Need more incentive for players, coaches
MUMBAI: Four years since he retired as a professional tennis player, Somdev Devvarman is ready to return to the game— this time as a coach. India’s former top-ranked player has signed up as a high performance expert at the Nensel Tennis Academy in Peine, Germany.
The 35-year-old former world No.62 will join the coaching set-up alongside Sascha Nensel—he has coached former top-10 Julia Goerges and 2006 Australian Open semi-finalist Nicolas Kiefer—and strength and conditioning coach Milos Galecic, who has also coached Devvarman. He will be working closely with the Indians there— rising star Sumit Nagal, the talented Karman Kaur Thandi, 22, who joined in November and Adil Kalyanpur, 20.
In this chat, he explains why coaching excites him and talks about whether he will be open to similar roles in India.
Excerpts:
my experience with Indian players…all of that will be very valuable. For me, working with guys who have been very successful in coaching and moving into real coaching in Europe is the important thing. I’ll be spending more time in Germany, and would imagine a fair amount of time on the road again.
I will spend a lot of time with them. I’ve already done a couple of weeks with Karman, so we’re fairly well acquainted with each other. With Sumit, our relation goes back to when I was quitting and he was kind of coming in. We’ve been in touch for many years. The nice thing over here is that all of us can work together as a team.
It’s exciting for me. The people who have coached me have helped me see the game in a different way. I always knew that at some point I would give this a shot. I’ve always believed if you’re asking your player to give 100% then as a coach you cannot do the same. That was why after tennis I felt like I needed to step away from the direct part of the game. And I’ll know a time when I’m starting to miss it, starting to think about it more, watching the tournaments more closely, having more discussions on new things that are happening in the game and things like that. A little over a year ago that interest started to spark again. Plus, when you’re working with a player, you’re pretty invested. You’re thinking of several different ways in which you could gain advantage—be it dietary, fitness or tennis-based. Once I felt I started doing that, I knew I was ready to be more involved.
Yes and no. There’s a fine line there. In India while the sport or profession of tennis is not where it needs to be, the business is doing pretty well. It’s not even a question of if young coaches get into it; there are already a lot of young coaches into it. It’s more about whether the young coaches get into it for the right reasons. There’s a fine line between running a financially successful academy and also doing the right things to help players. Unfortunately the two don’t necessarily collide all the time. That’s where I believe we tend to lose a lot of coaches, and continue to lose them. I would like to see more coaches coach the real game in India. The more success Sumit and
Karman and the others have, the better for us. There needs to be more than just saying we need young coaches. There needs to be more incentive for players and the young coaches to do well and a system that creates that incentive.
Three years ago I tried to set up the National Centre. I had to deal with the pros and cons of the system and fight through it to succeed. It’s a system I understand inside out and been motivated to try and change ever since I had the opportunities to. So it’s not something that is suddenly going to stop for me. It’s been my dream to see the sport function in a healthy way in India. I believe that to find success, you need to do things the right way and for the right reasons. I’m not sure we’re doing that. From my end, I don’t know at what scale I can do it. Right now, I’m focused on becoming a better coach myself. On a macro scale, it’s something I’d like to see happen. If the right opportunity comes at the right time, it’s something I will be open to working towards.