Magical moments of my life in tennis
Tennis has been great to me. In my lifetime I have played so much tennis, hit so many tennis balls, met so many interesting people, and also made quite a bit of money.
Thanks to my wife I have been able to do what I love, teach tennis. I don’t get health insurance, but my wife does. I couldn’t take our daughter to play soccer on Saturday mornings because I had to teach tennis clinics.
Thanks to the two Longwood clubs, the Longwood Cricket Club and the Longwood Covered Courts, I have been able to teach tennis at an historic tennis venue. The history of these two clubs is just phenomenal.
Here are some magical moments of my tennis life that you can read more about in my forthcoming book: My Life In Tennis.
This photo was taken in 1976 at a tennis camp at TK Saab in Linkoping. One day a few old-timers stopped by to talk and play tennis with us kids.
On this picture, Sven Davidson is demonstrating a forehand volley and Rex Hartwig is watching.
Rex won the National Doubles at the Longwood Cricket Club in 1953. 25 years after this picture was taken, one kid in the photo – me – would be the Head Pro at that very same club – the Longwood Cricket Club. A fantastic bridge from past to future. I was 12.
2012 Capital Clash, College Park, MD
The 2012 Capital Clash is one of my highlights as a coach! I was selected to coach a New England 10 and under dream team at a green ball tournament at College Park, MD. The competition was against three other USTA sections.
This team bonded really well, and the players were awesome. You can read in my book about the outcome of the tournament, and how I coached these players. I will also share with you which top 10 player in the world we saw practice at this club, at the age of 14. Events like these often require coaching the parents as much as the kids, and I’ll dive into my approach for managing parental behavior, which can sometimes drift a bit out of control.
Since this tournament in 2012, one of the players played in a US Open qualifier, one player went on the tour. There is quite some interesting stuff here to read about!
At junior tennis tournaments in Sweden, it was standard practice that if you lose a match, you umpire the next one on the same court. In this picture, I must have just lost my match and am now getting ready to officiate the following one.
When entering a tournament, you paid a $2 “umpire fee,” which you earned back once you had umpired your required match. You could also volunteer to umpire additional matches for $1 per set. Over the course of a few days, I could make as much as $20 from umpiring!
As a chair umpire, I called the balls in or out and I also called the score. As chair umpire for exhibition matches at Longwood, the players called the lines, and my job was simply to announce the score. In my book you can read more about all the exhibition matches I have been in the chair for! Did I ever call foot fault on Mats Wilander?
I did my military service in Sweden when I was 19. I served as a team leader for 12 soldiers. I gave orders to my team when we did ambushes, picking up food, packing up and moving 20 miles from A to B on foot, scheduling guards for the fireplace and outside. I got my first taste of what leadership is. I learned quickly not to give in to the squeaky wheel. If I did, it would only backfire later as everyone turned into a squeaky wheel.
I’m holding a machine gun here. It required two soldiers to operate: one to fire and one to guide the ammunition belt. The machine gun was usually kept and transported on a vehicle because it was quite heavy. The weapon I actually carried was the AK 4 leaning against the tree. This picture was very much inspired by Rambo.