Our guest writer this week is Hemant Bendrey who shares his experience about this years French Open -
Watching French open the Mecca of Baseline tennis is a dream for all tennis lovers, the place which tests all the aspects of tennis fitness, namely endurance, agility, power, speed and flexibility is Rolland Garros, for me as a tennis coach I always wanted to watch the French open as it was a real test of character. So being appointed on the ITF coaches’ commission which has one of its meetings during the French open was an opportunity for me to fulfill my long aspired dream.
I reached there in the second week of the tournament, this year there were not many casualties in the first week except the Williams Sisters, Nadal and Federer were on the track of reaching the Finals. First two days I was totally engrossed in the meetings of the ITF coaches commission, many points were discussed and action plans decided, some of the points discussed were - Allowing coaching on court, Introducing Super Tie break in ITF juniors apart Grade I and Grade II, Introducing Tennis coaching courses through Universities, Format for World Wide Coaches Workshop, New WADA ( World Anti Doping Agency)rules which are introduced from this Olympic year. Being a ITF tutor I always knew about the professionalism in ITF, but in this meetings I came to know how deeply they think on all aspects concerning tennis. The Best part of attending this meeting was getting an all access accredit ion card, which I was not able to use in the first two days, but from Wednesday I made sure right from the first to last match I was there. It was a great experience watching Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, Almagro, Monphils and our own Mahesh Bhupati not only in matches but during their practice sessions. I made it a point of going and watching the only two Indians who had qualified in the junior main draw, Yuki Bhambri and Poojashree . I got some time to interact with them too; somehow they were not up to the challenge of the Europeans and lost in the initial rounds. Just being there and experiencing the electrifying atmosphere was an experience in itself, but the icing on the cake was yet to come, on Friday all the members of the commission were invited for the world champions dinner, this is a yearly function where number ones in all the category are felicitated , this year it was Roger Federer, Justin Henin, Bryan Brothers and all the world number 1s right from wheel chair to junior tennis, having dinner with such greats was something I cannot express in words, during the dinner I also got an opportunity to interact with Miguel Crespo, Research Director of the ITF, Paul Roetert ( Technical Director, USTA) whose books are like Bible for tennis coaches, they gave a lot of insight on the latest issues and topics concerning world tennis.
So apart from the return Air India flight which got cancelled, the experience which I had will be cherished by me throughout my life.
Hemant Bendrey
( Member ITF Coaches Commisssion)
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