Guest Episode: No Challenges Remaining with Courtney Nguyen

During the month of August, the Burn It All Down crew is taking a break from regular weekly Tuesday episodes. In their place, you will hear an episode of a podcast hosted by a guest of Burn It All Down.

This week's episode is from the tennis podcast No Challenges Remaining co-hosted by Courtney Nguyen and Ben Rothenberg. This is a conversation from May 2020 with Sandra Zaniewska, a rare former WTA player who now coaches on the tour (or did before the tour stopped, anyhow), working first with Petra Martic and now with Alize Cornet.

They discuss finding meaning during the shutdown, her own journey through the sport as a player and a coach, how coaches can cope with this stoppage, what she makes of Dominic Thiem's controversial comments, and her own nascent adventures in podcasting.

Follow No Challenges Remaining on Twitter at https://twitter.com/NCR_Tennis

To subscribe to their Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/nochallengesremaining

Courtney's twitter: https://twitter.com/FortyDeuceTwits

Ben's twitter: https://twitter.com/BenRothenberg

Transcript

Jessica: During this month, August 2020, the Burn It All Down crew is taking some time off to rest and retool the show. In place of our regular weekly Tuesday episodes, we are bringing you episodes from podcasts hosted by guests of Burn It All Down. We hope you enjoy, and we’ll be back soon. As always, burn on, not out.

Lindsay: Hi everyone, Lindsay Gibbs here. I am very excited to be joined by Courtney Nguyen. This week’s guest episode is No Challenges Remaining, which is hosted by Courtney and Ben Rothenberg. Courtney, can you introduce yourself and tell us how long you have been doing NCR? What’s the podcast about?

Courtney: Thank you for having me, Lindsay, it’s great to see you. Obviously just your face, as of right now. [Lindsay laughs] So, Ben and I have co-hosted the podcast called No Challenges Remaining probably for, gosh, I think since 2012 I wanna say, 2012-2013. Basically it’s a tennis podcast. Both of us at the time were freelance tennis journalists; Ben still is. I work for the WTA actually, as a writer. We just obviously are obsessed with tennis, we talk about tennis all the time, we talk about it in a certain way that is pretty irreverent and doesn’t take itself too seriously, and also trying our best t kind of keep the sport honest with itself and I would not kind of buy into too many of the tropes that kind of get sold in this sport and try to look at it critically. So that was kind of the origins of things, and we would have these kinds of conversations all the time, like, at bars, in the car, things like that. There just came one day where it just dawned on us as it dawns on anyone who’s ever started a podcast, “Hey, why don’t we record this? People might wanna hear it.” You know?

Lindsay: I do, I do. That sounds familiar. I love it, been a listener since 2012. So what is this particular episode about that we’re gonna hear today?

Courtney: During the shutdown we had an opportunity to talk to one one of the coaches on the WTA tour, a former player named Sandra Zaniewska, and she is awesome. She is a former Polish player…Well, she’s still Polish. [laughter] But yeah, she’s a Polish player, recently retired, still relatively young – she unfortunately kind of walked away from the game more due to injuries and things like that. But last year she had kind of a breakout coaching season with a player named Petra Martić from Croatia who made the semifinals at the French Open, had a career season. One of the reasons why we love talking to Sandra is she’s incredibly charismatic, very knowledgable, and has a really really interesting coaching philosophy. But also because women coaches on the WTA tour are not the norm; the vast majority of coaches, not just in the WTA but in the sport generally from the grassroots level all the way through the pro level, are male. She is one of the few women coaches on the pro tour coaching a top player as well, Matrić, in the top 20 now. Although she doesn’t coach her anymore, she now coaches Alizé Cornet of France, but she’s another top player.

Lindsay: Ooh!

Courtney: I know, it’s fun. It’s a fun pairing.

Lindsay: That is a fun pairing.

Courtney: Yeah. It was really fun to sit and talk to her about what she’s been up to in the shutdown and, again, just her coaching philosophy and talking about how tennis players have handled at that point in time the shutdown – the idea of individual responsibility within tennis, which is a sport that is very individualistic.

Lindsay: That’s exciting. We wanna get everyone right into the episode, but quickly: I know you all have a Patreon now. 

Courtney: We do.

Lindsay: How can people find you and support NCR?

Courtney: Yes. We launched a Patreon a couple years ago and have been completely humbled by the support, especially right now during the pandemic. Like I said, I have a full-time job with the WTA so financially the pandemic hasn’t affected me; obviously Ben is a freelancer and it has impacted him, so every little bit has counted and he’s done a great job of coming up with exclusive content for Patreon users. But yeah, you can find us at patreon.com/nochallengesremaining, if you can support us. We’ll try and give you some wacky, exclusive content to reward you, like, we played Code Names, the board game, with tennis players and with other journalists. It’s been fun.

Lindsay: It’s very fun. And then on Twitter it’s, what, @NCR_Tennis? Is that correct?

Courtney: Correct, yeah. We’re at @NCR_Tennis. You can also follow Ben @BenRothenberg and you can follow myself @FortyDeuceTwits. As tennis is about to kind of be taking over the airwaves in a lot of ways for the next three weeks with the three week bubble in New York culminating with the US Open, if you’re interested in tennis…Serena’s march towards 24 and everybody’s hot takes about all of that and who’s playing and who’s not, then we’ll definitely keep you in the loop on all those fronts.

Lindsay: I think it’s safe to say that the Burn It All Down crew is interested in Serena Williams, that’s one thing that I think I can…I don’t like to speak for everyone, but I feel pretty safe with that. Well, thanks so much, Courtney. Flamethrowers, enjoy this guest episode.

Ben: Welcome to No Challenges Remaining, I’m Ben Rothenberg. I’m joined by my dear friend, Courtney Nguyen. Hi, Courtney.

Courtney: Hello, Benjamin.

Ben: And we are also joined by another friend of ours from the tour, the coach Sandra Zaniewska, who is joining us via Skype from Poland. I heard, Sandra, you just played tennis – is that still a thing people do?

Sandra: Yes! Apparently it is, at least here. [laughs] Hello.

Ben: Let’s start with the most recent stuff first and we’ll get more into your story and how we know you from tour and everything. But you’ve started playing tennis again, that’s exciting. We’re recording this on May 12th, and people are playing tennis. 

Sandra: Yeah, exactly. I mean, Poland has been on lockdown for quite a while. When I came back from the States I had to stay in quarantine for two weeks – that’s actually still mandatory for everyone that’s coming back from abroad. So after the two weeks of being locked up in the house I went out and it was still pretty much illegal to go anywhere except for like emergency and groceries. But since the 1st of May, a week now and a bit, yeah, we’re able to play tennis – outside only, so we have to count on good weather, which has been okay so far. But for example last night it snowed–

Courtney: Oh!

Ben: Wow.

Sandra: You never know what’s going to happen this year, I feel like. But yeah, we’re allowed to play and it feels good to be back on court. 

Ben: Does it feel foreign? Because our lives have been so disrupted by this. I’m just curious for whenever I have to get back to whatever it is I do in the world, if I’ll remember how to do it. Did it feel like you’d been away longer than actually the amount of time ways? Because I know there’d been times in your life when you did not play tennis for a month or six weeks or something.

Sandra: Yeah, for sure. Also, I don’t play tennis so often now either, it’s just like I’m on the court every day coaching, but it’s not so much that I’m playing tennis for myself. So it’s a nice change. Of course everything’s hurting…Yesterday I played for the first time and my cool down was longer than the practice, actually. [laughs] I need the stretching, I need the rolling, but it’s fun, you know? I played again and it feels different, but it doesn’t really feel foreign. It’s been a long break but I’ve been busy as well doing a lot of things at home so it’s okay. It doesn’t feel that bad, at least not yet.

Courtney: Sandra, I’m curious – you said two week quarantine being mandatory, staying inside; you’ve often when we’ve talked said how kind of hyperactive you are and there’s a lot of energy to burn off, so what was that like kind of not being able to go outside, to be active? Did you kind of come out of it okay, like, mentally and physically? Or was it a struggle?

Sandra: The first couple of days I was struggling with the jet lag, and it was actually one of the worst jet lags I’ve had in my life. [Courtney laughs] One day I went to bed at 2am and I woke up at 3pm! I had no idea what was going on, where am I, what timezone I’m in, nothing. Obviously it was tricky because during the quarantine in Poland the police can check up on you every single day, and if you cannot sort of show yourself in the window or at the door you’ve got a big problem, you’ll be fined. So I woke up and I had, like, 800 missed calls from my family and friends, you know? I was like, oh my god, just hope that there’s no unknown numbers, you know, that the police really hasn’t come here and checked on me. Which, the case was they didn’t, so I was lucky, but everybody was worried, like, “How can you sleep til 3pm!?” I’m like, I dunno! I had never happened to me before in my life.

So the first couple of days was fighting the jet lag and then later on…I’m lucky I had a garden, so I was working out in the garden. Courtney, you can check on Instagram, and there you’ll see one of the workouts…I’m using water bottles and whatever I found at home to do that. Obviously I couldn’t even get out to get groceries, so I had my friends doing that. I’m very grateful to have people around me that can help me with doing that. The rest of the time, I mean, I was really active, reading a lot, working on some new projects for myself. Everything was obviously still so new, but I often found that I didn’t really have enough time during the day to do all that I wanted to do. So I was still hyperactive, just not physically as much.

Courtney: Good to hear you’re still you!

Ben: Yeah. [Sandra laughs] So to get just a little background for listeners who don’t know your story as well on what has made you you, you were a player on your. I guess, can you just sort of talk about your playing career first, and then how you decided to stop playing? 

Sandra: Yeah, well I’ve been playing for quite a bit. I started when I was 10 years old; it was really accidental, actually. I was very active and I wanted to skateboard because my brother did skateboarding and I was begging my mom to get me one. She was like, “No, I don’t want you to do that, it’s not girly. You should do something else, something that girls do”

Ben: Aw.

Sandra: I was like, well, I just wanna skateboard. Finally I convinced her. We went to a store to buy the skateboard and there she met a friend who she didn’t see for like years and years, and you know they’d been catching up and she asked, like…My mom asked her friend, like, “What is your son doing?” And she said, “My son’s playing tennis.” My mom was like, “Well, there you go! I’ll take you to the tennis court.” I was like, oh god, no! Again, some stupid idea! But then we head to the tennis court and it turned out that I actually liked it quite a lot. I was progressing quite fast and, yeah, it just sort of went on from there but I never really planned on playing professionally. It was so natural when I was 16 years old, I think, playing the French Open juniors. My mom came with me and I beat the #1 seed in the second round over there and I think this was first moment in my life that I actually realized like, hey, I think I really wanna do this for a living. I think I really wanna go for it.

So I think it was pretty late…My mom was always telling me, you know, if you don’t enjoy it anymore you can stop, I just want you to be happy. So I really had no pressure, it was really easygoing from my parents’ side. Yeah, I started playing professional. The first couple of years on tour were quite up and down for me, but I was also traveling by myself mostly, without a coach, so I think that made it a bit tougher on me. Then finally when I was 20 I got into qualifying for the grand slams. I qualified…The only grand slam that I ever played was Wimbledon in 2012. Also that year I started getting injured. I started playing more matches, winning more, and also getting injured, and from then on my career was quite up and down, pretty much, with injuries. So I was playing, stopping, playing again and stopping. It was quite frustrating. A lot of different things around the lower back area.

Then at one point Petra was coming back – Martić, my previous player I worked with before – she was coming back to play. I knew her from the tour before and she asked me if I wanted to do a couple of weeks with her. I was like, yeah, sure, why not. I was quite frustrated with the way things were going with my body, but I didn’t really know what else I wanted to be doing, even though I tried a couple of other things…But that’s a different story. Then yeah, somehow it went that way from there. From a couple of weeks it became full time and, well, here I am now on the tour in a completely different role. 

Ben: Yeah. So, the player you beat in the second round of the French Open was Laura Robson, the top seed. Is that right?

Sandra: Yes.

Ben: Oh wow, okay. Another past NCR guest, actually, Laura Robson. So we’ve spoke before about your journey getting into being a coach on tour, but there’s still a lot of…You didn’t think this was possible when you stopped, because you were telling me when we talked last year with the French Open, almost exactly a year ago, when you were saying that you just didn’t see many female coaches on tour. So when you stopped playing you didn’t think it was a possibility, really, to become a full time coach even on the WTA tour. I’m just curious if you could explain to people your thinking on that, or your assumption of that, and then how you were sort of able to change your mind and your perceptions of what’s possible? 

Sandra: Yeah, exactly. I mean, honestly, I didn’t even wanna be a coach. It always seemed to be like a really lonely job. I was like, well, I could do anything in life but the last thing I’m gonna do is be a tennis coach. So ironically enough, this is what I am now. But I wouldn’t change it for anything. The reason why I didn’t wanna be a coach was, yeah, like I said, first of all it’s such a lonely job – you’re away so often, you can lose your job at any time, which is also not great if you’re thinking long-term security in your life. I already had had enough of that, because as a player it’s the same – you get injured, you stop earning money, back to square one.

Then on top of that I was a female, I mean, I am a female. Yeah. You just don’t see female coaches almost at all, so I figured like, okay, there’s just no way it’s gonna happen. Then somehow it actually worked out and here I am now. I wouldn’t change it for anything. I think that there are probably a number of reasons why we don’t have that many female coaches on the tour, and I think one of them is simply the fact that, you know, females, I guess, they prefer to stay at home at one point when they have kids, they don’t wanna travel as much anymore. It’s still sort of a stereotype that the woman stays at home and the man is the one that works. I think it definitely has something to do with that.

But second of all I think that we just don’t have enough female leaders in the world in general, you know? Then when you think of a coach, of a tennis coach, you just really think of men, you don’t think of a woman. Then players see it that way as well. They think of a coach, they think men have authority and women don’t have as much of it. I think that’s a bit misleading, and I don’t think we should look at it gender-wise and I hope that’s going to change, I hope that one day players will see that actually female coaches can also give them value, but at the end of the day I don’t wanna differentiate because to me a coach is a coach. It doesn’t matter to me whether a coach is a female or it’s a male. The only thing I would want as a player is to see if a coach can give me value. That’s it.

Ben: Yeah. Did you ever have a female coach during your own playing days?

Sandra: Yes, I did – two. 

Ben: So for you it was already a relatively familiar concept for you, I guess?

Sandra: Yeah. Like I said, for me it didn’t really matter. Actually, yeah, it was easier for me to communicate with women, so with female coaches it was a little bit easier. But then again, I had them at the end of my career, so I was a little bit older. I don’t think I could compare it to when I was a teenager, you know, because then I was a different person, I was a bit younger, I was treating coaches more…In a different way. When you’re an older player it’s more of a partnership, when you’re younger the coach is the one that tells you more what to do all the time. Later on you try to figure things out together. So it’s a bit different, I don’t think I can really compare that. But it didn't really matter to me ever whether it was a male or a female. The only thing that was important for me, like I said, was what they could teach me, what I could get from them.

Courtney: What surprised you the most…Because you said that you were obviously hesitant to go into coaching initially and thought that it might be lonely and things like that, you know. Given how much you do enjoy it, what surprised you the most once you got into it that maybe you didn’t expect that you would like certain aspects of the job as much as you do?

Sandra: What surprised me and kind of scared me also was how I’m used to traveling, and then I was like, oh my god, am I ever going to get rid of that in my life? Am I ever going to be able to come back to one place and actually be there for more than a week or two or three? [laughter]

Courtney: We’re all wondering that now!

Ben: Exactly, here comes corona! Exactly. We’ll find out now.

Sandra: But you know what, actually right now I don’t mind, but I’m doing a lot of things, so maybe that’s why. But then again, right now we’re sitting at home and we’re just waiting for the news of when we’re gonna be able to get back there. I think that if they’re going to tell us, like, hey, it’s going to be January, we’re all going to be very very upset and sad and frustrated. But right now it’s like, okay, July, you know? So it’s probably going to be August, and I guess if they keep on moving it this way it just feels different, you know what I mean? The hope is different, the way you look at it.

Courtney: You don’t want them to dash your hope.

Sandra: Nah.

Courtney: Because some players are like, let’s just call it; other people are like, no no no, let’s keep trying. Everybody kind of has a different perspective on it. 

Sandra: Yeah, I’m not really thinking about it that much – actually at all, you know? I’m like, okay, smart people are taking care of that, let’s leave it up to them and they’ll tell us when we’re able to get back. I’m trying really not to speculate because every time I start thinking about it I feel helpless, you know?

Courtney: Yeah.

Sandra: It’s like, what’s the point? It feels to me like a waste of time to do that. So I don’t even go there anymore. It was like this in the beginning when Indian Wells was cancelled and all that a couple of weeks after that, but right now I’m just waiting for the news and whatever the news is gonna be I’m going to adjust. I think it’s better for people if they move it gradually. That’s my opinion.

Courtney: Yeah. You had mentioned obviously Indian Wells, and you and I had talked and you had stuck around in the States for a while after Indian Wells was cancelled and spent some time in Chicago with your, aunt, right? I think. 

Sandra: Yes. I also went for a little road trip in California, Arizona. Yeah.

Courtney: Yeah, your solo Thelma & Louise trip through California, through the west. But your aunt is a healthcare professional, right? A nurse, or a doctor?

Sandra: Yes, a doctor, yeah.

Courtney: I’m just kind of curious about that experience of staying with her for however long that you were with her before you were able to get back to Poland. Do you feel like that gave you a different perspective on kind of what is happening right now globally?

Sandra: Well my aunt was one person, but my parents are also doctors. So here I am, back…I mean, I’m not staying with them, but we’re close, we’re talking every day. Yes and no, you know? It’s a tough subject, it’s a really hard subject, and one that I don’t like to get into because…I don’t wanna say that I’m not interested because I am, of course it’s a very important issue in the world, but at the same time I feel like I’m not competent enough to do anything with it, and to me if I feel like I’m not competent enough to help that or do anything with that then I’m looking for what I can do for myself and for the world so that in this time it can be better. So I’m not following the news. Of course at the start when I came to Chicago and I was with my aunt and we talked a little bit about this whole situation, but it was maybe only one evening and we didn’t talk about it anymore. Here I am with my parents; sometimes they call me and they tell me there’s some restrictions going on and that I should watch out, like for example we have now mandatory masks in Poland, and my mom called me and she’s like, “Hey, please get a mask, it’s mandatory now to wear it outside.” I didn’t even know because I’m not watching the news at all, so I’m not following what’s going on that much.  

Courtney: Gotcha. No, that makes sense. I’m very similar to you, to be quite honest. I think I was following it a lot early on and it just got to the point where it was costing me probably mentally more than it was benefiting me to be as engaged and informed. So for me it’s like, what is my city doing, what is my county doing, what is my state doing, and then that’s it.

Sandra: Yeah.

Courtney: I don’t have the mental energy at the moment to really care about anyone else. That sounds so cruel, but it’s not that, it’s just that it doesn’t matter. Right now it’s kind of trying to get through each day, you know?

Sandra: Yeah, but you know I don’t think it’s really not caring about anyone else, I think it’s more that, “What can we do anyways?” You know? We consume that information, it’s coming to us all the time, but can we really do anything about it, like on a collective level? No, not at all. Then I think the question is like, okay, do we wanna engage in this, engage in this constant exchange of information and every second new stuff coming at us, or do we wanna just take that time and use it in a better way? In a way that, yeah, is gonna help us grow, and in a way that we can contribute to the world through the things we know best, you know? For me it’s tennis, for me it's talking about it, thinking about it, thinking about how I can be better for myself and for my player, all that. Yeah, I think that’s probably the best way to use that time.

Ben: Sandra, can you take us back to Indian Wells, what it was like at the moment that you heard the tournament was cancelled? Sort of the events that unfolded for you professionally after that?

Sandra: [laughs] The way I heard the tournament was cancelled was Alizé texting me,  “CAN YOU BELIEVE THEY CANCELLED INDIAN WELLS?” and me reading the message like, you gotta be kidding me! This is probably some prank or something, it cannot be happening. She’s like, “No! It’s really happening! Come on, pick me up! We have to make a plan.” I was like, wow, are you kidding me? This is crazy. Because obviously she found out from social media. So I picked her up and I was like, it’s okay, don’t panic, it must be some prank. It can’t be true – they would’ve let us know, right? In some different way than reading it on Twitter or Facebook. But obviously it’s true and, yeah, the first hours, the first days I think for me I was in shock because I was in disbelief. I was like, nah, this can’t be happening. It’s too big an event for anything to happen. But then at the same time a couple weeks before that I was saying, yeah, probably they’re going to cancel the tournaments because it cannot just go on like this. I don’t even know what I was thinking at the very start, to be honest. I think it was quite a shock for me.

Then the day after we had the WTA meeting and before that we went on the court with Alizé just to have a bit of fun and, yeah, it was quite tricky, you know? We didn’t know what to do. We didn’t know whether we should stay, whether we should go back, come back from Miami. At the meeting they told us that Miami is planning to operate even without spectators. They were like, it’s most probably going to happen. I was sitting at that meeting thinking, no way, there’s no way this is going to happen. If they cancelled Indian Wells they’re probably going to cancel Miami and everything after that. But then you’re thinking one thing, you’re hearing the other, and at the same time you have no idea. It was quite tricky. Alizé, she wanted to go back home, she was like, “If there’s no tournament then I’m not sticking around.” I was like, yeah, fair enough. I mean, that’s up to you, your decision. We just gotta see what’s going to happen. But I was betting on Miami not happening as well. So she left. I stayed on my solo trip, which was awesome, by the way! And yeah, that’s it.

We’ve just been in touch with Alizé and kind of taking it day by day because that’s what was happening at the time. At one point – I don’t even remember when – they cancelled Miami and then Charleston and then everything else after that. It just kept rolling downhill and, yeah, we’ve been in suspense ever since. For Alizé she’s been stuck at home for the last six weeks, she wasn’t allowed to go out for more than 1km away so no tennis, obviously. Today was the first day they could actually go out and play…No, sorry, yesterday, but the weather was bad. So today she was first time on the court and yeah, that’s what it is. Waiting it out.

Ben: In the early days when things were happening, were you telling Alizé to keep training like it's normal, to focus more on fitness, to try to find a court somewhere or just sort of hang up the racquet and wait? What was your initial strategy and thought about what to do when things started stopping suddenly?

Sandra: It obviously depends on, you know, when tennis is getting back. But because we knew it wasn’t getting back anytime soon, a month or two, my idea was to leave the racquet. It makes to sense to hit every day. It’s okay if she hits like once or twice a week, you know, and just keeps in shape. Just do fitness. She told me that in five week she had only two days off. I’m like, okay, this is crazy! 

Ben: Wow.

Sandra: Like, you are crazy! But obviously that’s her discipline, and this is also one of the reasons why she’s such a good player for such a long time. She’s just able to do that herself at home without anyone telling her to do that, anyone pushing her. Right now, again, in my eyes it’s okay to hit just twice a week. I wouldn’t even hit more than 2-3 times a week because you want the player hungry when the tournaments are coming back and then when we know when they’re coming back do a preparation of 4-5 weeks and that’s it, then they’re ready to go. But I think if they keep on hitting and keep on practicing every single day without knowing when the tournaments are starting again, it’s just going to make them tired, you know? At the end of the day players also play to compete, so this thrill of competition is what gets them going as well.

Courtney: For you, what do you think is the biggest struggle right now for if you’re a professional tennis player, male or female, and you’re home and you don’t know when the season is necessarily going to restart, you’re hoping for June/July and everything; what do you think is the toughest thing for pro tennis players to deal with right now?

Sandra: Hm, that's a good question. I think there could be a couple of things. One of them is definitely this decision of what to do – whether to play, whether to practice or not to practice, to keep in shape or not keep in shape, and then I think for a lot of them it could be also the fact that, you know, that’s what they’ve been doing their whole lives for god knows how many years, all they’ve done this time of the year and for the most time of every year was traveling, playing tournaments and feeling that adrenaline, you know? That rush, all those emotions. Right now it’s all so stagnant.

Now the question becomes, okay, now what, you know? Is there anything else in life? I mean, I’m guessing that this could be the case. I don’t know. I think probably when I was young it could’ve been a problem for me; it was a problem for me when I was injured, so it’s a similar situation. I couldn’t really play and I was just like, okay, now what? What am I gonna do? I think this time also forces us to answer some hard questions like that, you know? What else is there to life? Can I do anything else? What if tennis is different after we come back – because tennis might look different, it’s probably not going to just go back like okay, full stadiums, full of fans who can hang around the players lounge like always. It’s probably going to look a lot different, and how are we gonna deal with it? How are we gonna deal without spectators, how is it gonna feel to play on those big stadiums without anyone sitting there but your coach. How is it going to feel without that interaction with players, you know, in the players’ lounge. 

Courtney: Right, yeah.

Sandra: Yeah, I think a lot of possibilities. And again, however we use the time. It’s a perfect time to reflect on so many different things and I hope that a lot of people are using it well.

Ben: You’ve written about that, Sandra, in the writing you’ve done and posted online as well already about sort of how identity can get wrapped up in being a tennis player. I’m curious if this is something that you’ve spoken to Alizé about or other people in the sport now about what…Being a tennis player is such an all-consuming job, it’s sort of defining who you are in life. Even for a sort of short time – and we’ll see how short it is, we don’t know when exactly the sport’s gonna come back – but taking tennis away from a tennis player very suddenly, and especially, you know, there’s not an obvious tangible cause like getting injured or something like that, I would imagine it could be very tough mentally or emotionally for a lot of people in the sport to suddenly have this thing that they’ve put their entire life’s effort into suddenly disappear this quickly, and you think it's gonna come back, but still, just being lost without it temporarily could be pretty tough for some people.

Sandra: Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. I think this is exactly those questions that we start asking ourselves, like, who am I if not a tennis player? I think that’s a very individual question, and it’s a hard one to answer actually, you know? Because you’ve got to do some digging, you have to see what else is there besides the player. Obviously for a lot of tennis players they don’t feel like there’s a lot because tennis is pretty much all they know, or most that they know, right? Everybody’s story and journey is different, so I cannot speak of course for everyone, and I don’t think we should generalize this, but for me this sort of process of getting out of this, of getting out of this mentality that I am a tennis player and this is all that I am, it took a couple of years but I have to say that when I got out of it I felt so much lighter, you know? Like such a huge load was taken off my back.

I feel like it didn’t only help me that I was a tennis player and as a tennis player, because it can happen to any of us doing anything else, you know? There are many other professions which are obviously consuming if you have your own business, you know, if you're a doctor saving lives, or plenty of them…You can get wrapped up in that as well. Then who are you when this is taken away from you, you know? How do you perceive yourself, how do you perceive the world? What do you wanna get out of your life? What is happiness to you? So many questions that need answering. Then, again, if we’re forced to take that time off, they just pop up, I think, and they actually demand to be answered.

Courtney: Yeah, it’s a weird thing because for so long there’s this trope, right, that people say, “Get yourself a job that’s your passion,” like, make your passion your job, right? That’s the goal, that’s the ideal, that’s what everybody wants, theoretically. I feel like people who do, or players…I mean, not even just players, there’s those of us that work around the players who also travel a lot and things like that, everybody who’s part of the tennis road machine. If you are a person who has that philosophy of like, “Yes, I do this because this is truly my life’s passion,” and I think that those people are probably going to be struggling the most right now because literally that thing that you do is currently undoable. Whereas the people who maybe approach their careers as, “Well, I love tennis, I’m passionate about competing, all these sorts of things, I love to travel, but this is not who I am, this is not my sole source of joy, this is not my sole source of identity.” It seems to me like I’ve been talking to a lot of players and coaches during the stoppage and it feels like the ones that have that mentality and approach towards tennis are doing so much better right now than the ones who really…this is their everything. So it’s like a weird double-edged sword, you know, of having that philosophy with respect to your job, I guess.

Sandra: Yeah, but I also think that, you know, what is passion? We should define what is passion, because to me I’m extremely passionate about coaching, you know? I love it. I mean, I miss being on the tour, I miss Alizé, I miss working with her, going on the court and going to tournaments, I miss all that.

Courtney: We all miss Alizé. [laughter] 

Sandra: For sure, I don’t doubt it. I think that the day she quits we’ll always miss her. 

Courtney: 100%.

Sandra: I don’t even wanna think what that day’s going to look like, but it’s going to be a sad, sad day. Okay, let’s not think about it. 

Courtney: It’s gonna be a party though. [laughter] 

Sandra: For sure!

Courtney: A good going away party.

Sandra: Yeah. But you know, when it comes to passions, yeah, I live coaching as well, you know? I love it. But to me passion is something more. It’s not literally do one thing that you do. To me it’s more the result you get from it, you know? For me I’m passionate about people, I’m passionate about helping people become the best that they can be. I’m passionate about inspiring them, and of course coaching, tennis coaching, is one platform to do that. I do that o the tennis court and I do it off the court as well, and right now I’m not able to do that so my question to myself is: how do I keep my passion alive in times where the primary source of it is impossible, you know? So this is what I’m trying to do, and I feel like that’s what people should look towards when they think of their passion. It’s not the thing that they do, it’s the thing that they get from it. What I mean by that is, if I’m passionate about something I’m not passionate about one thing, only one thing. I’m passionate about something that’s more global, something that I can give, contribute. What I can contribute is, yeah, having passion to bring out the best in people.

One way I do that is through being on the court and coaching players, because this is what I know pretty well. But honestly right now since that’s not possible I’m just looking for other ways to do that. Yeah, I still feel like I’m contributing to the world, I’m contributing to myself as well because I’m learning a lot through those processes. I think that this is what life is about, you know? Life’s about learning, life is about growing. Again, players will be on the court and have a part of their life on the tennis court, you know? Until they’re 30 or 35 they’re going to play, and then another part of their life starts, and that doesn’t mean that when they quit then suddenly life is dull and they’re not fulfilled because the tennis is taken away from them. No. I think they can still find a new passion that brings the same sort of emotions that they are looking for in their life that they were getting through tennis, and this is what it’s all about. 

Ben: You mentioned, Sandra, when you were talking at the beginning about being a little hesitant to get into coaching, one of the things was the lack of job security, you can sort of lose your job at any point and obviously we see in tennis how often players and coaches shuffle around the tour and how often changes are made – especially, I think, in women’s tennis, on that side of the tour right now in the last decade or so. I’m curious for you now in this moment on tour where everyone has stopped working, and from what I’m hearing from other coaches – I’ve talked to you about this directly, but coaches are not currently getting paid now, because players aren’t getting paid, you know, at least 90% of coaches aren’t getting paid right now, just a  rough estimate, maybe more than that. I’m wondering how you adjust to that going forward? I don’t know if that’s something that coaches need to somehow come together and figure out rules or the tour, something to protect coaches or something that makes this job possibly a little bit more certain in an uncertain world?

Sandra: Yeah, that’s a good question. I know there have been some questions raised by coaches like that; I think it’s a very important issue, but at the moment I just don’t see how that could happen, coaches being independent contractors. A little bit different than players, actually. There have been questions being raised about health insurance and job security, and these are important questions, you know, they have to be asked and I feel like it’s probably not going to happen in my coaching career. But I hope that for the coaches after in ten, twenty years’ time they’re going to have a better kind of outlook and their jobs are going to be able to be more secure, but it’s a really broad issue. To me, again, I’m gonna be honest, I have to say that I don’t even feel equipped to answer the question because I don’t know what ways it can go, you know? I don’t know enough about that. Yeah, I’m very happy to contribute to whatever discussions we have with the coaches, but I can only say very little about my point of view because I’ve been on the tour for a very very short time, you know? I really don’t even know how it could work legally and if we could even create a union, how does it work? All those things, to me, it’s science fiction, honestly.

Ben: I guess I’m curious, when you come into the tour, especially as one of the youngest coaches on tour, because we haven’t mentioned that; we talk about you being a woman, which is rare, but you’re in your 20s still, which is something that is very rare with coaches on tour, especially for main coaches, or hitting partners in their 20s sometimes on tour, but being a main head coach for a top player like you are is pretty rare in your 20s. To that point, what kind of community have you found with the coaches, if any? I guess you’re not in the same locker room as the male coaches so maybe you’re away from most of them, but do you find that there’s a sort of companionship among the coaches, or is everyone keeping to themselves, in your experience? 

Sandra: Yeah, I gotta say, I’m one of the lucky ones. Being my age and being able to be on the tour, I think it’s incredible. I’m extremely grateful, I’m extremely happy that I am over there. When it comes to coaches I have a couple of coaches that I’m close with in terms of, like, we like to talk about tennis and ask ourselves for advice, sort of stuff like that. I think it’s pretty open and I think that’s also changed from when I came on the tour, but it could be also that nobody really knew me, you know, at the beginning. Right now I’m around already for two years, so you always see pretty much the same faces and yeah, there are a couple of guys that are, I think, really really cool. I’m even in touch with some pretty good and successful coaches and they are very happy to help and talk with me about tennis.

Again, I’m extremely grateful because I feel like if I can learn from the best coaches out there that I’ve already achieved the things that I wanna achieve in my coaching career. There are no better teachers than that, no better mentors than those. Yeah, for me it's getting better definitely than it was at the beginning. There are also a couple of younger coaches as well and it’s nice to see those faces changing and rotating. But okay, sometimes coaches switch players, players switch coaches, whichever way you want to put it, but it’s pretty much the same people that stick around all the time. So yeah, I think it creates a little bit of friendships over there. 

Ben: Are these people you’ve been staying in touch with at all in terms of this last couple months since the tour stopped? Are you hearing from other coaches, what they’re doing with their players, what they’re doing in terms of payment or looking ahead to the future or discussing when you can best guess the tour will come back? What are your sort of networks, whether it's with other players that you still know, or with coaches or whoever else? How is the communication level among people who you knew from tour right now?

Sandra: Yeah, I mean, with the coaches honestly I’m not talking so much about…Of course, every time we get something from WTA we discussed it briefly and think, okay, is this realistic or is it not realistic? But all the other times we just talked about tennis because, again, now it’s the time, everybody has the time and there’s so much you can do. I’m using this opportunity and just calling up all the people that I admire and I wanna learn from and I’m very lucky that they wanna share their knowledge and experience with me. We mostly talk about other things, not so much about what’s happening anymore because, you know, it’s not new anymore. We are in this situation already for a couple of weeks, it is what it is. Not much is really changing. The WTA and ATP are working on getting us out of this and, you know, running tournaments hopefully still this year. They’re working on how it’s going to look, how it can look, working on different calendars, different schedules, and we really cannot do anything about it. We just gotta wait for the news.  

Ben: I’m curious, did you happen to see the comments that were made by Dominic Thiem earlier this month that got some attention?

Sandra: Yeah.

Ben: I’m curious, as a player…I can say, Thiem was talking briefly about how he didn’t think there was necessarily an obligation for higher ranked players to support players further down the ranks. I’m curious, as a player yourself who played on tour for years and did not…I don’t believe you broke the top 100? What was your reaction to reading those comments from a top player like that? Or as a coach, from whatever perspective you come to it.

Sandra: Yeah, I mean, I think he has the right to his own opinion. I don’t think that’s a lot of such good words being thrown at him because of that and I think that it’s pretty actually okay that he said what he thinks. That’s okay. I respect it. I think that it’s great he says what he thinks, he’s entitled to his own opinion. If he thinks that way then yeah, it’s his choice. If it was me, I can only say that I wouldn’t mind it because considering the amounts that they were proposing over there, I think they were really, really, tiny. It wouldn’t make any difference to me if I had that money, if I was earning that money, if I was #5 or #4 or whatever in the world. I would be very happy to contribute to tennis because after all being a top player I would feel responsible for the sport. At the end of the day, when you’re a top player you also have to break through those rankings, so you know the reality that’s happening there.

Yes, of course there are a lot of players over there that just play and don’t really put their all into it, but at the same time it’s like this in every single other department, you know, any company if we go to business anywhere, there are people like that. But it doesn’t mean that we should generalize, because there are also probably more players that this is their lifelong dream to become top 100, top 50. They're doing everything they can in their power to achieve that, and I think that if I was in his place I would be very happy to support them and give them the chance to actually keep on dreaming, because that’s what it is right now.

So many of them are in a very hard situation and, I mean, I can only imagine what they’re thinking and how they’re dealing with all that, you know? The question of whether to practice or not to practice, it’s in their case whether I can practice because I can spend some money on playing and practicing right now, or should I save it because the tournaments might not happen anytime soon, you know? These are, again, tough questions to figure out. I think if I was a top player I definitely wouldn’t mind supporting them because, yeah, that’s, again, my opinion, but everyone thinks what they think and I think it’s great that he says what he thinks and how he sees it. It’s okay. At the end of the day, it’s just an opinion. That’s what it is. 

Ben: Yeah. I’m never mad at players being…Especially as a writer who has to tell stories and tries to in some grand sense seek the truth of the sport, to sound pretentious, I’m never upset when a player reveals their opinion more than they maybe should in terms of politeness. 

Sandra: Yeah.

Ben: I think that that comes of harsh, but if that is how he feels then that is clearly his opinion on work ethic or, I dunno, how he thinks of results and success in the sport. Fair enough, then it’s informative and useful to sort of know his worldview on that. At the same time I do understand how it comes off as, to all the lower ranked players, making it sound as if he’s calling them lazy. 

Sandra: Yeah.

Ben: Or that he’s saying that they just don’t work hard enough and they don’t deserve support because they’re parasites or something. So I understand that reaction. I’m curious just from your time being in juniors and seeing, you know, which players were able to make their juniors into big successful pro careers and which ones had sort of medium successful pro careers or less success. Is there one thing that you think determines, or one most important thing that determines whether or not a player will be able to achieve his or her goals on tour? In the end, is there something it always comes down to, more often than not? Or is it too many different things to count that determine success or not success? 

Sandra: I don’t think that there’s one golden rule that will say that somebody’s gonna make it or not. I think a lot of it comes down to money. [laughs] Because you’ve gotta have good timing, you know? Sometimes, for example…And with a lot of things, with the good and the bad things. You can have good coaches throughout your career, bad coaches, but you can also have very bad timing when it comes to injuries, you know? I don’t think that there’s one thing that defines it, I think it would be impossible to say. But yeah, at the end of the day things like having a good work ethic, working hard, having the right people around you, good timing, taking care of your body, and of course ideally having financial resources to do all that are pretty much like the basics to give yourself a chance to make it, you know? To get a chance, and then it really is a grind, you know? That’s what it is.

Courtney: Yeah. I think that if there was a formula for success I’m sure that either the USTA, the French Federation, the LTA or Tennis Australia would’ve figured it out by now, but they have not.

Ben: I just mean more like one determining personality trait or something, not something that you can put everyone in a class and they’ll succeed, but something if it does come down to a player’s personal work ethic or their mental strength or their technique or what kind of background they come from or something like that, if there was some through line that you see as to that. I didn’t expect there to be a clean answer, necessarily. But yeah, I was just thinking in terms of how lower-ranked players were reacting to Thiem and what they see as their own challenges that maybe they think that he doesn’t appreciate those challenges, I guess.

Sandra: Yeah, you know, again, everybody’s different. You see people that are completely different as human beings as to their personality and they are successful on the tennis court. You see people that are a bit more talented and, let’s say, “lazier,” kind of, air quotes, lazier, and still being successful. Then you see players that are really hard workers and they really try, they really push so hard and somehow they just do not get the breakthrough. There are so many things that come to it, I think, that it’s really impossible to say. I would say that timing is everything, in tennis or in life. You’re half a second late, you hit the ball wide, right, or you hit the ball long, I mean, yeah, timing is everything. 

Courtney: Definitely. I’m curious, you were mentioning before about…You’re not sitting at home twiddling your thumbs, it sounds like your days are pretty full and you’ve been occupying yourself with projects and things like that. So what has been keeping you busy and allowing you to continue to kind of scratch that itch that is your passion for helping people, for learning and all that stuff?

Sandra: Yeah. One of the things I don’t wanna say yet because I don’t wanna kind of spoil it for myself–

Courtney: Ooh, exciting!

Sandra: It’s still going to take a bit longer, so I don’t wanna say that just yet. But second thing that actually is coming out tomorrow is I’m starting my own podcast about tennis!

Courtney: Yes! Amazing.

Ben: Oh, nice!

Sandra: Sorry guys, competition! [laughter]

Courtney: So that’s scratching your competitive itch. [laughs]

Sandra: Exactly, there you go. No, but they’re actually in Polish, because when I came here I realized there is actually no valuable content in Polish when it comes to tennis. The environment is not as great, in tennis at least, here, as I would like it to be. So I thought, okay, what can I do to make it better? I figured, you know what, I know a lot of people here in Poland that are in tennis, maybe I should just drive around a little, have some conversations, just record them. That’s what I did. So tomorrow is the premiere of my first podcast–

Courtney: Amazing.

Sandra: –with a nice player; she’s a commentator and a coach right now. Every, I guess, two weeks, more podcasts are going to come along, because I’m also learning so much from them. It’s really crazy. Since I’ve been doing everything myself from doing the podcast to editing – which, by the way, is really nasty. [laughter]

Courtney: We both know.

Sandra: Yeah, you know what, it took me 12 hours to edit my first podcast. 

Courtney: Sounds about right, yeah.

Ben: Yeah.

Sandra: 12 hours to do one! I was really like, are you kidding me? I had no idea what program I should use. It was all trial and error. I think I downloaded like seven of them and then I managed finally to work with one. But yeah, all that was very time consuming, and then I also gotta give you my respect because I thought like, okay, when you’re a journalist you just ask the questions, how hard can it be? But then it can be pretty hard! [laughter] So I had my script and I started, like, nervousness, you can hear it in the podcast. Then suddenly the answer goes somewhere else so I cannot really ask the second question because it’s about something else, and I was like, wow, I can’t really follow the script anymore! I just gotta roll along with whatever’s happening. So yeah, you know, also improving my skills, these kinds of skills which is new. I mean, who knows, maybe you guys are going to hire me one day when I don’t have a job on the tour or something. [laughter] 

Courtney: We were gonna ask you for the job, but that’s okay, we’ll figure it out. 

Sandra: Just making a name for myself already, you know? Just throwing it out there. [laughs] So yeah, this is one thing, and I think it’s really cool. I mean, I don’t know. People are gonna decide that, obviously, but I am also learning a lot from the podcast, talking with those people. We're talking about really good subjects and the conversations are really easygoing, you know. The float from one thing to another and I think it’s good, you know, you get two people who know something about tennis – I dunno, you could say a lot, but we don’t…At least a little bit. So, we talk about it and everyone else can hear it. I think that can be really valuable here in Poland for the tennis community. Then obviously the second project which is a bit bigger but I cannot really say, I’m sorry guys. 

Courtney: That’s okay!

Ben: That’s okay!

Sandra: That consumes my days completely. 

Courtney: Yeah, Barbora Strýcová also just started her podcast. 

Sandra: Oh, really? That’s cool.

Courtney: In Czech, yeah. I think Ben and I get a little bit of credit for nudging her along in January. But yeah, it’s a very similar…And I think that’s why probably Ben and I started a podcast, or a lot of people. It’s like, we’re just having conversations that we would have anyway and that we want to have anyway, and we just hit record, you know?

Sandra: Yeah.

Courtney: And maybe hope that other people might find it as entertaining as we do. It’s as simple as that. Audio is a good format. I think you’ll enjoy it, you’ll take to it very quickly. 

Sandra: Well I’m doing it also with video, you know.

Courtney: Wow, okay! Good stuff.

Sandra: So it’s going to be on YouTube and then other audio platforms. Hopefully it goes as well as I hope it will. But anyway, you know, it doesn’t even matter because, like I said, I’m learning a lot from those things as well, talking with the people. To me if one or two people find it valuable, to me that’s already great. I’m very happy about it.

Ben: Well we are the one or two people who have already found you very valuable here, in this moment, me and Courtney. Thank you very much, Sandra, for being on the podcast with us, and good luck with your own. Looking forward to…I cannot pretend even remotely that my Polish is good enough to listen to your show, but I hope that you have all the success in the world with it. 

Sandra: Wow, thank you. Thank you. You know what, I gotta tell you, next time when you call me for a podcast please warn me that there are gonna be some tough questions. [laughter]

Courtney: Ben likes to fire the fastballs. 

Sandra: No, I liked it, I really liked it. I was joking. You can call me anytime, and don’t warn me at all. 

Courtney: Perfect.

Ben: Okay.

Sandra: Just get me by surprise. Let’s do this.

Ben: When you least expect it we’ll be there. Thank you, Sandra.

Sandra: Exactly, yeah. Thank you, thanks a lot.

Ben: So thank you very much to Sandra for being on the show and best of luck to her and her new podcast, which has had three episodes go up since we recorded our chat with her about a month ago. Some interviews with some Polish tennis folks; if you speak Polish they are all available on YouTube and other platforms. I’m sure you’ll enjoy them. So thanks again to her for coming on, and thank you guys for listening. If you wanna follow along when you’re not listening you can do so by following us on Twitter @NCR_Tennis. We are also contactable by email: nochallengesremaining@gmail.com.

Thank you as always to our Patreon backers who have supported the show so much during this year, during these fairly lean times for us. Really, really do appreciate it. Our new backer I’ll give a shoutout to since our last episode, thank you to Julie. We’ve gotten this question a couple of times from people, including recently, so I wanna say again on here: if you wanna support NCR on Patreon but do not want your name said on the podcast for whatever reason that is absolutely fine. Just let us know. We have several silent partner patrons on here as well who we also appreciate just as much as the ones we give the shoutouts to, so if that is a concern of yours for whatever reason that is something we can obviously make happen. Your secret will be safe with us. See you guys sometime down the road.