myself and talking to other coaches and working on developing with my players great first serve good kick serve and a big forand but I think with any skill you develop I follow a three-step process you got to feed then you've got to transition that into Drilling and then you've got to transition that into into point play and then into match play that physical environment combined with a great coach uh combined with like I just described that having those different phases within the year I mean that is is world [Music] class hey Todd welcome to the coach Life podcast hey Peter thank thanks for having me great to be here just love talking tennis uh all aspects of tennis and Player Development so thanks a lot for having me and looking forward to this yeah we're so excited to talk to you I remember you from my playing days as a great guy always supportive you know always had a little bit of advice and obviously I remember you as a as a great player you got to 135 in the world I know you qualified for 18 grand slams and you're probably too humbl to say this but I know you had a lot of problems with your older and I I I always remember you not being able to serve at 100% And and being constantly injured with that so I think if you didn't have those problems you probably would have got up to the the top 50 so maybe you could tell us a little bit more about your career and how you got into coaching yeah sure yeah thanks for that introduction yeah I was all right battling player we you and I had a few battles over the years and Futures Etc but yeah I was probably you're right probably the one thing that held me back was probably physic um I wasn't strong enough for the game style that I played which is interesting we can talk about that in the future but yeah I was born uh both my parents were tennis coaches and I grew up at a tennis center in camber in Australia so tennis was in my blood from a very young age and started coaching at a very young age probably about 14 so that was Coaching Nick Kyrgios and Top Juniors interesting uh childhood went on tour at age 20 played from 20 to 30 professionally and then when I stopped playing I went straight back into coaching so I was lucky enough to pick up a job for tennis Australia here in canra coaching elite junior tennis players and ran ran the tennis Australia National Academy for 15 years from uh 2005 to 2020 and then since then been coaching privately so spent pretty much my whole life in tennis um know either playing or coaching uh I've been lucky enough to uh you know do a lot of travel and play in all the Grand Slam so really uh grateful to be able to do that that was a lifelong goal had two lifelong goals one was to be top 100 singles player which I didn't achieve just fell short the other one was to play main draw singles of every Grand Slam which I was really uh grateful that I was able to do that so yeah very happy to be in tennis for so long yeah it it was you had a great career you certainly did but then you've had a lot of success with coaching Nick Kiros and other top Junior years I know running that program in camera you had another girl who got to top five ITF at only 15 years old and a lot of other players had success and you spent 10,000 hours on court with Nick cuos from a young age I think you discovered him at a local tournament so be interesting to hear more about that yeah I first saw Nick play when he was about nine years old actually at a tournament that I was running at the club that I was coaching at at the time and yeah just uh from from an early age he was just a super competitor one of the kids are super competitive highly competitive probably overco competitive uh and and he's shown that through his career so yeah really interesting to see him he wasn't very athletic when he was young uh but he was great competitor and ability to find a way to win I'm going to talk about that more uh throughout the um throughout this podcast and just played very aggressively from a young age uh and really developed those weapons from a young age couldn't move very well so had to play First Strike tennis uh and that kind of evolved over the years uh but that was the basis of his game was uh playing aggressively and competing very hard and finding a way to win those two or three characteristics have gone through uh his whole career with him uh and hugely beneficial for him and and for any tennis player I think so that was really interesting I coached him from age 10 to 17 then he moved on to another program T Australia program for a couple of years and then I went back with him on tour for about nine months uh in 2014 and 15 so um yeah was able to have you know that whole time with him and juniors and then see time with him on tour as well so got that both both aspects which was really great learning experience for me Nick I think I taught him a lot but he also taught me a lot what it is to be talented what what X Factor is what is to bring competitiveness and great work work ethic particularly through Juniors worked incredibly hard throughout his tennis career oh that's awesome and when you worked with him on the tour I think he made the quarterfinals of two grand slams right yep he hared his ranking from 48 to 24 at the time he was only 19 uh he made the quarters of Wimbledon that was just before I started with him uh and then he made the quars with the Aussie open he had a win over federa in Madrid uh feder was number one in the world at the time Nick was only 19 that was an incredible match made the f um third round of the French and his first ATP final in Ester real on Clay which was interesting that it came on Clay because probably now he probably doesn't regard it as his best surface but I still think it's he's really good on clay if if he was really willing to commit to that clay CT season which he hasn't really in last few years but early days when he played on Clay he played really well on clay and interesting that his first final came on clay yeah I mean his forehand is so suited to Cay it's so much rip and it's so heavy serve is so big especially the kicker how did you develop that forehand I know in the in the coach life content you talk about the importance of and a lot of our coaches talk about the importance of developing a weapon and you said you spend a lot of time working on forehand drills and you had a great forehand as a player and you thought that was important to develop yeah it's really key I think as a player I didn't I had a great forehand I didn't have enough weapons in my game I had to scrap and compete hard to win points when I my coaching philosophy when I started coaching was really you need to have a great serve and a great forehand and I spent a huge amount of time educating myself and talking other coaches and working on developing with my players great first serve good kick serve and a big forehand we spent every single day really every single session six days a week I really worked on four the one thing I always did whether it was what whatever we're doing in the session I'd do buckets of attacking forehand drills every single day with my players for sevene period from when they were 10 to 17 that group of players so also knew how to teach a good forehand technique so you combine a good forehand technique with doing attacking forehand drills every single day and every single one of those players had really good really good forehands and some of them had really really good serves and I think you know it's evident in Nick's game that he has a massive serve and a great forehand he can hit attacking winners and forehand winners from any position on the court when he's going backwards moving forwards running around can off forehand inside in line cross huge forehand from every position and I will take not taking a lot of credit for Son of Nick's X Factor of course but I will take some credit for his serve and his attacking forehand I Developing a Strong Serve and Forehand think backhand was more natural something he developed himself but yeah daily attacking forehand drills and not just feeding but I think with any skill you develop I follow a threep process you got to feed then you've got to transition that into Drilling and then you've got to transition that into into Point play and then into match play you can't expect a player to go from oh I can hit an attack for off a Fed ball oh why isn't that playing it doing it in a match you've got to progress uh and you've got to having the environment set up for that you've got to Pro progress those skills uh continuously and you got to regress as well go back to feeding all the time feeding drilling Point play match play with each skill that you try to develop that's absolutely brilliant and in terms of a a two hour session would you you do that ball feeding every day and then progress it every day from ball feeding to drill to point play yeah I think it depends what session you're running uh but in a private lesson I was taking a private lesson yeah I try to do feeding I I did a lot of hitting with my players so I'd do feeding and then I'd do some Drilling and then I'd try to play some points with my players I I don't play as many points now I'm just too old and too slow too unfit but I certainly through when I was coaching Nick I was age 30 to 40 and I was fit and playing well but I think whe whether you private lesson or whether you have a couple of players on the court I would continues to follow that system where we did feeding uh Implement that into Drilling and then set up drills whatever skill you're developing you have to be in creative and set up drills where you're working and trying to develop those skills within a point point situation and then and then transitioning into serve and return and match play where you're like okay we've worked on this now we're going to set up bonuses or whatever you need to do for winners or uh creating points short where they have to win points within three or four shots Etc you have to get creative as a coach try and transition those skills from the feeding and the close skill into the open skill in the match play uh and just continued to follow that I think it's a really good formula for coaches and for players to to to develop those skills and transition them from the close skill to to the match play oh yeah 2our session yeah absolutely you can easily fit all those things in in in two hours I love it and and that brings me to some more of your content where you talked about the amount of hours that Nick trained as a junior and you know it wasn't the four or five hours a day that you hear about a lot of othery or or players doing it was only I think between 12 and 15 hours a week you think that the specific nature of each session that you had it planned out and he was always there with you help with that and you know if players don't have that do you think that they need to do a higher volume of hours yeah absolutely like the the way that our Academy was structured we only had seven players to coach I had a full-time wage paid for me by tennis Australia so I had as much time as I could possibly need with a small Coach player roio I mean ideally probably four or five is better but I think I handled six or seven players so yeah the way structured we do we did a lot of private lessons we did a lot of small group sessions we only really did a big Squad session where we had seven or more players once a week really so because we had um smaller groups I was always on the court with the players we could deliver a higher intensity of training and more specific training to that player I felt that I didn't need to do the volume that maybey do you maybe you do need to do more volume if you don't have that intensity within within your sessions and you don't have your coach on court with you and it's not as specific maybe the volume needs to be a little bit bigger but I still think the ideal way to set up an academy is with a a low player coach ratio where you can set it up and do less hours on court then you can focus more hours in strength and conditioning and looking after your body but then you're also able to fit in other sports or activities to develop the hand ey coordination and all the other athleticism skills you maybe don't develop on a tennis court Nick's example is basketball basketball he played basketball from six or seven years old all the way through to 15 years old and he didn't it doesn't have to be a huge amount he did one training session and one match a week and a basketball match only lasts an hour and a training session only lasted an hour but then he also played with his mates occasionally basketball but the playing that sport having the time to play that other Sport and develop his footwork his hand eye Creating a Comprehensive Training Environment skills um he loved playing it so it's a great outlet from just playing tennis all the time I think it was a really big factor in how skillful he is with his hands and his feel and his timing uh and his creativeness on Court and his footwork in athleticism in general I do think less hours on court more strength in conditioning look after your body play another sport if you can for me that's the perfect setup uh if you can get it yeah really fascinating to get insights into his development and I know you're really big on the environment and I learned a lot from that with the with the coach life content so could you tell us a little bit more about that I know you've prepared something today for us yeah like hopefully this little board just to explain how I structured the environment for 15 years so I'm going to try to get that on there is that okay yep closer maybe so basically we've got four phases so of development this how tried to structure the academy so number one well it can it's a circle right so it can start anywhere skill development phase I think it's really important and I talked about that training environment where we need private lessons in juniors need small group sessions so in that skill development phase which runs anywhere from two to eight weeks you're going to work on technique you're going to work on strength and conditioning you're going to play your other sport you're going to improve your consistency your offense your defense your move movement your footwork and you're really going to develop your your game style so that's when you do your really really your real work I suppose if you like and your real development work uh and you know you might have to change technique or development technique and you just week in week out it feels like hard work it feels like you're grinding the coach is going every day the players are going every day then I think that's really important to have at least four of those within a year for a junior development player and that like I said ideally they probably run six or seven weeks could be up to eight or nine weeks really key I think my philosophy as a coach is trying to improve then when you play you try to play to win and get the best possible results you can so you're not just as a coach you can't just say I'm just trying to get results or I'm just trying to develop or results don't matter I'm just trying to develop or development doesn't matter I just need to get results you need to get both you need to achieve both as a coach so you need that preparation phase different to your skill development phase you need that preparation phase leading up to a tournament where you're going to work on more match play serve and return your game style and your winning plays more on your strengths than you are on your weaknesses I think in that preparation phase you're going to taper off physically a little bit so you're going to try to peek for your tournaments you don't want to go in your tournaments exhausted and you're going to work on things really specific to the individual player um in preparation for their matches I think that's really important to have that preparation and that could be just one or two days or if it's a really important tournament like a Nationals we would spend two weeks in that preparation phase so the competitive phase is the next step and that's really important as well because um not just going to compete and try to win you're also going to learn during that competitive phase so some of the things you're going to learn and develop are your mental and competitive skills you're going to learn your tactics and your game style and understand your game you're going to learn offc Court yourself organization your preparation and your professionalism for matches you're going to learn how to mod um how to manage your body and stay fit and play multiple matches and weeks in a row also for coaches that's when you really develop your relationship with your player because you're going to be on the road with your player and you're going to get to spend more time with them uh and then your adaptation and resilience mentally and physically really important so really important in the competitive phase you're learning a lot different things to what you are in the skill development phase and the preparation phase and then the last phase which is really important I think is recovery and the learning the self analysis the rest and Recovery physically and mentally getting away from tennis completely coach analys sit down with your coach analyze the matches what you learned switching off from tennis and then in that phase you're going to plan as well okay what have I leared from my competi competition and generally as a coach I'd have a notebook and I'd have a lot of things on every player when you watch them play a match all the weaknesses all the all the good things all the bad things are shown uh when you step on a court and compete so you're then going into your planning for your next skill development phase that's a really important phase as well and I think for some parents they miss this phase they go competitive oh we've got so much to work on let's go straight back into training like where's the rest recovery uh where's the time off just to just to get yourself get to get yourself motivated and re-energized to go again into your tough skill development phase so that for me that's the environment you are looking for as a parent or a The Importance of Clay and Indoor Courts player you're looking for this environment that gets all these phases got your coach with you in competition in preparation in skill development and in planning so that's the perfect training uh environment I think it it's really important that um the environment I can talk more about that the environment's almost more important than uh the coach if you like so um yeah that's that's where I sit with with trying to develop a worldclass environment I love it and we'll include all that in the show notes so people can see exactly what's what's on camera and when you talk a little bit more about the environment I know in your content you talked about having clay courts indoor courts could you talk a little bit more about that yeah it's huge isn't it the physical environment I mean uh having strength and conditioning having some indoor courts is really good I think it's going to rain wherever you are it going be really cold having clay courts absolutely critical I think uh I say a clay cord is my best uh assistant coach so many so many things you learn on clay that you don't learn on other courts fence uh you can do longer tougher consistency drills defense's offense is more prominent on Clay than any other surface ability to finish at net to develop these defensive slice skills of sliding the the work you put in the legs and the endurance you get in your lungs and your legs is better on Clay um and also transitioning it to net you come to net more on Clay than you do on a fast hard court because the points are so fast on a fast hard court that whereas on Clay you need to finish at the net and there's more finishing at net on Clay than there is on a hard cour so that's really important so have um yeah different training Partners be able to hit down and up to have private lessons like I said strength and conditioning to have um you know time well-being kind of relaxation times with your coach and other players off Court to have the ability to train by yourself players to train by themselves or parents to come down uh and get a bucket of balls and and and do additional sessions really important as well when the coach is away or sick or whatever so that physical environment uh incredibly important and uh can do 50% of the coaching for the coach sometimes so that physical environment combined with a great coach uh combined with like I just described that having those different phases within the year I mean that is is world class that's a world class training and development environment and and it's what parents and players and coaches should be trying to Aspire to trying to get trying to find there's not that many in Australia right now to be honest but that's what you there's definitely one we've got one National TR Training Academy in Brisbane which is ten Australia but that's really players age 17 to 24 but you really need to start that that environment from eight or nine eight or nine years old for me to become a truly worldclass player yeah and just talking to you you can see how obsessed you are with being a coach and learning and improving as a coach and you know what I found really interesting was we launched our product coach life.com two months ago and since then I think you've watch 90% or 95% of of the content and and most of the coaches have actually been like that which I thought was amazing such a a vicious learner is that what makes you such a great coach and yeah could you tell us a few things that you learned from watching the the coach coach life cont yeah AB absolutely what makes a great coach is is learning off other coaches and something we haven't done in Australia we've done terribly and you become really at your one venue you can become really olated as a coach just go day in day out with a bucket of balls and courau in your player and you're not getting the opportunity to really learn other drills and philosophies and theories from other coaches and uh it's probably I would never turn up to someone else's another coach's environment and sit there for a day and watch what they're doing be unethical to do that so how do you how do you learn and and tennis Australia hasn't really facilitated to to so this has been unbelievable for me to be able to watch 19 other coaches and their philosophies and their drills and everything that goes has been incredible some of the things I learned some of the things I learned some it just reinforces what you think you're doing well and some things are new certainly the importance of developing good technique at a young age and looking at Sly blacks videos and the way he goes about it just reinforces to how important that is that that phase from 6 years old to 12 years old how much time he spending developing footwork preparation and footwork I mean the basis of how you hit the ball incredibly important that that was a huge thing that I've learned off him uh again the role of parents which I I want to talk about more really important to hear other coaches talk about that um our parents should not be involved in coaching but there's lots of other things that they can do and be incredibly important part of their child's development and talents development without being Sports psychologists or coaches I want to go into that more that that's really important um the importance of Simply working hard and consistently working hard day in day out I mean the Canadian Coach Co coach CH I've forgotten his name what's his name adri if you're R yeah so some philosophies on no excuses that's something I've tried to push with my players as well is no excuses that's something I've learned and been reinforced to me he I love his philosophy about that um hugely important the importance of the left hand in the backhand I mean I was I wasn't the greatest backhand coach but I've improved just watching coach life the importance of using that left hand and doing all those left-handed drills something that came through with all all the coaches so I've really implemented that into my coaching and I've seen Improvement already the back hands of my players implementing those drills um the other thing I was going to say is the importance across all 19 coaches the one massive thing that that I learned is the commitment of the coach uh throughout the journey every single coach you see on there I spent five years six years seven years eight years with my coach every day all going to all the tournaments spending five days on court with him the commitment of the coach is enormous and when I look back on the the period that I coached Nick for seven years and then I had some girls for about four or five years at the end of that 12 years period I was 13 years absolutely exhausted and I think that that's because I was so committed and so dedicated to to those players and and to getting the best out of those players and improving so yeah like just in it's inspired me and motivated me and also I've become a better coach from this um website so thank Peter for putting it together it's been it's been incredible and I just I encourage anyone involved in Elite tennis to sign up you will learn so much um you'll you get so motivated and uh just the cost of a couple of private think how much we spend on on tennis coaching and traveling Etc just cost of a couple of private lessons so much information on there yeah no thank you Todd yeah it was it was amazing to shoot the content with you I learned so much and just on my own Teaching the Ash Barty Style and Individualizing Coaching Journey coaching my daughter she started from she was about a 3 utr when I first started coach life and then probably a year later I think she's she's five now but maybe closer to a 5.5 and a couple of things couple of questions that I have is you know when I started coaching her I was big on the ash bar style of coaching that you know she had we had to teach her variety and slices and come to the net and most of the sessions were based around that and you know since I started coach life I stopped doing that as much and like you said it reinforces you see constant themes across the content and I've just been focusing the sessions more on that so maybe you could talk a little bit more about you know the coaches nowadays teaching the ash part style and whether you think that's the right way to go with with all female players yeah that's a really interesting topic because I've been through that whole journey because the first seven years I coached boys and then I went into coaching girls uh and so with the boys I I was teaching all the skills like you say all the defense and all all those different additional skills and I probably went into girls thinking I can do the same I I can why can't why can't I like I probably I was probably like you I probably spent too much time on trying to develop those additional skills and not focusing enough on the core skills and and I think there's two distinct players with girls there's aggressive baseliners girls who hit the ball clean they hit it hard they stand up on the Baseline and they dictate and dominate and then you've got the ashb player who has got the additional skills and a different game style two distinct game styles but re in reality there's probably only 10 to 15% of girls who can play The Ash body way and 80% or 90% of girls who play the other way so I'm really now going unless I really see a girl who's got phenomenal athleticism and hand eye and can pick up those skills quickly I'm focusing my time with the girls I'm developing the core skills of forehand and backhand really clean technique good preparation all things Sly black talks about good preparation be able to create power off both Wings get the ball hard and clean play aggressive stay on the Baseline up near the Baseline dictate Play Good serve good return uh and then once they can do those fundamental skills then trying to add in you know finishing at the net Etc so I think you need to look at type of player you uh you have I mean it's interesting with Ash B right because I knew her from a very young age cuz I started all the tournaments and she was an incredibly sporty you wouldn't mind me saying tomboy type of girl who we were out playing touch footy I was playing you know a lot of sports with my my group of kids she'd be the one joining in I would play Kick footies and take marks and pass balls on the run and so she was a unique girl who was incredibly sporty who could pick up any sport from a very young age there aren't many girls like like that you know I'm not being sexist just the way the way it Improving Movement and Technique is so that was a unique thing for her and you've got a girl like that I think you can teach all those additional skills but you're right I'm with girls I teach girls different to boys and focusing on on those fundamental um basics of good technique and clean ball striking and an aggressive game style Baseline play is the conclusion I've come to too yeah fascinating I I love it and that's been the main focus for us along with trying to develop her movement she's quite slow around the court and we've been developing that over the last nine months and I'm finally starting to see the results and I know you talked about Nick wasn't the greatest mover so do you think that's something that can be taught and how can you go about that yeah it's really interesting definitely can be taught um there's absolutely no doubt and again I think you got to look at the type of player that you've got for some kids you genuinely do not need to teach movement you got a sporty athletic kid they the drills you do and everything that you set up they will naturally develop their movement and but the kids who are not that don't move that well then you have to I think individualize and specif and and for me what's worked best is looking at what individual movement aspects they're not good at and then really focusing in on those and working on those for example for Nick he had a good he had good footwork and good split steps within a couple of meters but moving wider to balls or that sprinting aspect was poor so we had to work more on know specific moving running wide to the forehand or running wide to the back and working on open stand or sprinting to that short ball and being able to play the shot his footwork within around the ball was pretty good but his speed and stuff was not and and I've had different girls who are quite quick but don't use the their legs well or their body well enough they too upright so me working on the individual uh looking at the individual and work seeing where what individual aspects they are poor at and then working isolating those and working on that and that's why Dave B Bailey stuff so good he has been able to break down and isolate every single movement on the court and then this is how I teach it and this is how these are the steps that I progress to teach that so that's kind of the way I I would work but movement does improve as you get older and more athletic for Nick uh we it was just me and a group of players we didn't have believe it or not we didn't have strength and conditioning we had very little strength and conditioning from that age of 10 to 17 and that I've talked about the importance of moving on The Constant Need to Clean Up Technique to to the next environment it's 17 he was offered a place in the Australian Institute of sport where he was going to get a full-time trainer dietician uh so much more individual physical training full-time physio with a group of those players so that's when he really improved his movement when he was able to move onto that next environment and get more attention and that's it had I kept him in my environment he just wouldn't have developed in those areas so that was incredibly important for him when and as you get older he gets stronger right he was he was young and he wasn't he was slow but he wasn't strong as he got to that 17819 he developed the strength in his legs and that transitioned into his speed and his power and his movement and then he would have gone through a growth spur at one point and you talk about the constant need to clean up technique after tournament due to like grip slipping around and then again you said that's something that you learned from coach life the import of of technique but how often would you need to clean up technique with your players and how would you do that I think you're working on it daily not daily but I think you're working on on in private lessons I did probably a couple of private lessons a week I think every single private lesson for seven years I'm working on some technical aspect and and and going back to the ball feeding and regressing and just working on that that every single week every single year but there's absolutely no doubt when you go through those competition preparation and competition phases and they can last five or six weeks sometimes that in in kids weird things will happen and grips will slip and funky things will happen with technique and you'll come back after that phase and think geez something's gone bad here I need to go back into the development phase I need to do more feeding and we need to clean it up I just think it's a constant thing a constant you know with NI beforehand he had a really extreme Twist on his back swing and we and you can see now he lifts now he lifts and turns but he still twists a little bit at the back Continuous Learning as a Coach but it went from extremely ugly twisty to much cleaner with a little bit of a Twist so that's that's a good example of me continually just trying to chip away and work on it didn't get it absolutely textbook perfect but we continue to work on things and improve things and that's with every aspect technically I don't think that ever stops you know my time on tour I see Serena Williams and other players the players are out there ball feeding Rafford did huge amount of ball feeding and and Moy is standing there telling him like no you're doing swing out through the ball more you've lost or you've lost your backand you're too short that continuous continuous work I'm trying to clean things up and improve things and uh if things have gone wrong a little bit wrong technically continue to try to I don't think it ever stops so it's just ongoing process but the most important technical phase is that five or six year years old through to 14 for me that's the most important technical phase that's where you build the basis of your Technique uh is in those years that's why it's so important um I so much like s uh theory on coaching in in in that period lots of private lessons lots of technical work during that that F that uh time period yeah and what's fascinating about s's content is he coached Coco gol from six to 14 and she had a semi-western grip and she finished over her shoulders and that was okay but then she went over to France I guess and trained at moraco Academy and the grip started slipping and and now you see it's extreme Western so I guess she started playing on red clay for the first time and how important do you think is it to keep in touch with your Junior coach that developed your Technique even if you move on to another environment and you have other voices is it important just to keep in touch with your Junior coach and maybe talk to them or get some lessons every now and then or have them involved in some capacity really interesting is it that so had she stayed with Sly even if she even if she'd been on tour and training and traveling the world had she maybe stayed with Sly for three or four more years longer he I have no doubt that he would have kept correcting a grip pushing it back towards semi Weston so I think it's incredibly important even with Nick's an example for me in that two and a half year period he was in the next program I was always in the background watching him communicating with not communicating directly with Nick not absolutely not interfering with the coaching but communicating with his couple of coaches he had in the background and going watching him in saying I think he needs to work on this I think just whether those coaches took it on or not but me just in the background trying to still support and advise um and so I would highly recommend e players who are traveling a lot and maybe that private coach doesn't want to travel and they specialize in that younger area you're going back to your private coach be incredibly important for some coaches no one probably knows you better right probably no one knows that athlete better than the the coaches spent that huge amount of big block of time with that player uh they know that player they know how they learn uh things are not going right then probably know how to get that player back on track they might be able to get that player back on track and then send them off again to to back on tour or back onto their tour with their tour coach so yeah incredibly important that player to stay in touch with their that coach to stay in touch with their player and continue that relationship Ono and when you when you talk about forehand and the Twist and you were trying to clean it up at some point I know in the content on Coach life you mentioned that you had to make the decision that to change it fully just wasn't worth it and you you thought it would would hold up on the pro tour and it and it has held up so I guess it comes down to that as well you you know you can move to another coach maybe they make a lot a big technical change but it probably should be a collaborative process between the player your previous coach and your new coach yeah I agree I probably made that mistake at at times early in my career where I'd get a player from another coach and I'd go ah I don't even need to talk to that coach he he he he was an idiot or why why didn't why how had you not changed that Western group or whatever far far more experienc now where I'll always talk to that coach and get a full hand over I say but she's got a western grip why haven't you done that all that swings and the coach is almost never be say I've tried to do that I've TR I've tried to clean I've tried to address that I haven't been able to so then you know you know the history but then you can maybe say okay I'm going to have another crack at that I'm going to try what methods did you try I'll try something different so it that communication with that coach before is really important um and yeah just knowing the history of the player and the personality and yeah then you've got to decide when to intervene and not inter intervene and what you think is going to hold up long term and what you think isn't really important aspect of coaching I talked about that before on Coach life but that's really that comes with experience I think coaching and other Mentor coaches you've had around you it's why coach life so important yeah and we you know on the site we have both of eex coaches we have her first coach from 9 to 16 mial kaznowski and he he sort of thinks differently to a lot of coaches and he had a theab band around her shoulders for 20 or 30 minutes every day believe that you should' keep the elbow in pretty close and he was trying to correct an overswing but then her next coach p p s Bowski had her from 16 through to winning her first French Open title and he thought it was too close and he wanted to create some some space there but you know so I thought that was interesting I found that really interesting as well because I I teach a lot of space right great extension like feder Nadal and it's interesting that he adapted that wasn't working he adapted brought it in but she's got a great forehand she's got a great forehand number one the world with and she is a little tight for my liking but it's a great shot it just goes to show like you The Influence of Parents in Player Development have to adapt to the individual you have to coach the individual and you have to find a way that's going to work for that individual and that's what he did that's great what great coaches do I think they adapt and work with that individual and they great coaches are able to get the best out of any player they take on no matter of the personality or the game style or the gender or whatever so that's that I found that really interesting how he changed and adapted and and he got a result right that that's what high performance coaching is about really in the end getting the best out of your player and get getting results absolutely and I know you touched on it before just regarding parents and you know how important their role is I mean it's just vital it's it's it's everything could you talk a little bit more about that yeah I've got a lot to say about parents and I've got I wrote down some notes here and it's really interesting parents play a really really important role I haven't spoken this much about on Coach life really important role right and I I want to lay out the two most important roles that parents play number one is developing the personal characteristics the character of your child that's your role as a parents not don't dish that off to the school teacher or to the coach they will try but the number one influence on developing the person the personal characteristics of your child will be you and when I say personal character characteristics I'm talking about perseverance and persistence resilience desire and passion determination gratitude a strong work ethic a positive and optimistic attitude I mean these things are life skills which if if we all want our children to have these things right a burning desire for what they're doing uh the book Think and Grow Rich which is an unbelievable book everyone should read talks about having a burning desire to do something and then anything is possible right so how do you teach that in your kids perseverance and persist persistence incredibly important for tennis there's a famous AFL coach by Dennis Pagan was very successful with North the North Melbourne football club in Australia he said perseverance and persist persistence knows no failure mean that is such a great line knows no failure so these are characteristics that will last a lifetime will be hugely important for tennis and are the parents role so that's number one number two thing is which is really important is to try to help develop your the Prof professionalism of your child again the coach will try but it's the offc court things and the daily habits and discipline that you want in your child that will make a big difference positive difference to their tennis so a good diet how do you teach them how how to have a good diet they're stretching in their rehab that these are things they're going to do at home good sleep um the preparation of their equipment the tournament entries so try and develop your child into an organized professional person like you can't expect a 12-year-old to be organized and professional but you can influence them and you can teach them and you can develop those skills uh throughout their Journey you know throughout their teen years my brother always used to say me say to me if you're to if you're if you're a mudle off Court you're going to be a mdle on court if you're self organized offc Court you're going to be more organized tactically and mentally when you compete in a match so that's hugely important so there are two massive areas where parents can play huge roles right in developing the character and the professionalism of your child so what not to do as a parent just as important as what to do so don't be a sports psychologist don't try to be a Psy it's takes years to be a good psychologist you don't have the skills don't try and be a parent and a sports psychologist don't be a coach I mean if you've if you think you've got your kid into a great coach with a great coach in a great environment and you're happy with that then why are you co I say why are you trying to coach why are you trying to coach if you if you think you've got a good coach why are you trying to coach that's what I'd say to parents so don't be a sports pych don't be a coach hold your your child account to account for their effort their effort off Court the professional things the effort on court you want 100% effort and you want Behavior a a level of behavior which is acceptable to you and acceptable to everyone around in the teren environment so hold your child account for those two things but don't try to coach them and don't try to be a sports psychologist and the other big thing I want to say about parents is when watching matches it's absolutely critical when you sit and watch Match watch A Match that you sit there calmly and you have a poker face can't expect no matter how emotional you're becoming as a parent you can't expect your child to be calm and composed you can't sit there and watch it and not be calm and composed how expect your child to be calm and composed on the court like you you can't be throwing your arms off and walking away and coming back and arguing referees and berading your child on court you can't you can't do all that and expect them to be calm and composed on court which is what they need to be best example I heard someone say I'm not sure if it was on Coach live or podcast was orsine Williams what a great example it's contrast to Richard right Richard was throwing carrying on like an idiot on the on the sidelines sits there calmly composed doesn't show any emotion you can still support your child you can still clap you can still say Well done when they look at you can with a fist pump you can still give a little fist pump back supportive but not emotional not showing emotional body language that's incredibly important and if you come and watch your kid and you're going to sit and watch your kid stay the whole match for God's sake stay the whole match they're losing don't disappear because they're losing right or because you can't handle the emotions of the match it's getting too close I'm G to leave sit there if you're gonna commit and sit and watch the match stay and watch the match but that I just think those three things three or four things hugely important and you can see I'm passionate about um what parents do parents can make or break a player um and we've seen parents uh break their players the other thing was unconditional love you know whether parent win whether your child wins or loses treat your child the same whether they win or lose what you're you're looking for is effort and behavior so if they've given 100% effort and they've behaved respect respectfully then that's all you should expect as a parent right you shouldn't be going oh well we're going to go have an ice cream because we won and but now you're lost and no no now we're not like just unconditional love your child regardless of whether I win or lose but that's my parent rant Pete sorry about that I'm passionate about parents and the roles of parents and how important they are but you have to Define your roles what you what you're doing as a parent yeah I Player Preparation: Focus on Preparation, Tactics, and Mental Routines mean that is just the best advice i' I've ever heard and should be the the the blueprint for every tennis parent is just absolutely brilliant I mean and you know parents can get frustrated when coaches tell them to you know to stay out of it but you you know you just outline their role really clearly you know their role is so important in those offc Court things like stretching and recovery and sleep and developing resilience and mental toughness and your attitude all those things are more important than what the the coach is doing but then understanding the boundaries and staying out out of just just brilliant advice Todd I I love it we're going to also include that in in the show notes we'll bullet point that right cool yeah so and then I I wanted to talk to you about what you would say to your players before I mean you're not saying anything during matches but before and after matches and how you would deliver that message and when you would deliver the message you know and then how you would go about working on different aspects of of what they you know what happened in matches yeah I think I think I've always taken like a three-step process in dealing with so let's say you you got the National Junior titles coming up the biggest Tournament of the year your player all your players are going to start feeling anxious and they're going to start thinking about that event probably two or three weeks out that's where the preparation phase prior to the tournament is so important so if you prepared really well specific to the individual you've done a lot of match play scenarios youve played a lot of practice sets leading up tried to put some pressure on those practice sets whatever that is finding a way to make it pressure full so when they going to that tournament they've at least prepared well that they're hitting the ball well they've played specific to them that feeling like that takes pressure off for a start that's number one second thing I always thought is better is the next phase which always took pressure off me as a player trying to get your player tactically organized so they understand their gaml their game style they understand their winning plays they practice them they're tactically organized within their own game style but then you're trying to look at your opponent and give them a junior player one or two thing not too much one or two two things which they know okay this kid is weaker on his forehand side Under Pressure I want you to serve there I want you attack that player forehand if you do that consistently you're going to get some The Importance of Rest and Recovery mistakes it's going to give you a better chance of winning the match so people say what comes first coaches discuss what comes first is it the mental or the Tactical for me personally you can get the Tactical right first and organized in your head what you can do to that assists with the mental side of your game so the third step is getting the mental side of your game right so following a routine a mental routine having some key words that you need to say to yourself which is going to be different for all players key words and a key routine getting that and practicing that prior in your match play prior having those three things in place good preparation understanding your game style and being tactically clear and then having a mental routine despite doing all those three things players are going to choke they're going to get scrambled they're going to stuff it up uh so for me that fourth aspect is the thing you can't coach which is the player has to bring the rest of it yeah the coach can do those three things but the player is unfortunately going to have to bring the the rest of it they're going to have to be able to compose themselves they're going to have to be able to relax they're going to have to execute the shots there's only so much you can do as a coach and that is The X Factor that is the difference know being great or okay is that competitiveness and being able to bring that X Factor competitiveness to the match and being able to consistently win under pressure and that that's the big ex X Factor with the best players I've coached particularly with Nick um yes you can get those three things in place but he's bringing the final most important thing which is the execution of the shots and being able to do that under pressure and find a way to win in those big biggest biggest matches and biggest moments that's kind of the the system that I've followed um other coaches probably follow some might follow something different but uh those three steps and then just experience the other thing is experience you can't underestimate the development of mental toughness you're developing as a human offc court all those personal characteristics you're playing lots of matches every year you're building your self-confidence as a person and eventually that will translate into um success under under pressure in a competitive environment that's my um take on it another brilliant blueprint I love it I love it and in terms of after the matches you know what would you say to them when they're disappointed or yeah when how would you deliver that message and when would you say it yeah you got to approach individual every individual differently but I like to go through the match and I like to sit down with them and first first talk to them and ask them what they thought about the match always first let them tell me what they did well what they do badly try to get them to talk rather than me delivering everything this is what these are my 20 things he did wrong and 20 things he did right trying to get them to discuss and tell me because that's a good learning they learn more when that they have to either write it down or tell you what what they felt on Court and and then you know usually those things will match up with with the coach anyway and then just trying to go okay next match we're going to work on one or two things that you didn't do as well in this match and then the next match again assessing it again and going match after match after match just keep chipping away trying to improve those little things um and then over years and years and years and years you get better and better at those little things but but also uh trying to be consistent as a coach and give consistent messages to your players over many years I'll give you an example with Nick My Philosophy was always has always been as a coach you need to step up under pressure you need to play to win not play hope to Lo hope your opponent loses take calculated risks back your strengths Under Pressure back your aggressive game style and take the risk as soon as you get the opportunity take the aggressive risk risk so just delivering that message to Nick over 500 or so matches you hope that it pays off over time and I think it did with him like but he's was naturally wanted to play that way anyway but you never see Nick not take a calculated risk on a big Point you'll never see him sit back and go I'm just going to sit back and rally and keep the ball deep and hope the other player misses or he will always take the risk off early in the rally he will always go for the big shot or the back end down the line or the massive forehand or the Sur whatever he'll always be the one big second serve take the risk and try to take control of the point that's how my coaches taught me and that's how I've tried to coach my players so the consistency of your messages eventually will play will pay off over time I think that's really important to be consistent in your messages whether you player one or lost go maybe the they could could have won a match by just not taking risk and not playing aggressive but you just got to keep delivering those consistent messages oh you lost the match but I really like the way you stepped up under pressure you took the risk you didn't execute but you were dictating play that will pay off for you eventually even though you lost that match that's really important the consistency of what you're delivering to your players and that's certainly how you develop a great competitor over the long term and then you talk about having the need to play I think 80 to 90 matches a year but obviously with that consistency around how you compete and and following those steps yeah I I still think that's right like 80 to 100 matches singles and doubles included over the course of a year and that thing that that seems like a lot but uh that's probably only about 18 to 20 tournaments if you can play four to five matches a tournament so that's includes doubles as well and if you like I said on my planning phase you've got have those development blocks where you just skill development and then you got to have that preparation then you got to have those tournament blocks they should be able to have five or six tournament blocks and fit in that 80 to 100 matches like I said you learn so much about how to compete uh and mentally the mental and tactical side of the game you learn so much in the competitive phases got to have that it depends on the individual you don't want to play too much but I do also think you don't want to play too little either because you're not develop veloping that those competitive skills some players might be able to do that play less I still think it's a good guide 80 to 100 matches over a year every single year and how would you in terms of rest and recovery and weeks off how many weeks off do you think players should have throughout a year um I think your weeks off got to come after your competition because you're mentally and physically exhausted so if you've got five six comp competition blocks then you probably going to have four to five weeks off throughout the year maybe a bit maybe four to six weeks would would that probably some coaches would go that's too much got a volume but I just think those rest and Recovery phases are pretty important a long long long journey the tennis Journey long long journey just going week in week out every single week of your life it's just too much just you're not going to lose your ability you're not going to lose your Technique you're not going to lose your movement you're not going to lose the ability to strike a ball if you've got a seven we uh development phase you've got a two week preparation phase you've got a three-week tournament block done 12 weeks in a row you're not you have one week off you're not going to lose all your skills it's ridiculous of course you're not you're going to come back re-energized more motivated hopefully and really ready to get into the next hard training block awesome yeah I love it and yeah my my last question is I mean do you have any funny stories about Nick when he was that you can share I do have a lot but not that many that I can share so we say what goes on tour Pete stays on tour so I'm I'm Gonna Leave to that rule okay uh but there is one story I'm gonna tell this story because Nick told it on his podcast okay so he's given me a license to tell this story and it just it's it's interesting because it talks a bit about Nick's personality I was talking taking a trip with this group of players we went we're in Poland in Warsaw we we're there a week early to get over jet lag so I decided to do an amazing race you know what the Amazing Race is you run around a city we have this uh TV show in Australia you run around a city and you've got to it's like orienteering you've got to find certain landmarks you got to take photos or you've got to get something is written on somewhere and then you got to get back to home base and the first team who can do it so that's that's what it is anyway so I gave him this challenge I did the research went around Warsaw had to get to all these places going to take a couple of hours uh but I I didn't specify how you could get to places but I mean it was kind of an Unwritten rule that you were going to do it on foot right I I I kind of sold it as a as a fitness session everyone was going to run around and and then run back and so it was a of two hours of running and walking so Nick and and his mate who somehow I paired them up but the two naughty naugher kids of of my group uh Nick wasn't that super fit so he knew that if it was going to be a running race he wasn't going to win right so he came out with a way that he was going to get taxes everywhere so he he he got out his uh he went and got some cash this is 15 years ago what 12 years ago he went got some cash he him and his mate they got taxes between Nick Kyrgios' Competitive Nature and Ability to Find a Way to Win every Landmark where everyone else was on foot and they won the race and they got back to me clearly they didn't tell me that they did it that they didn't made sure they they they got home just ahead of the other group so I didn't they didn't get home an hour before which they could have they got home just before the other group but they made sure they won uh and Nick super high competitive person this is a good example of him going I can't win this race I'm not fit enough I'm not quick enough so I'm gonna find I'm gonna find but I'm gonna find a way to win it highly competitive want to beat these other the other boys at anything he does he wants to win so that's just really interesting that he he found a away so so many times of his journey when I've watched him play matches through Juniors particularly not as quick not as fit as his opponent but finds a way to win finds somehow finds a way to win to tactically and mentally to overcome his opponent and and get that win and that's um just yeah one story I can tell out of many that I can't yeah no that's awesome yeah and then I I guess as you say finding a way to win when he wasn't as fit and strong then he started to grow ended up being 6'4 65 the the huge serve and the athleticism came and he's certainly quick around the court now that's right absolutely he's a really good athlete great anticipation as well do all these things yeah so yeah yeah Interest really interesting well Todd thanks a lot for your time mate it's it's been amazing I've learned so much and yeah people can find your content on Coach Life along with all those other amazing coaches hopefully we can do this again in a few months so much more to talk about mate thanks so much for having me in great to chat cheers mate [Music]