$15K Thailand Women's ITF Tour - May 1/7 2018

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Re: $15K Thailand Women's ITF Tour - May 1/7 2018

Post by VReddy »

Suresh, Jay : Yuki is still with his coach from Nick Bolliterri right? While that academy may have many faults (purely going by sentiment on our forum in general, i do not have the necessary knowledge myself), if Yuki moved with his coach, then atleast he got the right mentorship from his assessment right? Coach is a major piece and atleast he appears happy with that part of the puzzle.
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Re: $15K Thailand Women's ITF Tour - May 1/7 2018

Post by PKBasu »

Yuki has never travelled with a Bolletieri coach, to my knowledge. His coach is Aditya Sachdeva in Delhi. Occasionally gets coached by Bolletieri staff when he visits the academy. Recently, he’s taken on Thomas Koon from the academy in Bangkok.
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Re: $15K Thailand Women's ITF Tour - May 1/7 2018

Post by VReddy »

FYI Stephen Koon was Yukis coach at the Bolliterri. Feel free to disagree. This discussion is going the same way as my comment about TNTA support which i heard in my player interviews.

He didn't travel with Yuki but he was Yukis coach there and now set up his own academy in Asia
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Re: $15K Thailand Women's ITF Tour - May 1/7 2018

Post by jayakris »

Actually I am not sure if Stepehn Koon was at Bollitieri's during the time when Yuki was actually spending extended time at Bolletieri's, around 2008. He was in California or somewhere, and was the coach of the guy that Yuki beat in the Orange Bowl grade-A final in late 2008. Stephen joined NBTA in 2009 (as per his resume) and was there only for the next couple of years. He probably interacted with Yuki, and may have even coached him a bit in 2009 but Yuki was playing pros by then. I don't know if he went back for extended training at NBA after that. Aditya Sachdeva was Yuki's coach from before NBTA, and he continued to be Yuki's traveling coach after that too. If I am not mistaken, Yuki hooked up with Stephen much later and it does seem to have helped. Aditya himself deserves a lot of credit too. If he wasn't a good coach, Yuki woldn't have kept him for so long.

Anyway, I think Koon has been good for Yuki, but I still don't know if NBTA helped all that much. Yuki's serve stayed just the same from before he went there, to after the stint there as a junior. His weight and physical training also stayed pretty much the same, and I remember Coach Sachdeva talking much later about still needing to work on his weight and physical durability. And I remember wondering what the heck they were doing with Yuki at NBTA, when everybody and his uncle knew what he needed to work on. The same kind of thought that we all have about RamK's backhand and what the heck the Spaniards were doing with that.

Generally, my criticism against such big-name academies is that they are often money-making ventures. Too much flash, and too little personal attention unless you are one of those super-talented kids with big tools who are making noise by age 15. Many good kids routinely get lost in the shuffle at such places. Where I think the academies do help is that one would get to set up contacts with a lot of people, and build the confidence that one is also part of the top-level guys. Such things are useful later. That kind of thing did probably help Yuki too, so it as not all bad. But then again, as I always say, what do I know -- I don't even play tennis!
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Re: $15K Thailand Women's ITF Tour - May 1/7 2018

Post by sameerph »

To be fair to Yuki & NBTA, I think he did not have long stints at NBTA like RamK had with Spanish academy. RamK almost stayed for a couple of years at least, I think ( coming to India only for a few months in between). Most likely his coaches there also travelled to some of the numerous futures he played at that time to notice what is lacking in his game. Yuki always had short month or two month kind of stints on and off with no tournament player. Perhaps not so easy to fix flaws in serving technique. I am more pissed off that Spanish guys could not work on his weak backhand when he was there for such a long time.
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Re: $15K Thailand Women's ITF Tour - May 1/7 2018

Post by VReddy »

Thanks for that detail, Jay. Very useful info as usual. Good point about our guys not being the marquee players for these academies and so not getting as much attention as they need.

On the topic of Koon, Yuki has mentioned in couple of interviews that they have both known / worked with each other for about 7 years.
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Re: $15K Thailand Women's ITF Tour - May 1/7 2018

Post by bujilover »

Ramya Natarajan's FQR match is being streamed live. For a $15K ITF event, this is such a beautiful venue and streaming Q matches live in addition makes it grand :notworthy:
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Re: $15K Thailand Women's ITF Tour - May 1/7 2018

Post by jayakris »

Yes, a nice venue for that THA F1... But Ramya Natarajan, who was the top seed in the qualies, got upset in Q3 by the same unranked 17 year old Taiwanese who upset her last week when she retired in Q3, and had upset Bhuvana Kalva 60 62 in Q2 here as well.

[Q1] (1) Ramya NATARAJAN (IND) BYE
[Q1] Bhuvana KALVA (IND) d. Hsin-Yuan SHIH (TPE), 62 61
[Q1] Ai KAMIYOSHIHARA (JPN) d. Avika SAGWAL (IND), 64 75
[Q1] Maree Teiwa CASEY (AUS) d. Radhika YADAV (IND), 62 75
[Q1] Sakura HOSOGI (JPN) d. Niditra RAJMOHAN (IND), 61 62

[Q2] (1) Ramya NATARAJAN (IND) d. Yu SHAN (CHN), 62 61
[Q2] Bhuvana KALVA (IND) l. Yi Tsen Cho (TPE,NR), 06 26

[Q3] (1) Ramya NATARAJAN l. Yi Tsen Cho (TPE,NR), 26 64 16

Terrible show in the main draw also by our girls... Zeel again falters. I think she must be having some physical issue that bothered her. I don't think she would fall apart like this for pure tennis reasons.

[R1] Sowjanya BAVISETTI (IND,1103) l. (7) Chang LIU (CHN,815), 16 26
[R1] (5) Zeel DESAI (IND,683) l. Mananchaya SAWANGKAEW (THA,1211), 62 75 16
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Re: $15K Thailand Women's ITF Tour - May 1/7 2018

Post by sameerph »

I too think Zeel may be affected by something. Else, losing to a 15 year old after winning the first set comfortably does not make sense.

Natasha's expected loss completed a miserable week in singles here for us.

[R1] Natasha PALHA (IND,939) l. (3) Nudnida LUANGNAM (THA,606) 26 36
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Re: $15K Thailand Women's ITF Tour - May 1/7 2018

Post by PKBasu »

jayakris wrote: Sun May 06, 2018 12:42 am Actually I am not sure if Stephen Koon was at Bollitieri's during the time when Yuki was actually spending extended time at Bolletieri's, around 2008. He was in California or somewhere, and was the coach of the guy that Yuki beat in the Orange Bowl grade-A final in late 2008. Stephen joined NBTA in 2009 (as per his resume) and was there only for the next couple of years. He probably interacted with Yuki, and may have even coached him a bit in 2009 but Yuki was playing pros by then. I don't know if he went back for extended training at NBA after that. Aditya Sachdeva was Yuki's coach from before NBTA, and he continued to be Yuki's traveling coach after that too. If I am not mistaken, Yuki hooked up with Stephen much later and it does seem to have helped. Aditya himself deserves a lot of credit too. If he wasn't a good coach, Yuki woldn't have kept him for so long.
This should be in Yuki's thread :Offtopic:

Anyway, it is clear that Stephen Koon was not at Bolletieri's during Yuki's early stints there (he was, instead, in Singapore of all places!). They must have met in 2009-11 (as Jay points out) when Koon was based there. But it is interesting that Stephen Koon's profile page emphasizes Yuki as one of the key players he has produced:

http://www.impactsportsclub.com/course/ ... rofile.php

That is always a good thing. I thought Chung was his main coaching ward, but clearly not. He also had Lu Yen-Hsun as a player he was coaching, but now Yuki is ranked higher than Lu for the first time in his career. If Stephen Koon does become Yuki's coach formally, it may be a good thing.
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Re: $15K Thailand Women's ITF Tour - May 1/7 2018

Post by VReddy »

True, I was just doing a initial rebute on the point: "Has any of our players ever really benefited from coaching or advice from Nick Bollitieri?". Additionally, if Yuki kept going there again and again even before he found Mr Koon, that means Aditya Sachdeva may have found the stints by Yuki rewarding enough to keep sending him there.

I do agree with Jay's point though that in big academies, our kids can easily get lost if they are not the marquee players for the academy, they may not get as much attention. Hope Ankita/Sanaa & Mr. Aditya were on top of it during those days.
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Re: $15K Thailand Women's ITF Tour - May 1/7 2018

Post by sameerph »

sameerph wrote: Tue May 08, 2018 4:59 am I too think Zeel may be affected by something. Else, losing to a 15 year old after winning the first set comfortably does not make sense.
Looks like that 15 year old Thai Mananchaya Sawangkaew is really a talented one. She has gone on to win the title this week after beating Zeel in the first round beating third seed Luangnam and top seed Thamchwat on the way.
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