Can you imagine that your first individual title comes from the hand of a coach with no experience on the professional circuit? It is one of the most incredible stories of this season, that of Yue Yuan and José Hernández at the WTA 250 in Austin.
If there is something special about winning your first title, it is that you never know when it will arrive. You don’t know it, much less your coach, the thing is that that day comes and it means an explosion of happiness. TO Yue Yuan (25 years old) happened to him last Sunday in the WTA 250 of Austin, thus signing the best week of her career, which serves to inaugurate her record and send her directly to the top50. Meanwhile, from the first row of seats, an excited man thanked fate for having invited him to be part of it.
Although its official file says Jose Hernandez Fernandezeveryone knows him as ‘Bebo‘. Retired in 2020 after a career where he reached #179 and since then focused on training as a coach, a unique opportunity knocked on his door to return to the circuit. After much thought he decided to accept, making history seven days later: champion in his first professional tournament as a coach. Faced with a story as attractive as this one, Break Point Go quickly to the appointment with the Dominican to find out all the details of this adventure.
Before going to the present day, I want to ask you about your career as a player. You retired in 2020 almost without warning, what happened?
The truth is, I still don’t know if I have left it, because I never had that game where you are aware that it is the last one. I was playing Davis Cup in Colombia and there was just a lot of talk about COVID, until suddenly everything stopped. At that time the borders in Spain were closed, at that time I was living in Alicante, so for the first time I went three months in a row without leaving home.
That ended the career of more than one.
I left the Dominican Republic when I was 15 and never returned, but hey, it is true that COVID meant a change for the entire world. It was a moment of great reflection, the world stopped, something that is totally anomalous in the life of a tennis player. This last week serves as an example for me, with my player winning her first title, a lifetime of pursuing that goal… but first thing the next day a plane is waiting for you heading to Indian Wells. That happiness lasts a minute and a half, it is almost impossible to savor it.
How did you start training?
Months after the pandemic, my sponsor asked me to train a young boy in London. So I went to London as soon as the borders opened and I never returned, I was there for two years where I made the final decision not to return to the circuit. I also suffered a depression that you cannot imagine, but these are things that happen, luckily the tennis player learns from a young age to swim through adversity.
What happened to that boy?
I continue with him, in the third year we settled in Marbella, but the work remains the same. That has been the entire summary of what I have experienced since my last game.
You left him when you were very young, did you never think about coming back? Even if it’s just to play one last farewell game?
100%, of course I have considered it. But I’ve also thought: do I want that because of my ego or because I really want it? As a human being, we all have that part, I asked myself that question a thousand times, until I understood that if I did it it was to feed my ego and not to cover what I felt. It wasn’t easy, I had an internal struggle to achieve peace with myself, until I realized that I had already given everything I had during my career. I accepted it, nothing more, today I am already doing other things, although I recognize that I have not found the gamer’s adrenaline anywhere else. Tennis has an expiration date, you don’t have to cling to it, now I want to continue evolving in other facets.
What feelings did you have from your career? Did you end peace with tennis?
I am grateful that we are doing this interview three years later, because my response in 2021 would have been totally different. Today I am at peace, I pushed away my demons, I truly feel like I gave it my all. Success in this society is almost always linked to the economic, the material… well, I retired with €3,000 in my bank account. In fact, my dad had to leave me €5,000 during COVID to support me, at almost 30 years old. […] That killed me. If you look at my career through the prism of economics you will think that it was rubbish, but it involved a lot of introspection, you cannot measure a career by the money earned.
Time has made you squeeze the best out of you.
Look, maybe I didn’t retire with a mansion or a nice car, but I took with me incredible friendships forever, a cultural exchange that few people have, and unforgettable life experiences at 33 years old. I have lived! That cannot be paid for with money or with a university degree. Isn’t that success? Isn’t that something to be proud of? Ok, I don’t have a Rolex nor do I live in the house of my dreams, but I take with me a number of memories, trips, people and knowledge that make me the person I am right now. If I went back, I would do the same thing again. Deep down I feel that I did have a very successful career.
Did starting training so quickly help you with the transition?
It was a very fresh transition, especially because I was still able to be competitive and train with my player on the court, although it was also a stage where I was healing my wounds. There I realized that the demons that I had are also had by the rest of the kids, something that helped me to empathize with them, to understand them better. On that side, it helped me a lot, to not judge them from the outside and understand them from the inside. The fact of having gone through those same situations made the solutions to the problems emerge naturally.
How did you end your relationship with the British guy?
Now he plays juniors, but his idea is to go to university, so this summer he’s leaving and I’m staying with free people… the truth is, I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do with my life. My career as a coach started with him, but now his priorities are different. After four years together we will separate our paths, so I may return to the Dominican Republic…
Tell me how the Yue Yuan thing came about.
It was something very crazy! A year and a half ago, at an ITF held in Kenya, I met a Chinese coach and since then we maintained the connection, his player even played doubles with mine, we went to dinner every day. Suddenly he wrote to me last week, while I was in Barcelona, and he asked me if I could travel with Yue Yuan, a top 100 tennis player who was currently without a coach.
And good?
My feeling was that I wanted to, but I couldn’t, I was committed to my player. […] The next day I get another message: ‘All the coaches I asked told me no, I only have you left.’
You already thought about it there.
(Smiles) I am a person who believes in energies and the universe, an opportunity like this is not normal for it to occur twice, it does not exist. I called my player’s father and explained the opportunity that had been presented to me, something that was going to help me realize if I really liked this world.
Was there a green light?
The thing is that I was going to break up with him in two months, so he understood it perfectly. I had been offered other things before and I had to reject them, but this time it was something exceptional. I took a plane to Marbella, packed my bags, then I went to Madrid and from there I headed to Austin. No sooner said than done.
And champions! What an outrage, Bebo…
I’ll tell you an anecdote. I arrived on Saturday night, but we agreed to meet the next morning. That Sunday I was having breakfast, looking to see who she was, because the only thing I had of her was her WhatsApp profile photo and YouTube videos (laughs). There, a teammate who is also training suddenly comes across me, I explain my case to him and he tells me: ‘Your player is just the one in front of you.’
¡No!
I could not believe it. There we showed up and everything went very well, the rest is history. In fact, on Sunday on the bus back home we were telling how our names are pronounced in our language (laughs). It was very crazy, his first WTA title and my first professional tournament as a coach. I’m also his first non-Chinese coach, well, a lot of first things, it doesn’t make sense.
In seven days you did it all.
We met on Sunday at breakfast, the following Sunday we were lifting the title.
(laughs)
Chance? Coincidence? I don’t know, I believe in these things a lot, but I have no way to explain it.
Has it given you time to feel responsible for this success?
Honestly, you don’t have time for anything. The turning point came on Wednesday of that week, and I do think something happened there. We sat down, I explained to her that we didn’t have time to get to know each other, but she has the goal of being top30 and since the day before I was by her side to help her achieve it. We tried to create totally transparent communication, because we didn’t have the days to get to know each other. With that talk we broke the ice, she also comes from a very obedient mentality, Asians tend to trust much more…
…even in a stranger.
It was the first question he asked me: ‘Have you trained any professionals?’ She told him no, obviously. All my respect and gratitude to her for blindly trusting a person like me, for opening her mind and exploring this new opportunity. I give all the credit to her, especially for her behavior, she was always very receptive. From that talk I noticed a lot more confidence, as if we were a real team, not just a person who came to train her.
If you don’t accept the offer, if you don’t travel to Austin, if you don’t have that talk with her on Wednesday… surely the movie wouldn’t have ended like this.
I tell you? […] Fate wanted it this way, but I do not feel responsible for this victory, I give all the credit to her. Not only because of tennis, but because of having taken risks in other factors. Can you imagine investing financially in a coach you don’t know? Maybe fate rewarded her for that, I don’t know. All the risks she accepted pushed her to this success, I just accompanied her by giving her my support and all my positive energy. If I contributed even 0.1% I’m already happy.
From the point of view of your debut on the professional circuit, did you like the training experience?
I loved returning to the circuit, tennis has given me so much that it is impossible to get rid of it. I had never worked with anyone at these levels, but it is true that the ATP and WTA circuits are quite different from each other.
In what sense?
It’s a very delicate topic, but I think this week I realized why Osaka and other players talk about mental health: on the women’s circuit there are hardly any friendships. Although my experience was minimal, it is a perception that I take with me, I did not see the girls getting together to eat, while in the men’s circuit we were getting together all the time. Even the most select ones were always with two or three players. I’m not the one to judge, I was on the circuit for a minute and a half, but that’s what I felt.
The million dollar question: what now?
We had agreed on Austin, Indian Wells and Miami. For now we will do these three tournaments together, we have not spoken more. She knows that I have a commitment to my player until the end of August, but we’ll see, things can change. A week ago, if you told me I would be here in Indian Wells, I would have called you crazy (laughs). I’m enjoying it a lot, but I want to take it day by day.
2024-03-08 10:00:00
#Bebo #Hernández #champion #tournament #coach
