AS a Brazilian, Leo Azevedo knows all about the challenges of cultivating world class tennis talent in a nation infatuated by football.
Creating one Andy Murray is hard enough, let alone trying to produce a conveyor belt of them, but the new lead coach of the new Tennis Scotland national academy at the University of Stirling and Dollar Academy is still brim-full of enthusiasm on his first day on the job, even if there was only a little bit of court time with his assistant coach Colin Fleming and doubles player Jonny O’Mara at Craiglockhart yesterday – the rest taken up doing paperwork, designing programmes and conducting media interviews.
One of just two of these select national academies in Britain, the hard work will start at an open day on Saturday, when Azevedo helps
whittle down the initial in-take for this ambitious little elite programme.
“I suppose there are some similarities between Scotland and Brazil that way,” said Azevedo. “But the difference is that you guys have the LTA and Tennis Scotland, strong federations financially. And in a small country it is much easier to control the players. The downside is that the numbers are not so high, but Brazil is a huge country where it is difficult to control the players and, at this moment, the finances are not so good.”
It will be a hard ask for any aspiring young Scot to make the initial tranche of youngsters for this academy, which will be up and running from August onwards, but it is difficult to criticise the ambition of the scheme, which will at least be in place for our best youngsters to benefit from.
Azevedo, who worked with former World No.1 Juan Carlos Ferrero then on tour with Guillermo Garcia Lopez, prior to a stint heading up player development at the United States Tennis Association (USTA) no less, arrives in Scotland with a sparkling resume. Included in that is a glowing reference from Ivan Lendl, but one of the first items on Azevedo’s to-do list will be a briefing from Lendl’s one-time pupil Andy Murray.
“The main reason I came to this job is the project,” said Azevedo. “I like to start something from zero in such a historic place. Andy is from here, Jamie is from here, Colin Fleming is from here, coaches like Judy and Leon Smith, plus good juniors like [Aidan] McHugh and Ali Collins.
“It is exciting, I see it as a little bit similar to what I did in California with the USTA. It is a small centre, with young players. We were very successful there and I hope we can do the same here.
“I haven’t spoken with Andy since I came here,” the Brazilian added.
“I don’t know him more than a little bit when we were travelling on the tour. But I have a little bit of a relationship with Ivan Lendl. I will wait a little bit, I know that Andy is trying to find his way back to the tour again and being healthy. But at some of these moments I will make sure to call him and get all his thoughts on tennis in Scotland.”
As for first principles, Azevedo’s work with Ferrero tells him that the person is as important as the player.
“My experience makes me understand why the likes of Ferrero and Murray are who they are,” he said. “Ferrero is a very humble guy, very coachable, I always tell him that after I had the chance to work with you it was pretty hard to work with someone else. You kind of assume that because other players aren’t as good a tennis player, they would at least listen more. But in fact they didn’t. My philosophy is that without hard work you don’t get anywhere. I am also a believer that the better person you are, the better chance you have to become a better player.
“It is important you have values –important for the programme, for the relationship be tween coach and player. Work ethic, respect, always be on time. These things are very easy to do, but not everybody does.”
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