A tennis player demands certain expectations of a coach.
A few of those: to point out any subtle flaws the player has and assess any recently acquired imperfect habits. Another, to offer a third-person vantage point and simultaneously recommend a cure.
And for most successful players, add to that list a mutual understanding with his or her coach of a singular objective – a goal that, without each other, would be impossible to achieve.
Now answer this question: What does a tennis player demand of a coach who is 3,000 miles away?
Robin Anderson has that answer.
Anderson, a junior at UCLA and the No. 2 ranked college singles player in the country, continues to learn from a personal coach she’s had for nearly two decades – her father. Denom Anderson, Robin’s father, just so happens to live across the country in Matawan, N.J., his and Robin’s hometown.
“She is very close with him, she calls him all the time and gets guidance from him,” said UCLA coach Stella Sampras Webster. “He knows her probably the best of anyone and so I think she really appreciates his guidance and uses it to help her tennis.”
His direct involvement in his daughter’s game, however, follows an unfortunate paradox, forcing Denom to become more accepting of his ever-distant coaching presence, the better his daughter becomes at tennis.
To understand more clearly how Robin’s accomplishments dictate new roles for Denom, one needs to start at the beginning.
The dawn of this father-and-daughter tennis duo finds itself derived from necessity, the need for a second player where one couldn’t be found. Denom, in search of a partner to hit balls with at the local tennis courts, turned to a then-4-year-old Robin and decided if he couldn’t find a partner, he’d raise one.
A few years removed from this initial plan, and with much more practice in between, the first spark of Robin’s potential brilliance shined through.
At age 8, Denom overheard of a junior tournament being held and entered his daughter in the field. Albeit only a four-player draw, Robin eventually emerged victorious, the first of what would be many tournament victories for the New Jersey native, all with her dad as coach by her side.
As Robin grew, further developing her tennis game into the high school level, her father’s tennis role began to change from that of a playing partner to more of a traditional interpretation of a tennis coach. Robin’s need for a coach had shifted from a way to introduce her to the game to a means of helping her perfect it.
Entering the tougher competition high school offered, Robin started hitting less and less with her father and instead transferred her training efforts to a club near her house.
Yet when Robin would come up empty searching for a partner to hit with, her father would still come out and practice with her, feeding her balls on either side, ensuring she was always working on new things.
A drastic transformation in coaching tactics was imminent for the duo when Robin’s four years of high school tennis came and went. Robin decided to pursue her college tennis career at UCLA, where she would witness her childhood coach evolve into a derivative of his original presence.
With Denom still residing in New Jersey, the tremendous distance between player and coach presented a unique situation, one that both strengthened and cemented the bond shared between them.
Robin again was forced to adapt her relationship with Denom to accommodate for the lack of his physical presence, as she found herself without him on the sidelines.
After matches, Robin usually calls her father, discussing how the match played out and if anything was off or awkward with her game. Just as he would with his daughter merely 3 feet away, Denom offers up the same remedies and pointers to Robin despite being 3,000 miles apart.
“It frustrates me sometimes and it’s made me really, really good, but my dad is very much a perfectionist and so with repetition over and over and over again of good habits my dad can just look at it and say, ‘You’re not getting below the ball enough,’ or, ‘You’re coming across the ball too much,'” Robin said. “He’s there to reinforce those good habits.”
Although easy enough in theory, the difficulties of not gaining a firsthand account of the actual game play can make Robin’s interpretation of her coach’s advice just that much more difficult.
“It’s not the easiest thing, staying up later to talk to her,” Denom said. “I really don’t like to watch Robin’s matches unless I’m there in person because it’s hard to get a feel about how the ball comes off the racket, and besides, watching it on television makes me more nervous.”
Regardless, the help and advice Robin receives from Denom as both her coach and father continue to shape her game, far beyond what either of them could have seen while hitting foam balls in the living room.
Robin has one more year of eligibility to play for UCLA before she will begin a run at a professional career.
As with the previous separation obstacles before them, Robin’s tennis coaching needs will again have to adapt, although the task of managing a professional athlete offers a completely different set of circumstances.
On one hand, as Robin contemplates, her dad has been her coach for her entire life and knows her tennis game and swing as much as Robin does herself. Denom, on the other hand, knows the possibility of another coach entering the picture is entirely plausible.
“I think she can be a top-50 player or even better than that, but, as a professional, she’s going to need more than what I can do, but I’ll definitely still offer my advice,” Denom said.
For now, at least, the two can relish in all they’ve accomplished as a pair, with Robin currently holding the No. 2 national singles ranking in Division I college tennis and a viable shot at earning an NCAA singles national championship next week.
What has brought them this far, both agree, is an unrelenting belief Denom has shown toward Robin’s tennis game since her first swing of the racket.
“My dad has just believed in me so much,” Robin said. “He’s believed in my tennis so much that he believes I can do really well beyond college.”
“I believed in her more than anyone that could’ve worked with her, and that was the most important thing I could’ve done,” Denom said.
So what exactly is it that a tennis player demands from a coach?
They just simply have to believe.