One on One with Martin Laurendeau

What is the difference between being an individual player’s coach, and being the Davis Cup team captain?

My role as the Davis Cup Captain is that I’ve got to select the players, I have to select the players that are going to play, the team nomination. I’ve got to select the players that are going to come and prepare our guys, reserve players, backup players. I have to look after who the staff is gonna be, there is seven staff people, for example, stringer, physio, doctor et cetera. And you have to manage all of this, to make it a cohesive week. Whereas being the coach of a player, you’re solely focussed on one athlete, in comparison to 14 people.

Do you have any specific advice for different training techniques for boys and girls? Is there a difference when you are coaching boys and girls?

Obviously there techniques may differ because they grow at different rates, the girls mature sooner, and they also tactically play a bit different than the guys. For instance, the girls usually favour more backhands whereas males will try to run around backhands and hit forehands. There may be specific things like that, that are specific to the nature of the genders. All in all, my advice for training the technique, is let the technique speak for itself. Give the kids, especially when they are young, give them a chance to reach their objectives. Let’s say you want them to hit a certain ball high and deep to the backhand, let them find their own technique, because whatever is natural, whatever is going to come from them will be more likely to remain, and be there for the pressure moments of the sport. There is always going to be some tweaking to be done, but if you go with the natural stroke/technique of the player you’re more likely to guide them better along the way, and become more sustainable over the long term.

How did you reach the position that you are currently in today?

Through a lot of passion. The passion really drives this job. It’s a job that has you away from home a lot, you’re on the court a lot. You work on the weekends and on holidays; you can’t do that if you’re not passionate about it. So if you have passion and you work hard you can become a national coach, like I did.

Why is growing the number of tennis coaches in Canada important?

Because it is needed for the sport to be healthy. We need coaches that will help to grow the sport. Not just for you but for the masses. The coaches are so important, and there are many different kinds of coaches. There are coaches for 6 and under, 8 and under, 10 and under, all are different stages of the player’s career, and every step of the way is very important.  A healthy sport is having a lot of athletes, a lot of coaches, and a lot of competition.

How did you find the process of transitioning from playing to coaching?

I don’t think being a player automatically qualifies you to being a coach eventually. The biggest difference I found personally was when you are a player, it is all about you, and all about yourself. But when you go into coaching, it’s all about not you, it’s all about the players or the athletes. And that takes some time and adjustment, you have got to “change your glasses”. You have got to see things differently, and think differently. You have to see everything through the eyes of the athlete and not your own. I guess that is the aspect that I needed the most time to adapt to.

Why do you feel that professional development is so important for coaches?

Because we need to have good standards for the coaches. There needs to be certain standards that can be measured, and a certification system. And that is all a part of the professional development. It is a profession and you need to develop the different stages of the profession like any other one.

Do you feel that having female coaches is important to the growth of tennis in Canada?

I do believe that it is important. I think players relate better, younger girls coming up may relate better to younger female coaches. You know there is female coaches out there now on the Men’s tour. Amélie Mauresmo is working with one of the best players in the world in Andy Murray. So, there really is no barriers, it is all about communication and trust. There is certain times in a career with young athletes where sometimes it’s nice to be with a male coach, and sometimes where it is nice to be with a female coach. So there is definitely room for both in the game.

What fundamentals should coaches focus on with players aged 10-12? And why are these skills so important to their development.

Those ages, are ages I have never really worked with before, I have worked more with kids aged 15/16 and up. So I am not completely familiar with what is required at that age, but if I were to be working with a group of kids at that age I would really emphasize enjoying playing. It is a game, and they need to have fun. And for them to remain in the sport the coach needs to make it fun and enjoyable, otherwise these kids will get bored and look the other way for something else to be more exciting. I truly believe that should be one of the focusses for a coach working with kids age 12 and under.

Having coached some of Canada’s best young talent, how do you prioritize what an elite athlete needs to work on to become better?

I think that is a question that you ask yourself until you hang it up. You’re always at a junction as a coach in terms of whether you work the strengths or do I work the weaknesses. And it is always a big dilemma, there are so many things to work on and there is not enough hours in the day to work on everything. Sometimes you have to make tough choices, maybe the athlete wants to work on some part of his game, and you feel like he has got to work on something else. So that is always a challenge. But, the challenge every coach has with himself is how much you work on strengths, which is going to be the bread and butter for the player, what he uses to make his living with. And how much do you work on weaknesses, so that those weaknesses keep improving to a certain extent. Because they are weaknesses they take a lot longer, and if you spend too much time on weaknesses then the strengths can go down, and you’re caught between a rock and a hard place. So to me, that is a huge challenge for any coach.

How has tennis evolved in your time as a coach, and how do you see it evolving looking into the future?

It has changed a lot in the last 20 years or so. Nutrition has changed. The specialization has changed. 20 years ago, most guys would have played on their own, do their own fitness; and now players have specific, specialized coaches in fitness, nutrition and psychologists. You see a lot more entourages around top players. The game has also gotten a lot faster, not physical because I think the game back in the day was physical with longer rallies and a lot of running. It may not have been as hard on the body in terms of wear and tear, whereas now it is a lot more violent, maybe that is not appropriate word, but it is a lot of accelerations, and whips and sliding, even on hard courts, it is just getting faster and faster, which is pushing the athletes to get better all the time to get an edge over the other one. There's a lot of people looking for that edge now, whereas before you were kind of on your own and would do the best you can. That was the biggest evolution I think for high performance tennis. As for the future, I’m not quite sure, it’s kind of like sprinting. How fast is the fastest man ever going to run the 100 metres? There has got to be a limit somewhere so there has got to be physical limits with what we can do with a tennis ball. Where that limit is, I don’t know but it seems to be getting a faster and faster pace, so let’s see where that takes us.