Bigger Better Tennis - Paul Dale

BECOME AN OUTLIER... I'm not a big fan of attending ITF coaches workshops anymore and here's why. Much of what is presented at these Workshops is standard stuff, and listening repeatedly to similar topics and similar points of view will, unfortunately, stifle your creativity.    Here's what I would suggest. Once you have attended several Workshops already, you should take yourself out of the workshop scene and begin to integrate your new ideas and methodologies from the workshops onto the court, with the long-term goal of developing some of your own philosophies for later. It's important to understand that workshops in themselves are a tool, and that to get the full value from them, the ideas you pick-up at workshops need to be implemented and tested on-court over time.  At the beginning of my coaching career, I joined a tennis company that staffed resorts, hotels, and tennis clubs all around the world. After training with that company for a short time I was dispatche

In 1988 I landed the job of Chinese National Junior Coach.  A total of 4 boys and 4 girls were selected from players from throughout the country and these players were trained for two months inside mainland China, at a small city called Chungshan.   This was the beginning of China’s emergence back into the international tennis mainstream after decades of isolation.  We later played junior ITF tournaments in Jakarta, Tokyo, and Hong Kong. Also at those same ITF tournaments was a junior Thai team under the management of a local ex-pat named Gordon U.E Martin.  I already knew Gordon from my time in Bangkok and also knew that he was a true tennis fanatic.  Gordon helped put Thai tennis on the map in those early days by bringing professional men's tennis to Thailand and by starting ITF junior events in Bangkok for the first time. Those early ITF Junior events started by Gordon are still held annually each year until this day.  Gordon was particularly interested in the history of Asian t