Nick Bollettieri, the coach who best understood the business and marketing of tennis

with the death of Nicolas James Bollettieri the best coach of tennis of history, as he himself was able to sell himself during almost all of his life. With the death of Nicolas James Bollettieri left the coach who best understood business and marketing tennis for life.

Nick Bollettieri was a guru. A controversial genius. A coach of champions and legends. A man who breathed tennis during his 91 years. And he did it almost until Monday, the day of his death.

Jim Courier, Andre Agassi, Marcelo Ríos, Boris Becker, Tommy Haas, Monica Seles, sisters Venus and Serena Williams, Maria Sharapova, Anna Kournikova have passed through his famous Bradenton academy, the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy (NBTA). , Mary Pierce and many others.

In the late 1960s, he was related to tennis when he was area manager of the Dorado Beach hotel in Puerto Rico. From there he went to American Florida. And in 1978, on land destined to grow tomatoes, he founded his own academy from scratch, which then became a boarding school to become number 1 in the world.

Agassi, in his great autobiography “Open”, called it “a place that people like to call a military camp, but in reality it is a glorified prison camp”. His tyrannical father, Emmanuel, saw a note about Bollettieri and decided to send his son there. In that note, the boys were seen sleeping in very uncomfortable beds, eating little and even cleaning the facilities.

When Bollettieri saw Agassi, he told his father he could stay for free. That was Bollettieri. He recruited for talent and money. The Las Vegas-born boy had a lot of the former and little of the latter. Over time he shaped it and made it the best of all because he also had a lot of what Bollettieri highlighted most: his competitive spirit.

The same happened with Seles, who arrived one day from the former Yugoslavia. Or with Sharapova, of whom Bollettieri went so far as to say: “You had to kill her to beat her”. The Russian arrived with “$700 rolled up in her pocket,” she said many years later. We also know how that story ended.

Bollettieri had the best eye for spotting big players. He knew a lot about tactics but not about technique (although he developed great drives such as those of the Americans Jimmy Arias and Aaron Krickstein or that of Agassi himself) and was trained with a great secret that he would share over the years in the speeches or courses he gave.

In addition to being a great motivator who has taken his players to impressive heights, he has known how to surround himself with the best. Some “eminences”, as he himself called them. Thus, the best coaches, physical trainers, doctors and sports psychologists have worked with him.

One day he introduced a psychologist who had worked at NASA. It was Jim Loehr. He said: “With this man I will be able to make any player a champion.” And Loehr has become the most recognized psychologist on the circuit, adored and in demand by nearly every star.

Bollettieri has given everything to his players to be successful. And although the best of all coaches was the Australian Harry Hopmann, had the humility to copy many of his things to achieve success. A success that accompanied him until the end of his days.