Jeff Coetzee Interview: Developing Belief, Overcoming Losses, Serve Drill, & the AO Run

0:00Welcome to the doubles only tennis podcast where you learn the best doubles lessons to improve your game and win more matches while getting to know some of the top doubles players and coaches on the planet. I'm your host Will Bochuk. This podcast, my weekly strategy newsletter and my website all focus on the goal of better understanding the sport of doubles and helping players like you improve faster through actionable advice that you can use in your very next match. My goal is to provide the best doubles resources in the world and to do that I study, analyze and work with players at every level of the game all the way up to the ATP and WTA tours. If you enjoy this podcast consider becoming a tennis tribe member to go even deeper and take your doubles IQ to the next level. Members get access to premium podcast episodes, weekly video lessons, monthly

1:01strategy webinars, courses, ebooks, gear discounts and a lot more. Go to the tennis tribe.com slash memberships to see all the benefits and sign up. Here's today's episode. Hey everybody welcome back to the show. It's been a while since I've released an episode. I was in Austin, Texas for the ATX open a couple of weeks ago, coaching Catherine Harrison and Delina Hewitt and then from there I was home for a day or two and then I went out to Indian Wells California where I hosted the rally trip with 18 club level players. We played doubles every morning. We went to the tennis tournament at night, had a doubles camp after that and then spent some time with some pro players and coaches after that, conducting some interviews and having meetings about doubles. So I'm sorry for the delay, but over the next couple of episodes you're going to hear some of those conversations from Indian Wells, including this one with Jeff Coatsy.

2:04If you remember Jeff, he was one of the original episodes on the podcast. I believe he was maybe the fourth or fifth episode back when he coached Robert Farah and one Sebastian Cabal who were the Colombian duo who reached number one in the world and won a couple of grand slam titles. And now today he coaches Anna Danelina and Alexandra Cronich and they are the top team in the world so far this year. They made the Australian open final. They won in Doha recently and at the time of me recording this intro, they're still in the Indian Wells masters. We discussed what's worked so well this year for Anna and Alex early in the season. How Anna has developed belief that she belongs at the top of the game. Jeff talked a lot about belief in this conversation and

3:05it's kind of an intangible thing that I have skirted around I think over the years but Jeff does a really good job in this conversation of kind of defining belief and talking about how he's helped Anna believe in herself and believe that she does belong near the top of the women's game. We also discussed how they strategize against singles players who are stronger from the baseline. We talked specifically about their first round matchup which happened the day before our conversation. We talked about how to deal with multiple losses in finals. They had a stretch where they lost in the finals of several tournaments in a row and what it took to finally get over that hump. I also asked Jeff why he likes his team to take more risk when they have a lead. He talks about serve drills that simulate in match pressure. I really liked those drills a lot so you can steal those and use them for your own game and then of course at the end we talked

4:07about what the tours can do to help promote doubles. I think you're going to really enjoy this one. I'm going to have several more coach as well as one player interview coming up over the next couple of weeks so keep an eye out for those as well but without further delay enjoy this conversation with coach Jeff Coatsy. Hey everyone, welcome to the show. Today I'm at Indian Wells with coach Jeff Coatsy. You've nubbed it on in a while, Jeff. You're actually one of the first podcasts that I had. I think one of the first five episodes and we haven't chatted since. It's awesome to have you back. Yeah, thanks for having me. So you're here coaching Anadena Lina and her partner Crunich, who made the Australian Open Finals one in Dubai. Doha, I always get those two mixed up. One in Doha and are currently number one in the race. What has worked so well early on in the season?

5:09I think you know last year when the girls first played together obviously started the French that they made finals there and then they had other commitments for the grass and then started playing again and they just missed it out at the top eight and a big nine. So there was a lot of different things they needed to sort out as well and once they made that commitment to play and I was basically just telling them look, the game that I really want you guys to play, it needs to be a game that you need to do extra and you need to be willing to do a lot of different things extra in terms of if it's Alex is obviously very talented but maybe the net game needs a little bit more improvement because I feel like if Anadena is on top of a game serving well it's okay but as you know you're not going through matches where every match you're going to serve well. So the next thing would be so what does the net, the person at the net, the service

6:09partner. So that's more the focus that we worked a lot on to be able to or Alex to get better as a service partner because Anadena has always seemed like Alex is holding us serve a lot more because Anadena does so much more now being her. So once you're going to get that through and then just be a group more I think the success really comes from a little bit more aggressive top of mindset and more aggressive tennis instead of just okay let's make the return we see what happens. So I'm like okay option one option two option three which one are you going to go with you either have to really be aggressive on the returns that's the net person poachers or you have one shot makes you know like different things but it's just I think it's just a switch in the mindset of being we just can't just make returns it's not good enough we need to be a little bit more aggressive and when you do that then the serve part because I always put it like you have 20% 25% your side

7:10crunic has 25% so that's 50% you hold sir 25% 25% when you have to put it in those percentage so we can find a way that we can hold serve our 50% only we need only need one break or two breaks here but now we need to work on the return part the return you know in a part now what what do they do so it's big it's just more the way they've been playing was just like okay let's see how we do and it would like to just get the ball and we rarely I'm not let's try now because they're getting you you're losing matches here and there this is what the the teams are doing to you so we can make that improvements so basically what we've done is to make the gap smaller on our weaker side and it's obviously been working a lot more okay so that's more but I mean I think it's more the aggressive type of tennis where I feel like there's so much potential from both of them each complement each other's games so well but and and the mere fact that they trust me and and buy into what I wanted to do obviously helps a lot and you've been working

8:15with Anna for several years now since what one was I started with I think Madrid was the first tournament so this will be the third year third year with her and then before that you had Cobal and Barat yeah for yeah so a lot of it seems like I guess this is true of a lot of doubles coaches maybe they'll stick with the player for a long time do you feel like that is helpful in terms of like development and you can think more long-term or how do you how do you think well it definitely helps because if you stay with somebody and depending on when you start with somebody when I started with Anna her headspace was just completely different you know never I've never I just think like she did not believe that she could be she's that's the top 10 before and as you went out and I was just trying to I said will you to be able to be consistent this is what you need to do in yourself this is the return this is I kind of put everything

9:17in perspective to her I said there's going to be matches that you're not going to serve as well so then you need to do something else better to make up for it if you don't do this well than something else the days you play us at well everything works that's okay but how many times a year is that yeah so so there's going to be a lot of the times where you might have to get through that matches by taking more risks on on coaches by maybe taking going for returns more or doing this more but in order for us to be able to do that we need to train these things over again but the most important thing stays the main thing will always be the main thing you start the point with the serve and then if if you return you know reacting you're not proactive so how do we get that into play so if you start making more of those returns into play because you know what's coming we know your weakness and if we can sort of work on then I said you got to trust me because this is exactly what I did was Robert and Gabbal I said we need to do this and it cost us 20 minutes and whether it's seven in the morning whether it's late I need for you to understand that we need to

10:20work it's it doesn't that we can do it a few times but you'll have yourself but if you want consistency this is what you need I need to serve for you 10 15 20 minutes a day that Pacific spot every day and you'll have the results and I think more so I think a course of over the last two years is really trusted what I'm trying for to to be able to achieve but also I think more so believe yeah I think that's probably the biggest part for me with her because I don't think she was when you tell her like this is what I see just like she's not believing in herself I'm like kind of this is honestly what I'm seeing yeah I'm not I said to you first of all I'm not doing this for any money yeah otherwise I can go find somebody else I believe that you can be where you are because I know you like working hard which is already a plus yeah you know you like to do extra things you like I said once we saw that out I said I will take a player any day that's not as talented and but wants to work hard and supposed to be a player that's not as was very talented in

11:26like this you know you never know so I like that obviously when you get a talented player and you were willing to work hard I mean you know then you you find somebody phenomenal how much of that belief and this is this is a topic that I've like I guess you kind of danced around for a long time because it's so intangible and I'm a big analytics and math guys and I like I like things that I can prove yeah and like you say she didn't believe in herself like we can't prove that it's not to say it's not important it's obviously super important but when you go to a player and they don't believe in themselves how much of that change if let's say two three four years later they do believe in themselves comes from just putting in those reps like you're talking about like I'm going to serve to this spot every day for 20 minutes and over time oh I made the forehand in the spot again and again and then that belief develops versus like some other kind of

12:26mental I don't know how do you think about that well it can pose down to a lot of personality as well you know because some people will have it because that's just that person actually believe their nature is like boom and it goes quickly with her on the other end a little bit different so I had to like literally tell Anna you honestly need to believe in yourself let's know in my favorite saying always doesn't matter who I work with as I can I take you to the water I cannot make the drink I can take you that far but ultimately from all my experience and knowledge this is what I can do for you but you the one that needs to step up and deliver so if you don't but you have to believe what we're trying to do so if we know what you're trying to do and then it just becomes there's going to be days for sure that you're not feeling well maybe you you can't make every single turn but you also you could credit if somebody serves and beat you with a good serve but when you must it's more like are you missing because of this or you actually because for her the other thing is like if I tell her wow good return because yeah but it's out so she always sees the

13:29negative completely different I said but that's such a good hit I said Anna you cannot make every single return even if you hit everything you do everything right you're gonna have to accept that you're gonna miss it's just like when I'm trying for it to poach more or do some I said you're gonna get beaten up the line you can't let me maybe I should know but I said well how are you gonna get better if you're not gonna get beaten up the line for you to be able to really cross and do stuff you're gonna have to accept that what is my number today am I gonna get beaten five times 10 times 15 times it means you're doing a lot but the majority of the times now it becomes when do you go what and how many points are you winning versus losing now if you go if you go 10 times and you win seven why are you stopping if you go five five and you're gonna say hey is the glass half empty or half full like the doggy and you know you're gonna just and sometimes it's I said it's crossing or poaching it's not it's more timing you need to have the timing of the return of the shot that's where sometimes you get burnt up the line because I said the move was perfect

14:34the intent it was good but your timing was just a little bit off so you constantly have to provide some positivity and everything but yeah I mean it's it's something that you with her especially you do the reps over and over again it works out but it also it's a personality yeah that takes a little bit longer with a player for example yeah you know I've had was with I worked with Kabbal and Farah Rob needed more time where Kabbal needed boom boom boom I'm feeling it I'm good but you know it's so it's also it's also the type of question doubles the type of player you work with the personality and then that's where the difference then you have to understand like I always say you have to understand the person before you really can understand the player yeah so I'm trying to and she watches she she's not a person that opens up a lot yeah so like took time over time yes trust is learned yeah I've heard it many times before so once I got that trust now I feel like and that's your first question is like why are we doing well I think it's more and more trust

15:37that now she is opening up to a lot more ways it takes time to let somebody in sometimes you know it's like mmm but if I do this I said look your perspective in mind maybe do it but try this try you just find no problem you can do your way but I just I just want you to try this and see what happens now when they start seeing okay and I'm like you cross once I said what I said there's no rule it says you can't cross twice in a row why wouldn't you do it I said I haven't seen that rule yeah so you tell me where's the I said why don't you do it I said big moments I said I'm on day we surf at the set you went five four five three you cross first point and then you guys stop like why I said your your your thing is look at the scoreboard for example what happened in you know straightaway lost the server five three serving for the we were first down a break in the third and then I said to look girls you need to put apply more pressure this is every seconds of look to come in and suddenly it worked we go back and then we we kind of serve to the match first point boom cross okay and I'm like what happened said five three you cross the first

16:41point and now we stop and then they looked at me luckily they were the admise and they looked at me I said girls look at the scoreboard we are still up five four do a final we had like a couple of juice points we lost six left five two down for example I said don't worry about that I said it's fine a way to make them serve for it so five four we had 30 40 five three I'm actually the good return seconds of just art and an Alex played a very good juice point championship point for them I'm looking at there how's the pinkers body language going to the team and I'm thinking myself wow we are set in five four down and the body language is like completely different and I would tell my players exactly what I told the ministry look at the scoreboard we are still up five four so when they came my side I should like let's just make a play do this play she doesn't make a hit the return up the line she must almost every return there and then I'm like you know what we need we we have this but it's just ironic how you can think when you just serve for

17:42the match and then suddenly five four like but look at the scoreboard I mean I would if you if you had told me this before the match Jeff we're gonna be five four up and we're returning to maybe win the match I would take the take it any day never said so I want to talk about the match today so they played two singles players or primarily singles players Sloan Stevens and done a package obviously that's a different style of team right and one of the things I noticed and you just talked about crossing and trying to kind of keep I guess a mental tally of you know I crossed ten times and one seven I crossed ten times I won five early on they were crossing really effectively I noticed and then a package specifically started going line and then I saw Anna starts to kind of do the shimming at the net and kind of stay line and then she hit a few balls through the middle so it's kind of like a chess match talk about how you handled that

18:44before the match knowing that these singles players are so good from the back and then throughout the matches that's something you're picking up on or you've trained them to pick up on well it's something you you basically do before you play I've always done that myself when I played I'm like you know what first of all they're hitting way more many more ground strokes than me anyway this is what they play ground stroke I know you are better than me with ground strokes but I can handle two three four if I have to with you but long term yeah I give you that yeah but this is what I'm gonna do to you I'm gonna play my game first because right now you on a court where there's four people so it's it's my it's my type of game so this is I'm gonna play if you're gonna beat me you're gonna beat me doing this so it becomes that chest that you want to do so again like I said it's like what type of game plan do you want to play do you want to return and cross do you want to hit one shot on cross you want to do this on cross do you want to you know like it becomes that when do you bring it in and like you said sometimes you you throw out that type of

19:45message first and now it becomes like okay is she going or not so now you've sent the message send the message even if it's it's on sir for all but in big moments where it comes down to is are they gonna go or not and that this is where the chest becomes am I am I willing to go on this moment knowing that I've done that before is the the player at the back there or the singles player or are they gonna take the chance and go and that's where I said the timing becomes the crossing becomes it's all about timing so you've got a time to return first you can't just say I come on across by the sake of crossing you know that's where it's it becomes so important so yeah you have this type of game style we always try and feel like whenever we play a lot of the singles play this is I know what's coming from them and this is what we need to do we do our thing because we are better in that regard but they are definitely gonna good returns good first second shot but we need to change that narrative then to maybe go up the line a little bit more of the returns

20:45maybe if we go cross go to cross the first one or maybe do this try and change it or if we can if we have good return and we don't cross the first one then do we go line then do we love or something we need to constantly change because you're never gonna beat a lot of the singles plays rally rally rally oh who's crossing rally rally especially in the girls it's because they are just doing more tennis in that regard anyway they're playing singles I do a lot of grassroots they're playing double so you're never gonna catch up anyway so what you can say to yourself is like I'm good enough to hang with a return good returns I'm good enough to hit a first shot when it's a good return majority of the time you get sort of a relatively short ball but then what do I do with it I need to be having aggressive mindset and then maybe cross so it's always like that sort of mindset that I'm trying to teach them and we come back to again to what type of tennis I want them to play to be a little bit more aggressive to hit and come in but in order for you to be able to do that you need to do something else because most of the ballies with you

21:48hit and come in you're gonna hit below net anyway so we always start when we started the net volume the person has to be behind the service line in the beginning even honest like why we're doing this I'm like this is the reason why I said how many times you're hitting ballies on top of the net if you're hitting ground strokes the ball is short where you're gonna hit that ball in the first volume you're gonna hit it more likely below the net in the block you're not gonna hit it up there so again you need to buy into it where like start every day when you do 10 ballies from the service line a little bit back by just doing 70% one two three feeling 10 I mean you warming up how many times so they're following with each other from behind the service no one would hit the ground stroke oh ground stroke yeah it's normal ballies but as you see a lot of even like a lot of symbols plays you watch you'll see how they volley they'll come and they in the middle of the on the service block yeah but how many times you get ballies from there anyway unless you approach and you get an easy one but I'm talking about when you play all these unbelievable plays alcoras and you hit an approach right how often are you really gonna

22:51get a passage without a ballie like this yeah you're gonna have to hit a ballie below the net mm-hmm and that's why I try and teach them to start and learn how to volley from behind the service line so when you do get these difficult ballies you you've done literally 10 every single day or every warm-up you've done so in a course of three months I mean you can add hum probably volley you've done so yeah it just it just it just becomes to change the mindset because when I saw Alex doing that coming from obviously a very good singles career and unbelievable how talented what you see the game I was just trying to say like look sometimes the shot selection that you hit is unbelievable no problem but sometimes for me that wins a lot of matches is how well you do the basics you can't go wrong with the basics yeah if you just stick to the basics and you do those things and you almost master the basics really well you don't have to play well but if you stick to those little things you can't you can't you can't you can't go wrong with that

23:52yeah you might not win every match but you can win the majority of the matches right but what what is the post match look like for you after a win like today what's the exact kind of routine I imagine they they're busy there's no basically they're the first time we'll go we'll talk about the match afterwards and say look this is where I feel like well done first of I like to start a lot with positives first and then obviously regardless of winner loss yes we know loss to give because the players don't always want to hear the criticize and some people don't take it well so diversity depends like on a for example we'd like to hear right away Alex is a little bit different she would like to do a little bit later where is what the guys are used to work with they like to do it also right away they talk about it you know and sometimes I'll go like okay your thoughts first start with the positive sometimes it just depends like this is where it comes down to how well do you know your players the person first and you better look at some different matches so I feel like and even like to be honest well I keep learning from players I keep

24:57learning what I'm doing that's what I love doing or this job because I keep learning like even like little things even my daughter that plays tennis at 13 I learned from her because I know how emotional that age and stuff is and when we talk about so we even have a thing that I don't talk unless she comes to me first boom and then later on I even get them to go into the pool and stuff recovery and this and then she'll go okay daddy you tell me your version yeah and same thing so I try and learn from that I try and learn from these players like when is the right time but yes it would be talk about the match a little bit more okay now they're on the bike and now okay and then you obviously knowing that you playing this time they would have had maybe a slot already there's nowadays you can do it on the phone with the forzae of what time it's available they have slots not like back in the day when we used to play it's like you go in and it's like all right now you wait to see who's available now you can actually have a schedule and playing this time so I'll do my forzae at six or something then you could have that so they'll do the recovery and everything tomorrow we have a day off and then we focus on the next opponent

26:00who we playing and then I'll I'll go look on on on video analyze tonight to see where and what and then I'll come up with a game plan during practice and then it just depends how well we execute that game plan again those are things you can only control but you can do but you can't control if the opponents because they do they'll do the same thing it's just a matter of who executes it better sure what so you mentioned you're you're still learning a lot a how do you what is your process for continuing to develop yourself as a coach how do you continue to grow and then if you can share maybe an example of a mistake you've made over the last year as a coach and what you've learned from that I think I think the main thing is sometimes as a coach we also just need to take it in and listen first and not be so judgmental as like because I'm also like a perfectionist like this yet but you make mistakes but you gotta do this

27:01in this and over and again but also like again to be honest the last two years I've actually learned a lot more just because my daughter started to play a little bit more tennis even from her at that age but and then trying to bring it on to the pro level and say just listen sometimes like I don't want to talk I don't do because I needed to be not the coach also because I'm on the court and then when I'm in the car I'm like okay so your father's asking you how was your lesson so I just had the lesson with her so I'm like okay I can see where this is going with the face so I'm like driving and I can see it's like oh so Daddy just wants to know how was the lesson or how was it how was the coach today so is this something you actually do with her you right now I'm in yeah so nice right now I'm in good I basically literally tell her gaps look I'm taking my head off and then okay and then just depends like so good in the mood so yeah but I I feel like I can always learn from the players and the toughest thing is sort of

28:06timing when to have their conversation like I said sometimes because the girls are a little bit more emotional so one player likes to have it right away other player not so then we have to say okay I'll talk to her and then maybe later to her so yeah and yeah so I keep learning that I sometimes I need to to to not say a certain thing maybe the timing on the court even sometimes you just have to give that positivity and everything and trying and when they do ask you because look right now yeah we are allowed to coach but you also you've got to be you know be you don't want to say too much but you also just want to say something short and precise to the point and in constantly having them because I go back because I watch the match a lot to the semi-final and of the Aussie and I was just like you know what look at the scoreboard we just serve for it and so what we do here and probably probably one of the best four points we broke to love

29:07like there and it just shows you that if you stay stay in the moment and I'm not saying if they were the other side of me it just so happened that they came this side I would have then maybe scream it's like what we do here you know stay in the moment as well as try and tell them so yeah I mean I look well I'm gonna keep making mistakes as depending on the players you work with but I want to keep learning I feel like I'm I want to be that coach if you tell me something or that coach I can learn so much more from and that's why I say to the coaches at home as well I just don't know how you can coach a six seven-year-old I take my head off for you I can I have so much respect for those coaches that I'm like man I can learn from it because all I'm seeing is that little kid is having fun and that's all that matters for me yeah so there again I can learn something yeah um last question so uh you're lost in the Australian event final and there was a stretch of tournaments where um over the last year so where there was some finals losses right

30:12and then in Doha you get over that hump what what did you tell them after Australia and how do you kind of learn from those losses like while you're in it and then be after Doha what do you think I guess it turned that match around especially being down so big yeah um and I guess how uh did that feel afterwards finally can I get through that I think starting with Australia you know uh we knew we had to add a good start which we did we were three love up uh double break then we lost surf and then we played a very good point to Alex at 34 like I remember correct and we broke now the difference where I'm trying to get them to understand is when you guys are up like this I would like for them to take a little bit more risk this is the next phase where I feel like we can improve a lot more so when we are we starting to play a little bit sometimes

31:14safe best of all because I'm trying to say yes basically that's big that's been happening so uh and and what I'm trying to tell them when we surf okay we have option A or option B it's already getting better but again it's time I said this is what I want you to do the first two points so do this strategy do this one and see what happens and then we take it from there so those already as work but when it comes to grand slam finals I'm lucky enough that I've been in a few that I understand that's where the person at the belief comes in a little bit more you know anybody if you do that for a reason so there's there's only going to be one team one person at every single tournament that's going to lift the trophy that's going to be unbeaten that's the thing with the 64 drawing dollars 128 there's going to be one person that's never going to lose that whole week yeah so it can only be one so when you get to that stage you've got to be able to trust the honesty felt like we could have won that first set at least and give ourselves a chance now you halfway there same thing last year when they played they didn't have

32:18that extra belief and once they won the set against Irani Paulini then the third set we went through three games where it was closed we had chances and then they kind of ran with it so I said to them just we got to learn from these mistakes we got to watch the videos we got to see the body language we're going to do this and we need to do that my job is I can be but I'll just show you specific things and so when we got to the next final it because this was their second one thousand last year in Wuhan they lost in the finals and unless one a few so it was Alexis first time into the finals and again you know it was six left five two but we also lost forty thirties and thirty-fourty points of four dudes but this system is a little different for it yeah and I feel like now that we've won that thousand you know that's a little bit the monkey sort of off the back and I just want him to be leave a little bit more in that regard that when you get to the finals it's it's it's it's wouldn't say it's just a normal cliche it's just another match yes it's just another match but it's also not another match you playing for

33:20the title for the championship but again what I'm trying to tell them is like what are you doing in that particular moment that is the only moment that matters but if you start thinking about oh I had of yourself that you're gonna get caught up so the best thing when you play these these tournaments the bigger and I said to the players like you know you don't need to win every single slam of course you want to the thousands but if you can do well enough in every time you get to that stage because it's not guaranteed you're gonna get to every single final in four slams you're gonna get to everything of thousand but when you do get there all I want you to do is give yourself the best possible chance and again what is the best possible chance you're giving yourself what can you control you can control how you go to bed the night before you you can control your your when you wake up you can control what you think about how you going into the match and when you believe in those things so all those things comes down to

34:21to the difference so when you upper set and something say four two three enough playing not to lose what do you play to win for me I've seen too many things that when you dehyze in the situation you play not to lose it doesn't work and I've showed them before I said this is not good it's it doesn't work for us you know so why don't we just try and do the alternative and once they got to that five all stages in the second set you could still the whole difference even at five four because I was just telling you the body language is bad come on we can do this girl and you could see there was a big change in the body language it started believing a little bit more and that's probably one of the reasons they probably won that because they believed a little bit more okay in hindsight they were like and I said this is the time to get on top of it because they were like what just happened here you know we can't believe we in the situation yeah so yeah I mean we leave plays such a big part and and hopefully that will continue when they ink these thousands or brands then finals and

35:24I mean I guess it doesn't happen very often so when it does happen we need to take advantage of that yeah one quick follow-up on you said with the lead I'd like to take more risk what type of risk are you talking about are you talking about like moving at the near tree talking well the way I try and teach them and when we when we do certain things in practice I'd like to practice serve with a lot of pressure I just don't like buckets and buckets are you telling me you you serve for an hour no I would like to say okay we're gonna do seven serves in a row that particular spot I'll make the spot if you don't make it seven a row guess what we start again that's it we're not gonna do anything else until we get seven a row and I've never had a player not making that if it means the the whole hour is based on this one particular spot you haven't gone and so be it so then by six you've got to make the seventh one in a row otherwise you start to that pressure so if you

36:25don't make it who wants to start and make a seven again I like that so so so when I get to six I'm like okay so six is basically there's the match point is there's a forty thirty point then so what are you gonna do are you gonna play safe because you don't want to not serve again or you're gonna go for it because if you can't do it in practice how on earth are you gonna serve for the match for grandstand you can't do that so you need to be able to do that so the risk and then when I said so then when we practice like this I said it is not a risk because we practice it like I want you to go more for second serves it's not a risk because we practice because I don't I don't do your second serve okay serve if you serve body you know when you serve body I put them the the target sort of like this far from the from the the middle the line so you have to have in that spot if you don't make it guess what you start again so I'm trying to teach them to to sort of serve under pressure return under pressure if I make this because every time when I serve them like La 40 we are break up La 40 we 30 40 it's a dues point what are you gonna do so

37:27constantly all those things I try to do and that's what I'm saying when you are it's not a risk it only becomes a risk when you don't practice these things yeah so when you take a risk and you practice all that and it's normal that's really okay for you that's that's what I'm trying to teach them a little bit more and it's how we starting to practice more so it's the same thing like I've done with all my players it's just a matter of who is willing to constantly buy in and look at the more they do it and it becomes a little bit easier in that sense yeah I like that a lot um so I said last question I like this is the last question um what have you seen over the last several years since it's been a while since we've chatted um and what would you like to see in terms of the the tours helping doubles helping it become more popular helping it maybe get televised promoting it more um I think well it's it's a very unique game I think a lot of players goes through whether they play maybe singles and then become doubles and you can see a lot of now

38:29that they play until like 39-40 I mean it's a beautiful game first of all we we have a lot of competition with Dale or Pedro I've a unit saved with pickle and stuff so I feel like if you can stay in the game for as long as you can and why not you know for example for me yes I'm primary a doubles coach but I mean I called singles at home and stuff I do all sorts of things but it's given me the sense of to be able to work with players this unbelievable athletes and I think there is definitely a market art for it which depends on how they promote it look I always feel like whether there's a world as a way that's me you know so if you really want to make it work you can make it work but it comes down to not just us it comes down to a lot of the top singles players are well when they talk about it and people ask them about doubles and they say no I love the game you know I think it's just because yeah it's a different market like sometimes when I say yeah but we don't get enough code spread okay so what do we do then let's let's not blame

39:29let's find solutions so the solution is to the doubles players then start like for them the men starts here on Sunday I wish we started on Sunday because I could have been home a little bit longer so there's always ways because then a lot of people will either do go to to Phoenix or the money can republic for the 175 and then off to Miami so there's always ways of how to improve things how what do you want so the near thing is like if we can all work together a WTA ATP single stables and you don't have to differentiate about this and that the net because it's one it's it's one it's one sport it's a product so like any business so you have a product there this is like the CEOs and this part of your business is doing well this one is also how can we do this part getting better but there's is a market for it I mean if you look at just here the states alone how many people this tournament it's amazing it's crazy yeah it's Friday today you come tomorrow again and you see it doesn't matter where you go yeah it's very difficult so how do you tap

40:34in into that market you know I love doing it because whenever I'm here and and when you practice I always see people watching and then I can hear it's like wow this and then you know ideas dropping like oh I can do this in my next time I'm going to try this in my match this and then I actually go to them and say hey but if you do it you need to do this because you remember this is what we're trying you do I hope you picked up what the girls they serve there but you need to be able to do this and they're like oh I like this I like so I try and give you because I feel like they have made the effort as fans to come and watch and watch the guys where the girls practice double so for me as a coach just to be able to to have that impact and to be able to tell one little thing to somebody maybe they appreciate like yesterday we were practicing or two days ago yeah yesterday and then we're sitting there like wow we watched them here we watched them there like wow they're so good and I said you would probably pull that shot off you know or there's them I was like yeah yeah not quite but I said I said but why not you know I said maybe at a

41:38different level but you can still hit that shot because if you do it's a shot and you do this the next point what's going to happen and then I'm like ah that makes sense you know so it's like it's just I feel like we just need to tap on a little bit better I feel like it's such a good product but nowadays it's all about that single double that does that it's just like surely there's there's enough for everybody we I think since me playing and been coaching and when I'm at this stage our sport is probably the healthiest that it's ever been so when it's when when a company or product is doing that well why would you want to fire somebody or saying in that regard you want to say double or something but now you're going to tap in on it and have someone promoting it I mean the ATP there's there's there's so much more they can do as a matter do we want to do it or not and that's different that's why I feel like if we can all just come together and we just promote it a little bit better and talk about it a little bit

42:41because it's it's like anything else if if I'll dress if Sinan always like no I love the game love double I think it's great I think these guys are actually just a different skill set wow this then suddenly becomes a different conversation but we all have to have that sort of conversation we all have to be part of it it's it's it's it's it's a product it's it's tennis is one game with obviously singles and doubles which is a little bit different but I mean I I hope they can continue and I obviously feel like it's it's it's it's it's changed in that in that regard where you're never going to have back in the day like a mac and roll and all this like we'll be able to play singles and doubles at the same time now it's a little bit different and you also have to appreciate that but you know so hopefully they can continue and then make maybe we will have another conversation in five ten years who knows about this and then hopefully we in a different place even better I really don't really do also yeah I hope so too yeah Jeff thanks a ton for

43:44going on I really appreciate thank you thanks for having me thank you for listening to this week's episode of the doubles only tennis podcast if you're interested in diving deeper into the world of doubles strategy I've created tennis tribe memberships that allow me to bring you more podcast episodes video lessons webinars and other doubles content on a weekly basis without relying on paid ads the lessons inside the membership will help you better game plan with your partner optimize your practices and become the smartest player on the court go to vtennis tribe comm slash memberships to learn more and sign up you can also join my free newsletter on our homepage where I share a new doubles lesson every week if you want to connect you can find me on instagram twitter and facebook or contact me through our website thanks again for listening