A CONVERSATION WITH USTA PLAYER DEVELOPMENT CHIEF MARTIN BLACKMAN, THE MAN WHO’S SUPPOSED TO MAKE WINNERS
Despite losing the Davis Cup and despite the unhappy fact that we haven’t had a Grand Slam men’s champion for 13 years, American tennis is having a pretty good year. On the men’s side, Steve Johnson and Jack Sock won doubles bronze in Rio and both players, especially Johnson, have risen in the rankings this year. The US Open also showed that a new generation of players, including Frances Tiafoe, Taylor Fritz and Jared Donaldson is on the verge of breaking through. On the women’s side, Serena still reigns supreme, sister Venus medaled in Rio (with Rajeev Ram) Madison Keys has joined the Williamses within the top 10, and a pair of Slam Cinderella stories – Shelby Rogers at the French and CiCi Bellis at the US Open – reflect the tremendous depth of US talent; in fact there are 14 Americans in the women’s top 100.
To take stock of American tennis and where it’s going, Bill Simons recently spoke with Martin Blackman, the USTA’s General Manager of Player Development. Blackman’s experience as a player ranges from training with Nick Bollettieri as a junior to playing on championship teams at Stanford before joining the pro ranks. As a coach, Blackman led American University to three conference titles, and as director at the Junior Tennis Champions Center he helped make it one of the US’s top training centers before bringing his player development expertise to the USTA.
So what’s going on – is there a real change in American tennis, or is it just a brief flurry?
We’re definitely beginning to see a momentum change. This is an inflection point. It’s a combination of a few different things. First of all we’ve got great talent on both the men’s and women’s sides. We have the best group of young boys between 18 and 21 that we’ve had in probably 15 years. On the women’s side we’re starting to dominate the pros in the top 100. We’ve got five girls who are inside the top 11 in the ITF world rankings.
The second part of it is that our partnership with private coaches has never been stronger. So even though we’re not working directly with all of the players who are doing well, we have a relationship that facilitates our ability to give them support, and to customize that support.
It used to be private coaches, “Hey Bollettieri, hey Lansdorp, take a hike. Get out of here.”
Now it’s completely different. We work in close collaboration with the best coaches and the programs. We realize that every player is unique and we have to customize our approach.
Just throw out two or three names of coaches and players.
Craig Boynton is a phenomenal coach who works with Sam Querrey and Steve Johnson. Obviously Serena and Venus have great teams and really don’t need a lot from us, but we’re here if they ever need something. Obviously Serena has a great coach in Patrick Mouratoglou. Venus’s lead coach is her mother and she also works with David Witt. On the women’s side, Coco Vandeweghe [works with] Craig Kardon, a great American coach, a proven coach.
We see Shelby Rogers making a great run at the French, we won mixed doubles at the Olympics, Sock scored two wins over Cilic, we see Stevie trending up, we see Madison well within the top ten. What is the one key that will help the most?
Ultimately it’s their ability to fulfill their potential. It lies with them and their teams and with their commitment to the process. But the role that the USTA has to play is to drive the culture. It’s a culture of excellence, a culture of inclusion, and a culture of valuing every American pro and not cherry-picking or anointing players that we think are going to do well. Being there for all the players so that they can do well.
The Slam championship is the heavyweight championship of tennis. How important is it for the US to get a men’s Slam champion, or somehow is that secondary?
It’s extremely important. I don’t think it’s something we worry about, because there are so many factors, and we don’t control most of those factors. It’s always going to be the bar, and it always should be the bar.
So talk about American youth culture in a straightforward way. Is there a ferocity here, is it tough for Americans to compete against a Moscow kid who comes from a subterranean basement with cold water? Are there too many devices and games here, too many distractions for Americans? Does our wonderful affluence somehow work against us? How do you deal with that?
American kids in general are never going to have the same challenges as Eastern European kids or kids from Africa or kids who really don’t have anything. Obviously we’ve got a lot of underserved kids in this country, and there’s a lot of poverty in this country. But culturally the key is the parent and the first developmental coach. Those are the key people that really instill the culture and set the bar for the player.
In the parental culture we see such a range from the Yuri Sharapovs to Lindsay Davenport’s parents who were standoffish or Wayne and Kathy Bryan who were hands-on. What is the ideal parent model?
I don’t think there’s any ideal parent model because as much as coaches want to sometimes cut the parent out of the equation, it really doesn’t work when you’re trying to develop a champion. From a federation perspective, our job is to communicate to the parents about the longterm development process as opposed to focusing on short-term goals and junior rankings. Our job is to educate parents in terms of what does your player need at this time in their development. Our job is really to empower the parent so that they come to us as a resource.
Years ago when former USTA President Bumpy Frazer started player development, people said, “Oh, this is going to create champions.” Others say “C’mon, federations cannot produce champions. They might even work against champions.” So what is the role, what is the blueprint for a federation to produce champs?
That’s a great point. I agree. I don’t think federations can produce champions. Federations can create a culture and system that cultivates opportunities for champions. If the system isn’t designed properly and if the collaborative attitude isn’t present in the coaching staff, then that can prevent the development of champions. Or it can create players who are incredibly gifted but who never achieve their full potential. I see the role of the federation is to create a comprehensive system, create a collaborative network of partnership between player development and the private sector, and to create developmental and educational opportunities for all the stakeholders in the system.
We have seen different countries surging at different times, going back to Sweden, Germany or Spain. Now Britain’s doing well. Are there one or two federations the USTA can learn from?
We can learn from all of them. All of them do certain things well. The danger in trying to emulate another federation is that the United States has a very unique culture. there’s no country that’s bigger than we are, there’s no country that has free market enterprise and the tennis academy space like we do. There’s no place that is governed by 17 different USTA sections. College athletics is a uniquely American institution. We have to take the best from different federations, but make sure that we have an approach that is uniquely American.
Being a Californian, I see coaching talents at our big four schools. There’s the legendary Dick Gould at Stanford, Peter Wright at California, Peter Smith at USC and Billy Martin at UCLA…
Look, there are a lot of great coaches on both the men’s and the women’s sides. Those four coaches are great. They do three things really well. One, they are great motivators and leaders, so that’s why they recruit so well, because they’re inspiring to young people. Young people want to play for them and be part of their culture. Two, they’re great tennis coaches. Three, they understand that players who are in college have to balance academics and social life and tennis – they understand how difficult that is and they don’t make it tougher for the players, they make it easier for the players.
One of my big initiatives has been to invest more in college tennis. I don’t think we’ve invested enough in college tennis financially or from a human resource perspective. We’re going to have a press release coming our really soon that talks about some of the new initiatives.
Your takeaway from your time at Stanford with Dick Gould, one of the great American coaches – what was Gould’s greatest attribute?
He made it fun. People in my types of jobs, we forget that it has to be fun.
