PACIFIC LIFE OPEN

March 16, 2002

Nigel Sears

Q. Nice to see two British people sitting in that chair in one day, Nigel?

NIGEL SEARS: Tim had a pretty good day, too, didn't he? I hope he has another good one tomorrow.

NIGEL SEARS: Ten months, yeah.

NIGEL SEARS: Well, I mean, it's obviously thrilling. She really is an exceptional talent. You can see that. But to convert an opportunity like this against somebody like Martina in her first major final is really very special.

NIGEL SEARS: No, I can't honestly say I expected her to win this tournament. I mean, we set a goal of Top 20 this year by the US Open, which I felt was realistic. We said The Championships by October, which would mean Top 16. She's sort of done that in March (smiling). We had to reset. We've now sort of moved that to Top 10. We'll sort of chase that one.

NIGEL SEARS: When she won a whole stack of qualifying matches on the indoor circuit. She played a great match against Jennifer in Toronto, but blew it really through inexperience. I mean, she led a set and 4-1, you know, played great tennis, but just didn't really have a clue on how to finish it. Jennifer came back and overturned her. You know, there was this naivete, I mean, she always went for it, but she was going for it too much. She was losing the balance of when to make her opponents work and when to take risks. You know, the first time I really felt it was coming together was when she won match after match in qualifying on the indoor courts, in the big tournaments in Zurich, Filderstadt, qualified three times in a row, beating solid opponents ranked between sort of 50 and 80 all the time, then came through to the quarters of two of them. She beat Dokic in Leipzig, which was a big win. She lost a tight one to Dementieva. I suppose the next, she won a great first set against Lindsay in the quarters in Zurich, played great tennis, but then fell away badly again. Again, showing this naivete was still there. I think she won something like 24 or 25 matches in a three-week period, singles matches, through the qualifying, making two quarters in Leipzig and Zurich. Obviously, momentum was picking up then. That was a very healthy sign. Then down in Australia, she played a great first set against Henin, and won 6-1 in the Gold Coast, fell away badly again, lost a run of games in a row. You know, you started sort of thinking a little bit, there was the Capriati match, the Davenport match, the Henin match, all sort of big opportunities at another level, and she still wasn't quite able to get that. It's funny, it's ironic, because I was speaking to Mary Joe at the beginning of this week. She was saying, "Things are going well. What do you think is the next step?" I said to her, "She really needs to convert one of these opportunities. It's now time to beat one of the top players." She played Henin, beat Henin. That was a huge stepping stone. Okay, she beat Schett and Raymond, but I always felt she was capable of doing that. The Henin one, I didn't know if she had it in her to do it right now, and she did it. I could see her grow in self-belief right after the Henin match. Once it came to this one, I really can honestly say I felt she had a chance because she has a game to hurt Martina. You know, the people that hurt Martina are the Williams, Davenport, Clijsters. They go for it. They don't allow her to play her game. They take her on. Really, the second serve is there to be hit. The big hitters can do the damage if they find the right balance. Obviously, if they give away too much in the process, then Martina beats them because that's what she's so good at. She's one of the best movers, tacticians out there. You know, you actually have to knock her off the court. So it was a question of whether Daniela could take the risks and make enough shots. That was her chance to win. I'm just delighted that she went out there and she hit the ball so well. Obviously, there was a wobbly moment at 5-2. But, you know, she hung on. Up to that point, I felt she really had dominated. I felt she thoroughly deserved the win. She out-hit Martina. She went for the shots down the line and made a stack of them.

NIGEL SEARS: I think grass is potentially a great surface for her. At the moment she's still got a lot of work to do in the mid-court area on approach shots, and her net game still needs to be an awful lot better, and she needs to be a lot braver coming forward. She can do it. We work on that in practice. It's one thing doing it in practice and then having the guts to do it in a tight situation against a top player. But it will come. I think her serve really lends itself to grass because she's one of the few girls that not only possesses a great kick serve, a very solid kick serve, but she's got the ability to take risks and hit a top slice serve into the body. She can hit the slice serve wide on the second serve in the deuce court as a change-up, as a switch serve. You know, that's a big thing to have an action that's good enough to hit all the different types of serves. She's smart enough to be able to follow her game plan and understand what you're talking about. She's a pleasure from that point of view because you talk to her about something, then she can execute it. You know, there's not many people who can do that.

NIGEL SEARS: I think really the bottom line is she loves the game. She loves doing -- she genuinely loves to play. She comes out every day wanting to get better, wanting to practice. I mean, that is what it is about. I mean, not only is she exceptionally talented, but she works at it as her job because she loves her job, in the same way I do. I love it.

NIGEL SEARS: Well, have you seen the British women (laughter)? I mean, in many ways, it's sad that there isn't somebody in that kind of league, but there really isn't. It's as simple as that.

NIGEL SEARS: After I stopped working with Amanda Coetzer, which was two years ago, David Edgars, who was working for IMG at the time spoke to me and said, "There's a really good girl out of Slovakia. I think you'd be the right person to work with her. I'm going to introduce you to her agent Fabio from IMG." He took me to IMG house. This was two years ago. Actually, I just met Fabio, and we talked. We didn't talk about Daniela at all. I just met him. Nothing came of that meeting. But I met him at that stage and that's when it was first mentioned. Then after that I followed her results. She was still on limited tournaments because of her age and restriction. I saw that she'd done pretty well moving up the list on limited tournaments, which was obviously a good sign. She'd also done well in doubles as a young player, which I also thought was really exciting. In the following March, I got a call directly from IMG. They said, "Are you interested in working with Daniela?" I said, "I would like to meet her and I'd like to see her play. I haven't seen her play yet." So I watched her on television play in Rome when she was in the third round last year against Mauresmo. I remember very clearly that she was 3-Love down in the third, she got back to 3-All, then she lost it. She was going for a whole lot of wide forehands down the tram lines, sort of going for it. I saw her and thought, "She's got stacks of potential. I really like what I see there. Obviously, I've got to meet her. I don't know how we're going to gel and everything else." I got back to IMG and said, "Yes, I am interested in this job. We need to arrange a meeting." They set it up for us to work on a trial basis at Birmingham last year, and for that whole grass court period, Birmingham, Eastbourne, Wimbledon. We sort of would reassess after Wimbledon. She did pretty well at Birmingham. She made semis. We got on very well. In fact, she did well enough there to miss the qualifying at Eastbourne. She couldn't qualify at Eastbourne. She played doubles, made the semis at Eastbourne, good practice week. First week at Wimbledon, she beat Oremans who she lost to at the semifinals at Eastbourne. Then of course she won the mixed doubles at Wimbledon. After that, she asked me if I would keep working her till September, till the US Open, then reassess again. You know, we worked through the summer. Once we got to the US Open, they offered me a year's contract. We sort of now are talking about extending that further. That's how it came about.

NIGEL SEARS: Very, very open, very, very honest, lovely, absolutely lovely. That was exactly what I thought. And I thought, "Here is someone who is really ambitious, but serious about what they want to do." She had a dream of being No. 1. That's one of the first things I asked her. "What do you want out of the game?" "I want to be No. 1." That was an important answer. I've always dreamt of coaching a Grand Slam champion. I think this is the best material I've ever had.

NIGEL SEARS: Well, I think that her basics were excellent when I saw her. I could see she had the foundations, very good serve. There's no question the basic forehand and backhand were pretty good. However, she did need refining. I don't know if anyone saw her a year ago, but she hit the ball very flat both sides. We tried to introduce using softer hands, with more hand on the forehand particularly to get her a bit more shape and control without losing any power. Also on the backhand side, to a degree, although she still hits the backhand a bit flatter, but it's a natural shot. Don't want to mess with that. I haven't changed the service action at all. But we have worked hard on how she uses the serve. She wasn't really aware of body serving, this kind of stuff, how to swing the serve wide. We've worked on refining the technique. The rest of the of the game was actually pretty raw. She has a double-handed slice backhand, which we actually got rid of. She doesn't have the confidence yet. She has what I think is a nice single-handed slice now. She doesn't yet have the confidence to use it in matches. It's something we're working on. In the same way, she had a double-handed backhand volley. We sort of got rid of that. We're working on the single-handed backhand volley, which in practice stands up not bad, but it can be a lot better. You don't see a lot in the matches yet. The smash was pretty good. Didn't have to work on that. Her movement I felt was not good. I still think there's huge room for improvement in that. Does that answer your question? There's no question I picked up a good product. There's absolutely no question. But that's just what I've done in the year or whatever.

NIGEL SEARS: Yeah. Far too long is the first question. I was there in a bunch of different capacities. This is one of the problems there. I think people tend to be used in a diluted way, in a lot of different ways. I was with the men one minute, with the women, I was with the Davis Cup, then 13-year-olds the next minute. As you know, I used to see you at the junior events and things of the -- I'd be at an ITF somewhere with four kids, then central Africa with 28 kids. It was difficult. I suppose the change came when it became more and more frustrating being there. Amanda came over to England, came and stayed at my place and mixed in with some of the guys I was working with at the time, when she played the Brighton tournament. She made the final there. She actually lost to Mary Joe in the final. It was another couple of years later, but when she finished working with Gavin Hopper, I got a call from Amanda. She said, "Are you interested in working with me?" I took it, just went.

NIGEL SEARS: Never regretted it at all.

NIGEL SEARS: My hope is that there's going to be some radical change. I think there's a whole lot of people that have been holding out on hope in this area for a while. Unfortunately, it's a bit of a closed shop. You know, I don't know that the LTA are open enough to opinions outside the LTA.

NIGEL SEARS: I think the problem usually becomes political. I think Federations across the world often get embroiled in politics and get away from the sport being sport and what really matters within the basic sport. That's how I see it. Certainly I feel that's the case in England. It's a whole mixture of personalities and politics. It does need some cleansing. It needs radical action if anything's going to be sorted out.

NIGEL SEARS: I think it's an individual sport. I'm not saying that Federations can't play an important part in the development role of a young talent. Of course, it's such an expensive sport for parents and individual coaches, you know, to take -- to manage to do it practically that you almost certainly need Federation backing at some point to help you along the way. But there's no question that once people get to a certain level, they need that individual attention to get the best out of themselves. I don't think there's any doubt about that.

NIGEL SEARS: I think I've explained that. I think it's for the reasons I've outlined. I spent most of my coaching career on the men's side actually. I worked with the men most of the time in England. It's only in the later years that I was working with women, as well. Then once Amanda sort of approached me, then I became totally on the women's tour. That's only in the last five years.

NIGEL SEARS: I wouldn't say that. There's certainly not people that have developed as Daniela has developed. I'm sure there's talent out there. I mean, you can't tell me there aren't talented kids in every country, because there are. I just think that they've been nurtured badly. I think in England, things are just not being addressed in the right way. I think it's for a whole bunch of reasons. It's not because there's no talent in the kids. I think they could do with changing some personnel, for a start.

NIGEL SEARS: I would like to feel that there was real reason for optimism in the setup there. At the moment, there really isn't. It would need different personnel involved. It would need a proper structure. The way they pay coaches, I don't think it's right. There's no incentives really. It's a strange sort of market there. It's not one -- things would have to be different. I'm not saying never, but I certainly would like to feel that things could move in a more positive direction.