Farewell to a guru who knew how to surround himself with the best to be a huge motivator for Grand Slam champions.
with the death of Nicolas James Bollettieri the best coach of tennis of history, as he himself knew how to sell himself during almost all his life. With the death of Nicolas James Bollettieri he left the coach who best understood business and marketing tennis throughout his life.
Nick Bollettieri was a guru. A controversial genius. A trainer of champions and legends. A man who breathed tennis during his 91 years. And he did it almost until Monday, the day he died.
Jim Courier, Andre Agassi, Marcelo Ríos, Boris Becker, Tommy Haas, Monica Seles, the Venus sisters and Serena Williams, Maria Sharapova, Anna Kournikova passed through his famous Bradenton academy, the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy (NBTA). , Mary Pierce and many others.
At the end of the 1960s, he was linked to tennis when he was director of the area at the Dorado Beach hotel in Puerto Rico. From there he went to US Florida. And in 1978, on land destined to grow tomatoes, he set up his academy from scratch, which ended up being a boarding school to make world number 1s.
Agassi, in his great autobiography “Open”, defined it as “a place that people like to call a military camp, but in reality it is a glorified prison camp.” His tyrannical father, Emmanuel, saw a note about Bollettieri and decided to send his son there. In that note, the boys were seen sleeping in very uncomfortable beds, eating little and even cleaning the facilities.
When Bollettieri saw Agassi, he told his father that he could stay for free. That was Bollettieri. He recruited for talent and money. The boy born in Las Vegas had a lot of the first and little of the second. Over time he shaped it and made it the best of all because he also had plenty of what Bollettieri highlighted the most: his competitive spirit.
The same happened with Seles, who one day arrived from the former Yugoslavia. Or with Sharapova, of whom Bollettieri came to say: “You had to kill her to beat her”. The Russian arrived with “700 dollars rolled up in a pocket”, according to what he recounted many years later. It is also known how that story ended.
Bollettieri had the best eye for spotting great players. He knew a lot about tactics but not technique (although he developed great drives such as those of the Americans Jimmy Arias and Aaron Krickstein or that of Agassi himself) and he was formed with a great secret that he would share over the years in the talks or courses he gave.
Beyond being a tremendous motivator who raised his players to impressive levels, he knew how to surround himself with the best. Of the “eminences”, as he himself called them. Thus, the best coaches, physical trainers, doctors and sports psychologists worked with him.
One day he introduced a psychologist who had worked at NASA. It was Jim Loehr. He said: “With this man I will be able to make any player a champion.” And Loehr became the most recognized psychologist on the circuit, adored and required by almost all the stars.
Bollettieri gave his players everything to succeed. And although the best of all the coaches was the Australian Harry Hopman, he had the humility to copy many of his things to achieve success. A success that accompanied him until the end of his days.
