Coach's Corner Podcast Episode 1- Jeff Tarango

Brian Teacher chats with Coach Jeff Tarango - who was as high as 42 in the world in singles and 10 in doubles. Jeff shares interesting insights growing up as a junior in Southern California with Pete Sampras and Michael Chang, along with coaching Maria Sharapova. 

He also shares a story about reaching the French Doubles finals with Goran Ivanišević.

Listen on all platforms HERE: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2064913

 

PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION: 

Hi. Welcome to Full Court Tennis Coaches Corner. I’m Brian Teacher, and our guest today is Jeff Tarango, ATP Tour coach and former great player. Jeff played on the Tour for 13 years, and each one of those 13 years he was ranked in the top 100. He reached the highest ranking of number 42 in the world. Jeff was also quite a great doubles player, reaching number 10 in the world and the finals of the French Open with Goran Ivanisevic. He’s got a very interesting story to tell about that.

Jeff also grew up in Southern California, playing tennis with the likes of Pete Sampras and Michael Chang, so he’s got some interesting junior insights to share. He’s coached on the Tour, working with players such as Andrei Medvedev, who was a French Open finalist and reached number four in the world. He also coached Moroccan number one Younes El Aynaoui, who reached number 14 in the world, and worked with the current CEO of the ATP, Andrea Gaudenzi, along with Southern California’s Maria Sharapova. Let’s get into it with Jeff right now.

Hi there. Welcome. Full Court Tennis Coaches Corner, Brian Teacher, and I’m so happy to have Jeff Tarango here, who has been a great coach on the ATP Tour and a former great player. But first, Jeff, I want to get into you growing up as a junior in SoCal. We both played tennis and grew up here in SoCal, and it’s so different today trying to teach these kids how to play compared to what you and I experienced. Of course, I grew up in the 70s, and you grew up more in the 80s playing. I want to get into your experiences. So happy to have you here today.

What was it like growing up in Manhattan Beach?

Yeah, well, that’s the thing. There weren’t really ever any great tennis players from Manhattan Beach. We had a lot of very good social players. We got very lucky to get a guy named Jeff Abbey, who was the number four amateur out of Kentucky, to come in as a coach. You can imagine, back then, since everything was amateur, if you’re number four in the country as an amateur, you’re ranked pretty high in the world relatively speaking. We got really lucky having him. He gave me a strong basis. My mom worked very hard with me. But then, we all have to give credit to Robert Landsdorp, don’t we? I mean, he facilitated a system where I could go in and hit with players all day long who just don’t miss, right? He had a very strict attitude. We can’t do that stuff anymore. We can’t be as tough as Robert Landsdorp was; it just doesn’t float anymore. He worked you into the ground. Yeah, that doesn’t work so well today.

Was Robert your first main coach?

No, it was Jeff Abbey. Abbey was my first coach. Then Ken Porter worked under Robert. I wasn’t good enough to even get into Robert’s academy back then. You had to be, like, top five in the country just to get on the courts. It was a very different environment where you had to really push hard. I had some really cool friends, like Mr. Blackmore, who sponsored me to even walk into the Jack Kramer Club because it was very exclusive back then. I would literally work my way up. I can remember Derek Cristano calling me and saying, “Hey, will you come up to the Kramer Club and play a set with me?” That was like the biggest honor of all time because he was such a great player.

So were you doing a lot of drilling with the clinics, or were you playing sets mostly?

We mostly played sets. It’s interesting you bring that up because it’s a lot different now. Everybody’s drilling now—doing cross-courts, down-the-lines, and ball machine feeds. Back then, we’d play a set right when we walked in the door without a warm-up, drill for an hour and a half, and then go back out and play another set. We’d play two sets a day, five days a week, and then play tournaments on the weekends, which back then had 256 draws.

Were you homeschooled?

No, all the schools where I grew up were so close to my house. My elementary school was one block away. But weekends were intense. We’d play two doubles matches on Saturday, then come back Sunday for two singles matches and two doubles matches—just to get to the quarters. The fields were quite large back then.

It’s fascinating to hear how different things were then compared to today...see podcast for more.

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