From RG To Wimbledon and ITF World Championship Dinner In Between

Written by: on 16th June 2013
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From RG To Wimbledon and ITF World Championship Dinner In Between  |

Before I start the Grass Court season I would like to have a special entry about the The World Championships Dinner in Paris. (during Roland Garros)

I was invited by Esther Vergeer who won her 13th World Champions Trophy (in a row) of her career (she officially retired in February of this year.) A Must read is her personal Biography (hopefully soon to be translated in English now only available in Dutch “Kracht en Kwetsbaarheid”)

This was my 2nd time I attended (last year I could not attend due to my work with adidas) but this year it was also a special year because of The ITF celebrating their 100th year birthday.

The evening was presented by Andrew Castle. Andrew and I actually played each other during our time in the USA when I played for the University of Kansas and Andrew played for Wichita State University. Time fly’s when you are having fun.

Before I speak about Esther it was also great to see one of my very special players I coached, Mary Pierce during this evening and take a rare picture together. In all of my years I have coached i can count on 2 hands of how many pictures i have with players I have worked with before I started with the adidas player development program.

Esther Vergeer

I want to thank Esther, for having the strength to think out side of the box by asking, in 2010, if I wanted to work with her. we spend almost 3 years together working towards her dream but more importantly we worked towards getting the best out of her. This would never have been possible without the help of the Head Coach of the Dutch Tennis Federation (KNLTB) Marc Kalkman. Marc has been the creator of Esther and I working together. Marc brought a whole new dimension to wheelchair tennis by integrating coaches that were or are successful in the abled body tennis world. Marc deserves a lot of credit for Esther staying in the game and finishing her career on the top of the mountain. I keep Marijn for last because Marijn the physical trainer of Esther continued to challenge Esther every single time we were on court and was able to integrate the physicality and the mobility conditioning into the game style we were developing during this period. I want to thank again the entire team for this great experience and look forward to help Esther during the transition after her professional tennis career.

 

NOW ON TO THE GRASS

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