A pioneer who guided 10 No 1s, changed coaching
MUMBAI: There’s a widely shared photo on social media of Nick Bollettieri, shirtless with those signature sunglasses covering his eyes, engaged in a chat on court with Andre Agassi, that long-haired tennis-hating youngster who was all ears in that moment staring at his racquet. There’s also a video of Bollettieri, shirtless again, yelling almost incessantly from behind the baseline as Serena Williams, those white hair beads bouncing around, oscillated from left to right during a hitting session.
That was quintessential Bollettieri, a revolutionary coach so immersed in tennis that he not only elevated the sport but transformed the way it was taught.
Bollettieri, the man who worked with 10 former world No 1 players, has died at the age of 91. He died on Sunday at his home in Florida.
The celebrated, charismatic and often controversial American coach has in his CV names of Boris Becker, Jim Courier, Agassi, Martina Hingis, Jelena Jankovic, Marcelo Rios, Monica Seles, Maria Sharapova and the Williams sisters, Serena and Venus. His coaching impact though was much deeper than developing champions at the top level. The Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy, founded in 1978, would become the blueprint for academies the world over as the first full-time, live-in centre that offered tennis coaching alongside customized academic curriculum for kids.
Inducted in the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 2014, Bollettieri—he described himself as the “Michelangelo of tennis”— touched lives and careers of plenty other elite players on the professional tour .
Born in 1931 in New York, Bollettieri’s only brush with playing the sport came during his college days in Alabama. He then served the US army as a paratrooper before signing up—and eventually dropping out—in a law school at the University of Miami. While there, Bollettieri offered half-hourly tennis lessons for $1.5 on the North Miami Beach courts.
In 1978, the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy took shape and two years later, he borrowed $1 million from a friend to build the residential tennis academy in Bradenton, Florida. It would, over the years, turn into a hub of tennis talent; one that not only moulded the star-studded chain of world No. 1s but also the likes of Germany’s Sabine Lisicki, Japanese Kei Nishikori and Yuki Bhambri of India.
Bollettieri had no formal tennis coaching background or technical expertise of the game, but, as he stated in an interview, “the gift God gave me was the ability to read people”.