Almost four years ago, together with Marcelo Albamonte, one of his closest collaborators, presented “Game, Set, Math”, a book that seemed to be a confession of principles, work methodology and strategies. However, the publication hid a detailed statistical development that was being transformed into a platform for tennis players.
“With Marcelo we worked a lot on numbers, I was with Juan Martín Del Potro and I wrote a lot after the games. We had a lot of information, until we realized that nobody did that. That’s how the project came about.”evokes Davin from Miami, where he settled in mid-2015, in an exclusive interview with Scope.
The premise was clear: they collected each point, each blow or circumstance that occurred in a match. Everything had to be dumped in analog spreadsheets that, even today, are preserved. “We searched a lot and talked to many companies that make applications, until Marcelo finally met with Sebastián Duana, from a company in Tandil, and we did it. The platform is very powerful, it has a lot of information, formulas and algorithms. We are very proud and happy of what we achieved”holds on the structure that completes Hernan Cacciavillani.
Davin, former number 30 in the world (he won three ATP titles), is a world-renowned coach who worked alongside Juan Martin del Potro, Gaston Gaudio (Grand Slam winners), Guillermo Coria, Fabio Fognini, Grigor Dimitrov and currently with the Russian Veronika Kudermetova, among several others. With each one she accumulated both titles and data to extract information beyond the numbers.
“GSM was spectacular and it works, because the next day you’ll improve”, asserts the coach. The mathematics behind tennis can contribute both technically or strategically, as well as psychologically. “We improve the player, we don’t say how to play the other. We measure the level and from there the data begins to come out, how to improve, where you have your strengths or weaknesses, what exercises to do”he explains, while clarifying that the system “is private once it is purchased” and the amount of material “would put any coach in trouble, because he cannot accumulate so many numbers.”
“We managed to do a simulation: if a player is 500 from Argentina and his goal is to be 300, we measure a 300 and tell him what he needs to get there. As a boy I would have liked them to talk to me objectively”, Davin expands.
psychology in tennis
The mechanism is simple: once the application is purchased, the data begins to be loaded, such as the number of winners, with what hits they were obtained, unforced errors or serves. Then, the former Davis Cup and Fed Cup captain acknowledges, the player can focus “on those things that he wants to analyze or improve; to say something, the third shot and the return of the second serve. It is not necessary to load absolutely everything”.
The question that any fan would ask is if the platform is only useful for professionals. “It is for anyone who competes. The veterans are delighted. And the one who is most useful is the coach, because he has an objective way of showing the player what is happening. Also for the parents of the juniors, because they begin to understand more about tennis and can see the evolution after a certain time. We adapt what the professionals do so that anyone can use it”reveals.
In today’s tennis, the pressures to be better at any cost are increasing and starting at ever younger ages, a factor that, for Davin, impairs development. The platform, then, presupposes a different form in the coach-tennis player relationship, because it provides objective information and not mere opinion, which, according to the former athlete, attracts young people more because it does not delve into general issues but rather into specific issues.
“The result, when you are learning, has to start to be secondary”, spear, laconic, Davin, who also works with youth and is in charge, among others, Lourdes Carlé from Buenos Aires, a young and talented player who is also a pupil of Albamonte. “I see that many boys suffer and have a hard time and do not go to the game with a plan, which is not to win or lose, but with two or three things that the coach tells you to do. Then you see if it comes out or not ”, she analyzes.
“Playing is the best way to discover what you know how to do,” the former soccer player once said Pablo Aimar about the original essence of all sport. The former 10 from River claimed that many boys are asked “not to dribble because they lost it two or three times.” “I agree with him 100%, they have to try things. Many times the coaches do not want to eat a goal with a baton, and I see many tennis coaches who are in the same position “coincide Davin.
Thus, the coach must deal not only with the evolution of his pupil but also with psychological and extra-sports aspects. For example, communication: “The coach can also choose when to speak, or the boy can see it directly. The app is very powerful because it has a lot of information and once all that is explained, it’s easier.”
In all elite sports, the mental aspect is, at least, as important as the technique. Dealing with frustration, pressure, joys or opinions is part of the training. It is no coincidence that Davin gives a fundamental space to this detail. “I am very pro-psychologist, I like it a lot and they have helped me a lot to work. I can’t imagine a team without a psychologist”argues the native of Pehuajó and trained on the courts of the mythical Independiente de Tandil.
Davin excelled in the world of rackets since he was little, with victories at the local and world level. A left shoulder injury and the daily strain on the circuit brought his career to a premature end at the age of 27. “I didn’t feel like playing anymore, that’s why I quit,” he commented in those days of 1997.
“A boy starts playing, at the latest, at 10 years old, and does so until he is 35. Imagine all the stages he went through. It’s impossible to handle all of that alone.”, he maintains today, more poised and with vast experience in both professionals and youth. One resource that gave him his always voracious curiosity was chess, because “it is something that if you learn as a child, it gives you mental agility, strategy, it shows you the profile of a player on the court.”
Almost without realizing it, Davin found himself in a capricious mix of rackets, tactics, software, and records. In his mind, he projects changes in the future and even the possibility of automatic data from videos. But he is clear that the role of the coach is not going to disappear.
“The best is going to be the one that gets the most juice out of this. The app can tell you that a player missed 20 service returns, but then you have to analyze if it is due to something technical or why, ”she says. His argument was a personal experience with Fognini: “Fabio started the matches badly, but I realized when I started to see him on the platform, because out there you don’t get to appreciate him. When you see all the games together, you realize that there is something”.
Tennis is increasingly nourished by technology, not only during matches, but in the very evolution of the sport. As if we were talking about an unstoppable cyber invasion, the advancement of computers and applications is present in each training session, but the same resources will always be needed: talent and sacrifice. Where does Davin think the circuits will go next? What is the model of the current tennis player? Those answers motivate another story. And that story… will continue in the second set.
