Chapter 26 Chapter 22 New Team

After "flying solo", the most urgent thing is that I have to start building my own team immediately.With the help of a friend in Hong Kong who loves tennis (because the economic foundation at that time made me unable to pay for the coach), I retained the former national team coach Thomas Hogstedt (Thomas Hogstedt), and he became my coach. The first foreign coach hired by himself. Jiang Shan is naturally also an important member of my team.My team also includes: doctors, physical coaches, technical coaches, therapists, basically these few people.Where the therapist is not with us all the time.His job is mainly to help me with my rehabilitation training, and occasionally take me to practice physical fitness, and we will bring him to the game.Except for Jiang Shan, the cost of all team members is calculated on a weekly basis.So, every year, I talk to the therapist about the whole year and tell them which games they need to come to.

My current therapist is Alex and we have been working together since March 2010 through an introduction from Thomas.Alex follows me all over the world and works about 25-30 weeks a year. His job is to relax and treat me. After training every day, he needs about two hours to treat and massage me. , which facilitates recovery.I haven't had any injuries since he came to my team and I can give myself to the pitch without having to worry about my fitness and I must say he's done a fantastic job. In the early days after flying solo in 2009, because the nutritious meals we ate for a long time were provided uniformly rather than tailor-made for athletes, I had the experience of feeling that my physical strength was not enough.Later, I hired a dedicated nutritionist and fitness teacher, and after a period of conditioning, I slowly recovered.

When I started my solo flight journey, many people were puzzled by this mode of operation, and I didn't say a word about it-I didn't have the time and energy to engage in unnecessary verbal disputes. Facts speak louder than words. Let the gossip die. Before 2008, I felt that I was a member of a big family, and I just had to follow the arrangement of my parents in everything. After flying solo at the end of 2008, having my own team, and becoming a professional player in the true sense, I realized that my old life had completely changed.In the past, everything was managed and arranged.Now you have to do all these things yourself. To put it bluntly, you are the boss of the team and have the right to choose and fire employees. Get the best out of this team.This is no small test for me.

It turns out that when we were in the national team, booking hotels and air tickets were handled by the national team. After the end of 2008, all affairs were handled by ourselves.In the early days of the team’s establishment, we were not very familiar with these processes. At this time, Thomas played a big role. He took the initiative to take on this job, allowing me to devote more energy to training.You can imagine how terrible it is for a coach to sit in front of the computer and type letter by letter to complete the schedule in addition to training. Thomas is a Swedish man in his 40s and a bit bald.It can be said that it was this Swede who really made me enter the professional tennis circle.He is a very active person in training. He is always very energetic on the court and does not know fatigue.From the first day he took me with him, he firmly believed that I could enter the top ten in the world and the top four in the four major open tournaments.He is also the first coach who made me firmly believe that he can enter the top ten in the world.

Thomas has been in this circle for a long time and has a high level of training.When we were in the national team, we had a very harmonious relationship and were very good friends, but at that time Thomas had to take care of all the players and the time he could allocate to me was very limited.After becoming my personal trainer, Thomas and I had in-depth communication several times, and we are both full of confidence in the future. Thomas is a very optimistic person, he likes to chat with people.To be precise, he likes to talk very much. You don’t need to talk a lot when chatting with him. Thomas can analyze the international tennis world with emotion and emotion. Sometimes he walks out of the tennis circle while talking. , training with him is a relaxed and happy thing.But if you keep silent, Thomas will suddenly become alarmed, and he will ask: What do you think?In other words, I've said so much, why don't you say something too?

At this time, I will also say something of my own opinion.Thomas is a patient person when he listens to the opinions of the players. Whether he agrees with your ideas or not, he respects the opinions of the players and is a person who allows the players to have their own will.Foreigners are not as particular about Chinese people. If what I say suits him, Thomas will happily agree immediately. When what I say is different from what he thinks, he will immediately open his mouth to completely overthrow my idea. This style is very similar to Jiang Shan, and he is merciless in his rebuttals.Thomas has a sharp eye and is very professional in analyzing problems. He has given me a lot of good advice.As a coach, Thomas is undoubtedly very good.

What I admire the most about Thomas is his positive attitude. He is a person who dares to break through himself, dares to think and do, as long as he thinks this goal is possible to achieve, he will take the trouble to tell you: You can do it!You should try this!At that time, I had already entered the top 20 in the world. In the eyes of my peers, I had almost reached the peak of my career. Thomas said very decisively: You should be in the top 10 in the world, and you have a chance to win the Grand Slam!Maybe this is the Western way of thinking: constantly giving you confidence and affirmation, constantly reminding you that you can do better, and praising the players.Even if I just lost the game, Thomas came to the court the next day to analyze the successes and failures with me, and he would still add: It’s okay, we lost this time, we will do better next time.

In the two years that Thomas took me, I had a confidence that I never had before.Invincible and invincible cannot be said to be invincible, but I do think I should have the courage to attack to a higher level. For professional tennis players, language skills are very important.South American athletes can easily develop better than Asian athletes because they mostly speak Spanish and French and can communicate well with their European counterparts.My English is relatively good, which is mainly the result of exchanges with foreign teachers in the past two years.Professional players usually get together with their opponents during the game. Good friends will say hello, they will train or do activities together before the game, and sometimes they will encourage each other and talk about their ideas after the game.Basically, all bigger games will have player parties, but I usually only attend those parties that must be attended. After all, I have not fully adapted to other people's circles, and sometimes I need people from the team to accompany me to participate in activities.

Thomas did a great job with the cultural exchange.He has been in this circle for many years and handles interpersonal relationships with ease.During the game, he will take the initiative to help me find the top ten players in the world to train, so that I have more opportunities to contact them.At that time, when I played games, I would arrive a little earlier. For example, if there was a game on Monday, we would arrive at the game site on Friday of the previous week. Then on Saturday and Sunday, Thomas would introduce those top players Get to know me, or help me to ask them to practice together.Before this, as a player ranked 20 or 30 in the world, it was impossible for me to take the initiative to find these top players to learn skills, but Thomas' initiative and enthusiasm made all this possible.These exercises gave me a lot of confidence. After playing a lot, I gradually realized that the distance between me and them was not too far. After the mysterious veil in my imagination was lifted by Thomas, the top ten players I also learned to take the initiative to communicate with them and find them for training, so as to improve my level and truly integrate into this circle.

In addition, Thomas will also take me to meet with the referee.I never thought of communicating with the chief referee before, unless there are some materials to be submitted, I will simply communicate with the chief referee.The attitude of most Chinese players is like this, resulting in a closed state of the Chinese tennis world living in a corner and isolated from the world.Thomas has a strong network in the tennis circle. He took me to contact and communicate with the authority in this circle, and also made Westerners remember my name, breaking the previous closed and ignorant state. For me, This is a big improvement.

We were almost in this state at the beginning of our solo career and during the two-year transition period. From the end of 2008 to 2009, Thomas also took care of another male player. From 2009 to 2010, he focused on bringing me alone.In the first year, he had to take care of things like booking hotels and air tickets. After I signed with the agency at the end of 2009, all these affairs were handed over to the agency. Thomas could focus more on training.In addition to strengthening contact with players and referees, he also helped me hire a massage therapist (because I have bad knees and need treatment between games), introduce doctors, and through his matchmaking, I have come into contact with many excellent insiders. entered the international orbit.