Brad Gilbert Exclusive Interview in D.C.

hey everyone live in DC here from the tennis one app at the city open and we have with us the one and only Brad Gilbert commentator coach of Coco golf author of winning ugly and much more hey Brad um you know nice to see you here um you know what brings you here to the city open first of all nice to see you um this is my second year working with the tournament um I do clinics every morning um usually in the afternoon based upon player availability I do a little tennis talk little Q&A with you know like a 15-minute interview today it's at 3:45 with Caroline doleh high and maybe between 5 and 7 I take a lot of the players in in the Suites um The mubadala Suite the city Suite the Washington event Suites and I do a little you know Q&A with them awesome that's that's great stuff and uh you know what are your memories here of playing in DC you've had a lot of success here you've been to two finals unfortunately not on the winner side in both of them but um you know you you've still had a lot of success here well the first time I came here in 1982 the tournament was on clay and we didn't have any buildings we only had trailers so the tournaments come a long ways um and I think I I lost twice in the final maybe at least another couple more times in the semi but my bitterest memory you know it's funny as you get older you forget wins and you remember losses and I just looked up the other day and I saw the 89 title Tim mayot and that's the one that I like like I'm kicking myself that I didn't win I was up a set we had a a long rain delay then we went back at on court played two games it was like 63 one all another 4-Hour rain delay pushed over to a Monday final and then I ended up losing I think 75 in the third so I see May's name up there I'm thinking damn I should have won that title that year nice I love that um you know so obviously you have Coco gol you know at the Olympics right now and you know you know she was the flag bearer number two seed and she's done so well for for herself and do you have like sort of any advice that you you gave her maybe going in cuz you yourself are a you know bronze medalist at the 1988 Olympics just how to how to manage all that whole experience well you know unfortunately it didn't go the way you know she had planned or I had planned for her but you know sometimes life you know you have a little adversity and that's what builds strength and character um it'll only make her push harder for uh 2028 in Los Angeles cuz you know what when something's happen you can't change it you know it's like me wanting to change the 89 you can't change it so the only thing is that that potentially in 2028 she could change that result and have a much better result so what's the challenge now uh you know looking to the North American hardcore swing you know where she had such a great summer last year one all those Tournaments has a lot of points to defend anything you know you're going to kind of be telling her to keep her spirits High you you know what when you play you can't think think about what's coming off you can only think about what's in front of you and the most important match that you're playing is the next match um she loves to play on hard cours she likes it especially if the weather is warm um and it's very good conditions from her so hopefully you know we'll just start out you know in Toronto and you know win the first match there nice one step at a time right 100% you put the left foot in front of the right foot yeah um so so do I have it right that um Co also got some serving advice from Andy Ric how did she did in uh November we went at the end of November to to visit Andy um he helped to to simplify and abbreviate the motion just a little bit but you know the most important thing for all Young tennis players is to constantly be thinking and tinkering with your game to get better cuz you basically are competing against yourself to get better everybody says I want to be ranked here win this tournament but you need to make Improv and especially at a young age is most important awesome and um you know what have you made of sort of Koco's year so far and do you really think like you know the the forehand is sort of the main issue or is it is it is it something else because you know if you find like opponents you know constantly you know hammering her forehand side is that something that you're you're focusing on changing or are you kind of focusing more on her strengths cuz she has a lot of great strengths I mean she's been a little bit unlucky lost a couple of close matches in a few semis this year um and and you know what as a tennis player as a coach you know the year is still going there's still a lot more to play for um and you know the most important event is thinking about next week is Toronto following Cincinnati and then the US Open so it's a good time for Coco um and there's still plenty of time for her to do some good things this year awesome and then when you're when you're focusing on coaching her do you focus mostly on on her great strengths like her speed and her footwork and her backand or do you kind of focus on trying to trying to get better at the other stuff um well you know a lot of times you know I focus on her opponent you know what she needs to do for that specific day against that specific opponent you're always trying to work on your game whether or not it's your serve your forehand you know but why the year is going you can't make major changes if you try to make major changes when you don't have any significant time off you you know it's it's a challenging time to be able to do that yeah it's so tough in a sport like this you know 47 weeks of the year so totally I mean you're and normally when you have a little bit of off time that's when you can make some big changes but you are constantly trying to work on things to improve them right now and and you know i' I've noticed on Twitter you have a lot of these really fancy nicknames for players you know how do you come up with with with those and what are some of your favorites um you know what it's funny is i' um you know some names are a lot easier to work with and you know sometimes they just come to me um sometimes they don't you know I don't have some St staff and then a lot of people throw out you know their nicknames that they like or I'll say no that's too long I don't like it so I just you know what people forget sometimes that Twitter it's to have fun with awesome yeah um and I want to know of course since Andy Murray is just you know retired and he's he's said goodbye and he's had you know all these years with the metal hip and he's put in so much hard work you know in amongst the three greatest players of this of this Century you know what are some of your favorite moments with with Andy cuz you coached him in those what's your favorite like Andy morray story well we started together here in ' 06 in Washington he got to the final um you know what Andy left no stone unturned and he gave it his all and you know he's a he's a crazy competitor a lot of times like when I was coaching if you tell him something he's always kind of like how did you come to that why do you think that what is your research and I'm like well it just came to my head uh but you you know he challenged you every day uh I think uh one of the craziest memories it was literally here the first tournament in Washington literally he started yelling at me and I turned around I thought he was yelling at somebody else and then literally he was yelling at me so that was my first you know finding out okay he could give you a little bit of business in the Box um and maybe my favorite Andy Murray story was in 2006 after the US Open I took him to train with Michael Johnson um and Michael took him to the track and he goes okay we're going to run eight 200s today and in between each 200 you're going to walk the distance and and then he goes let me see if you can get eight under 32 seconds and then he told Michael he says I'm going to get eight under 30 seconds and I was like okay and then I asked Michael what are the chances of of him being able to do that he's got no spikes he's got tennis shoes on no chance so literally he does eight all under 30 seconds and then he bent over and he got he lost his cookies but it was an unbelievable effort and then Michael told him see now you know what your breaking point was it was a great experience seeing him but he didn't think there was any chance that he could break eight and under 32 and he did the 8 under 30 that's the ultimate dog yeah totally predor yeah I love that so does he ever give you like a hard time now when you guys text like back and forth and you you know what's funny is a year ago he was asking me on um text you he was trying all these different rackets and tension and I said go looser because he felt like you know okay if you go looser maybe you get more popular no my data tells me that if I go tighter I'll get no go looser but he's kind of like if you say red he's says black you say black he says red but he likes to bounce off his idea that he already has the answer and I was like okay as far as I know if you go your strings looser you'll be able to serve bigger but he says no but but with tighter I can make you know this contact and I can go harder okay why'd you ask me I love that um so you know looking looking ahead for the rest of this tournament we're at the quarterfinal stage give me some predictions you know who are you who are you liking on the women's side you got savena as the number one seed you got ranu Bosa has a rank of playing tonight uh well ranu has had a breakout tournament here it's a great opportunity if she wins today uh it's to play dohy who's had her best term of the year um obviously zabal Lena on form is the favorite coming in uh she plays Azarenka tonight that should be an interesting match obviously two country people and would love to see Francis be able to get a win and make his first semi-final and if he does I got a feeling we're going to have four Americans in the semis Michelson Corda um Shelton and TIAA that's what I want to see you're calling TFA to beat R I'm calling the upset you know upset alert tonight awesome love that uh yeah I mean so so looking ahead also for the rest of the year or 2025 you have like one really bold prediction you know um or just something that you think is for sure going to happen well you know you know what I would love to see happen a couple things one that I know in 2025 we're going to go to electronic line calling on everything but not yet at the French and wiland I would like to see them do it I would also like to see electronic line uh electronic for incidentals that maybe happen once or twice a match and I do think I'm starting to believe that like you know what to too many rule changes if I could make you throw the ball toss up you got got to play it no catching your Ball Toss if you do it's a fault and second it's time to do away with the lets awesome I love that and then in the tennis calendar you know is there something that you would you would like to see change or do you you think you know we have the offseason is too short anything like that jeez I that that's a little harder to figure out because you know it's easy to say I would do this and do that but then it's about eliminating tournaments about eliminating weeks um you know I don't have a perfect answer for for you on that but I do think the men's and women's season should end at the same time the women's ends much earlier you know but the men you know end a bit later you know that's you know like I said it's difficult to chop out people's WIS awesome and um you know obviously as the author of winning ugly I've read that book amazing book you know a lot of great tips that helped me so much in my game what is one thing that you would what's one advice that you would give to Juniors on how to win on a maybe an average SL bad day most important thing about becoming a good player is figuring out how to win when you're average Nothing Else Matters more than that if you can learn when you're average that's when you can become a much better player everybody wins when they're playing good and you got to learn to win when you're average all right I got to go do autographs now nice to see you thank you buddy pick your feet up all right yep and's calling me serious