New role for Rafter
Posted by RSVP on
Only a few days into his first official coaching job, Pat Rafter realised the job was actually quite hard work.The Australian tennis legend was this year appointed captain of the Optus Australian Junior Davis Cup team and in April guided the team to a fourth place finish at the Junior Davis Cup Asia/Oceania Qualifying Event in Shepparton, Victoria.
The result secured the Aussies a spot in the Junior Davis Cup World Final, which will be held in Mexico later this year, and gave Rafter a taste of leading a national team.
"Three matches every day for six days. It was pretty intense and pretty tiring by the end, that's for sure," Rafter said.
"I've never done this before so it was a good learning experience for me - knowing what I should say and what I shouldn't say and when I should keep quiet and when I should sort of get a bit stroppy with them."
"You learn a fair bit , mainly it is really to do with personalities because you can see certain things happening in a match but to give the right advice to that type of personality is the hardest bit so that's sort of what I've been playing with and going on what I think is right and then learn the hard way if I'm wrong."
Rafter was part of Australia's Davis Cup team for eight years and said he learnt a lot from the advice given to him by team captains John Newcombe and John Fitzgerald.
"Newk was a great captain and I had Fitzy as well for a while on the sideline so you learn things from different players and you try to take the best out of it as what you think and apply it to my job right now," he said.
"It's always interesting to see if your tips will work on the other kids as well. One thing is that my tip might not be exactly right for them so I've got to try and understand the way they play and their personalities and try and work the tips that I give them into both those equations."
"Sometimes I have too much information to give and I've got to be careful it all doesn't come out and confuse the boys so it's a learning experience for me as well."
After spending several hours captaining the team on court each day during the qualifying event, Rafter regularly took his team of Luke Saville, Joey Swaysland and Todd Volmari straight to the practice court to work on various areas of their game.
The Queenslander, who reached the world No.1 ranking in 1999, said it was vital to instil good training habits early in a player's career.
"I think you've got to be hard at this age, you've got to tell these kids how it's going to be," he said.
"There's a time you can be hard in Davis Cup but these kids you have to be hard on because they're at that age with adolescence and they just think they're going to become a player because they're one of the best players in Australia. The reality is that's not the case at all."
Tennis Australia's Director of Tennis Craig Tiley said it was hugely beneficial for the juniors to get the opportunity to work closely with someone as experienced and knowledgeable as Rafter.
"Pat being our Junior Davis Cup captain added tremendous value to the experience for the young players. His sportsmanship, work ethic and humility are all the same qualities we want our young players to have.
"Pat understands what it takes to be a great player and he can offer that expertise to all of our young players."
As for whether Rafter plans to do anymore coaching work in the future or maybe link up with the senior Optus Australian Davis Cup team, he said "never say never, mate".