KerryJ
04-05-2008, 06:31 AM
MY BOLLETTIERI REVIEW
By KerryJ
Preface: I am not anyone who has any authority to be writing this. I do not have a high ranking, and I am not the best player. However, I am extremely analytical and have a love and mature understanding of the game. This is a review about my stay at the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy, and hopefully it will help you in some way.
Day 1:
Wow what an amazing place! Very huge campus, I heard 400 acres. When I followed the road, I saw the tennis courts. 40 of these bad boys lined up for what seemed to be forever. Then there is an academy park where 16 more courts are. I am reporting to court 11 since it is my first day there and I need to be evaluated. They had all the kids (over 100 this week) and had us run, for about eight minutes. After that they had a guy call us out by ranking. “Any nationally ranked players step forward”. “Any sectionally ranked players step forward”. “People with any ranking step forward”. This is where I, and my two friends went forward. And this guy yells “Court 6, now!” So all of us were running to court six, where some guy was standing there with a basket of balls. “Okay get in line, one forehand down the line, one backhand down the line, go!” So we have maybe twenty kids all doing this without much success because we had no warm up. When I am hitting my seventh and eighth shot of the day the head guy walks over and watches. I make my forehand, and miss my backhand. “You, court 14!” I knew I was moving down and was pissed. Not because I was moving down, but because of the incredible stupidity of the evaluation. You were “good” if you could rip balls down the line, regardless of them being in, with no warm up. So I go to court 14, almost everyone is a lower level than me, except two 10-year-old polish kids, who both killed me later on. So we get into drilling. There is one head coach, and then several other coaches who just feed according to the drill. There is no instruction, unless you get lucky and have an actual court feeding balls to you. So drills were very basic, all about big angles, or down the line. The Bollettieri philosophy to me seemed “Hit the ball as hard as you can, as long as you can, but don’t hit the net”. You could smack it over the fence and it was fine, just as long as you didn’t hit the net. Midway through my drill I get sent over for the video analysis. This was probably the best part of the camp. My forehand was excellent, he really liked it. My backhand was pretty bad, he had me make more a C shape. And my serve was horrible, for this whole camp I felt extremely awkward serving. But it’s cool because you can see all the stuff you’re getting told. So once we finish drilling for two hours, I go meet up with my friends who are eating lunch (*IMPORTANT* Anyone going here should know they serve a decent, free lunch. But trust me, shell out six bucks for the IMG club sandwich, you won’t regret it I promise!). One got moved up into the sectionally ranked group, and the other stayed at any ranking. I had a two hour and forty-five minute break before match play, so I ate, and walked around. I went to the indoor courts and saw Nick. Oh what a nice guy. My coach calls him leather faced nick. Anyway he was giving a private lesson, to a little kid named Andre. He was six years old, and as long as he didn’t need to serve, he could kill me. I have never seen such a young kid play with a players racquet (Prince Diablo Midsize) and have success and consistency. Anyway I watched in amazement for an hour, and the he finished. I talked to his dad for about ten minutes about where he was from, when he started playing, has he played any tournaments. He was really nice. Andre gets a lesson from Nick every day. So finally I asked the question to Andre. Can I have your autograph? And I did, which was just “Andre” in big print. Then his mom took a picture of us. A really good experience. Then it’s time for matchplay so I went to the transportation tent, and we were all taken to a club about 30 minutes away. We get there we play some matches. The first match I won 6-1. Then I played that Polish kid I watched earlier. He killed me 6-0. I was in amazement in the warmup. The kid was maybe four foot eight, and I’m six even. He was kicking the ball over my head with his forehand, so I looked like an idiot either, sprinting forward to catch it on the rise, or backing to the fence to get it on the descend. Now maybe if I was serving better 6-3, but either way he would have won. So I played two more sets, won the next one 6-0, and then lost 7-5. So we head home and my schedule is a schedule that isn’t on the form they give you. I’m there from 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM. My friends joked around that I was on schedule C. So the next day since my friends were 7:00 AM to 5:00 PM, we were all there for 11 hours, everyday.
FIRST DAY REVIEW.
Little to no “coaching”. Did get to hit a lot of balls. Did a lot of running because after you hit four balls, you run and pick them up. No “real” improvements yet.
By KerryJ
Preface: I am not anyone who has any authority to be writing this. I do not have a high ranking, and I am not the best player. However, I am extremely analytical and have a love and mature understanding of the game. This is a review about my stay at the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy, and hopefully it will help you in some way.
Day 1:
Wow what an amazing place! Very huge campus, I heard 400 acres. When I followed the road, I saw the tennis courts. 40 of these bad boys lined up for what seemed to be forever. Then there is an academy park where 16 more courts are. I am reporting to court 11 since it is my first day there and I need to be evaluated. They had all the kids (over 100 this week) and had us run, for about eight minutes. After that they had a guy call us out by ranking. “Any nationally ranked players step forward”. “Any sectionally ranked players step forward”. “People with any ranking step forward”. This is where I, and my two friends went forward. And this guy yells “Court 6, now!” So all of us were running to court six, where some guy was standing there with a basket of balls. “Okay get in line, one forehand down the line, one backhand down the line, go!” So we have maybe twenty kids all doing this without much success because we had no warm up. When I am hitting my seventh and eighth shot of the day the head guy walks over and watches. I make my forehand, and miss my backhand. “You, court 14!” I knew I was moving down and was pissed. Not because I was moving down, but because of the incredible stupidity of the evaluation. You were “good” if you could rip balls down the line, regardless of them being in, with no warm up. So I go to court 14, almost everyone is a lower level than me, except two 10-year-old polish kids, who both killed me later on. So we get into drilling. There is one head coach, and then several other coaches who just feed according to the drill. There is no instruction, unless you get lucky and have an actual court feeding balls to you. So drills were very basic, all about big angles, or down the line. The Bollettieri philosophy to me seemed “Hit the ball as hard as you can, as long as you can, but don’t hit the net”. You could smack it over the fence and it was fine, just as long as you didn’t hit the net. Midway through my drill I get sent over for the video analysis. This was probably the best part of the camp. My forehand was excellent, he really liked it. My backhand was pretty bad, he had me make more a C shape. And my serve was horrible, for this whole camp I felt extremely awkward serving. But it’s cool because you can see all the stuff you’re getting told. So once we finish drilling for two hours, I go meet up with my friends who are eating lunch (*IMPORTANT* Anyone going here should know they serve a decent, free lunch. But trust me, shell out six bucks for the IMG club sandwich, you won’t regret it I promise!). One got moved up into the sectionally ranked group, and the other stayed at any ranking. I had a two hour and forty-five minute break before match play, so I ate, and walked around. I went to the indoor courts and saw Nick. Oh what a nice guy. My coach calls him leather faced nick. Anyway he was giving a private lesson, to a little kid named Andre. He was six years old, and as long as he didn’t need to serve, he could kill me. I have never seen such a young kid play with a players racquet (Prince Diablo Midsize) and have success and consistency. Anyway I watched in amazement for an hour, and the he finished. I talked to his dad for about ten minutes about where he was from, when he started playing, has he played any tournaments. He was really nice. Andre gets a lesson from Nick every day. So finally I asked the question to Andre. Can I have your autograph? And I did, which was just “Andre” in big print. Then his mom took a picture of us. A really good experience. Then it’s time for matchplay so I went to the transportation tent, and we were all taken to a club about 30 minutes away. We get there we play some matches. The first match I won 6-1. Then I played that Polish kid I watched earlier. He killed me 6-0. I was in amazement in the warmup. The kid was maybe four foot eight, and I’m six even. He was kicking the ball over my head with his forehand, so I looked like an idiot either, sprinting forward to catch it on the rise, or backing to the fence to get it on the descend. Now maybe if I was serving better 6-3, but either way he would have won. So I played two more sets, won the next one 6-0, and then lost 7-5. So we head home and my schedule is a schedule that isn’t on the form they give you. I’m there from 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM. My friends joked around that I was on schedule C. So the next day since my friends were 7:00 AM to 5:00 PM, we were all there for 11 hours, everyday.
FIRST DAY REVIEW.
Little to no “coaching”. Did get to hit a lot of balls. Did a lot of running because after you hit four balls, you run and pick them up. No “real” improvements yet.