He stands 6-foot-6 and seemed to be swinging from a tree top when he launched his chiseled frame into a serve so massive he could make a tennis ball sound like a wrecking ball when it battered against the back wall and reverberated around the court.
You may have never seen Chip Hooper play during the days he reached a career-high rank of No. 17 in 1982, but many who did won’t forget the sound of that serve. At the ‘82 US Open, Hooper and outgunned fellow seismic server Roscoe Tanner 6-7, 7-6, 4-6, 7-5, 7-6 in a memorable shootout.

He’s known for a serve that threatened to deconstruct the very shape of the ball, and these days Hooper, who left tennis for a time to earn his college degree and become a school teacher, devotes his time and energy to a tennis teaching program called Black Belt Tennis aimed at using martial arts training to creating controlled explosiveness into every stroke through speed, power and flexibility.

The 51-year-old Hooper, in fact, forgoes the term “strokes” and prefers to view tennis as “a game of multi-dimensional striking” in which the player uses the tennis racquet like a martial artist wielding a sword in applying his or her entire core into explosive strikes at the ball.  Hooper has applied his background in karate and jung fu into choreographing moves meant to maximize players’ explosiveness.

“You have to learn the movement,” Hooper told Tennis Week today. “Another thing I might say to explain it is if you turn on a video and watch Rod Laver playing Ken Rosewall back in the late ’60s or watch Pancho (Gonzalez) playing Charlie (Pasarell) and watch the pace and how they play and it’s a little bit like the polka. Whereas nowadays, it’s a little bit more like African dance. It is a new choreography they way they move around the court and of how they get to the place where they want to hit from.”

His journey to his present coaching place is a fascinating one.

A gifted all-around athlete, Hooper was born in Washington, DC, but grew up in Northern California where eventually became the top-ranked Northern California junior and forged friendships with the Gilbert brothers, Brad and Barry, as well as Larry Stefanki. He traveled with Dr. Robert “Whirlwind” Johnson, founder and director of the American Tennis Association (ATA) Junior Development Program, who worked for decades assisting young African-American players, including Althea Gibson and Arthur Ashe, in gaining admittance into previously segregated tournaments. Hooper played national junior events that featured the young John McEnroe and Mel Purcell and eventually landed at the University of Arkansas where he earned all American honors.

He turned pro in 1982, quickly cracked the top 20 and was named 1982 ATP Newcomber of the Year. Though he was an imposing attacking presence, Hooper says now never fully realized his true potential. A series of knee injuries stalled his career and prompted an early retirement from the pro circuit.

In the final year of his career, Hooper hooked up with a family friend, Jimmy “The Blade” Brown, a black belt who trained with the late Bruce Lee. Standing in a friend’s living room, Brown asked Hooper to demonstrate a forehand then proceeded to show him his own version of a modern, martial-arts influenced stroke that saw the martial arts master launch himself into the air in an explosive version of a forehand that immediately hooked Hooper on the concept of applying martial arts moves to tennis strokes.

“I did some classic forehand thing: turn, stepping and hitting, mimicking the motion of a traditional forehand. Jimmy said ‘That’s pretty good, but wouldn’t you rather be able to do this?’ And he squatted down and from an open stance, jumped up and spun around using his entire core,” Hooper recalls. “Basically, it was a Fernando Gonzalez approach to the forehand, but with a little bit more verticality imposed there.”

He has spent several years refining his program. Hooper has worked with NFL players, top juniors and briefly worked with former World No. 1 Jelena Jankovic and Wimbledon doubles champion Nenad Zimonjic. Currently living in South Florida, Hooper can still crank his crushing serve at well over 110 mph — “You can say I have lifetime pass in the server’s club,” he reports with a chuckle. “Whenever I want to crank it, I can crank it.” — and will be conducting a serving clinic at Miami’s famed Flamingo Park, former home of the Orange Bowl, on December 5th.

Tennis Week caught up with Hooper today and in this interview he discusses his training program and website, Black Belt Tennis, his views on modern tennis teaching and the challenges of African Americans face in tennis today.

Tennis Week: Where are you based now and do you run Black Belt Tennis out of one location or is it something you can take to clubs, clinics and players?

Chip Hooper:  I’ve been amassing the idea for over 20 years. And I started it my last year of playing on the Tour. I got hooked up with a guy named Jimmy Brown from Chandler, Arizona. He was actually a patient of my father and had been trying to get a hold of me for years. He was a demonstration partner of Bruce Lee.

Tennis Week: Bruce Lee was a hell of an athlete.

Chip Hooper: Absolutely. I met Jimmy and we’re talking and everything made sense. It makes sense. If you’re athletically endowed or educated as I had been then you find yourself looking all over the place for the answer as to why in the heck I couldn’t seem to really shine athletically as a tennis player whereas in other sports the athletic ability flowed. He said “Show me how you hit a forehand.” So standing in the living room of a friend’s house I did some classic forehand thing: turn, stepping and hitting, mimicking the motion of a traditional forehand. Jimmy said “That’s pretty good, but wouldn’t you rather be able to do this?” And he squatted down and from an open stance, jumped up and spun around using his entire core. Basically, it was a Fernando Gonzalez approach to the forehand, but with a little bit more verticality imposed there. Then we grew apart — he’s much older — and I’m not sure what he’s doing now. I had a few good results, but I was injured and kind of soured on the whole pro tennis experience. I went back to school, pursued my education and taught school. But I still kept my hand in tennis. I knew I wanted to do this because I saw that this is the next evolution in the world of professional sports, actually, but in tennis particularly.

Tennis Week: How did you get into coaching initially?

Chip Hooper: I found my way down to an academy in Florida in the 1990s and met Nenad Zimonjic there and some other top juniors and I gave him the basic education on my approach.The point I want you to understand is the reason all top professional, elite athletes pass through martial arts in one form or another is because everybody is looking (to improve), you know what I mean? Everybody is looking. How one comes about knowing it you either A. do it because you natively know it or B. you’re taught it. The martial arts are very inclusive because they’re intrinsic. What I am trying to get you to understand is they incorporate explosion as a part of the knowledge.  You not only learn how to move your body, but move your body explosively and that marries very well with tennis. In tennis, the racquet is maneuvered analogous to a weapon moved in martial arts.

Tennis Week: Modern tennis is such a fast game you can view it as a series of explosions in a rally yet at the same time many top coaches have told me “you must be able to time the ball”. That they view that as a fundamental foundation because if you can’t time the ball it doesn’t matter if you can run a 4.3 40 or bench press 300 pounds or have the agility and leaping ability of an NBA guard, you must be able to time the ball or you can’t play elite tennis. What’s your take on that?

Chip Hooper: That’s the end point. Everybody at that elite level can hit the ball so that is not the senior piece of data here. It’s all of the other parts: you have to be in position in such a way to give yourself room and time to maneuver the body and strike the ball. But the martial arts are very wonderful source of data of how one can exhibit more of their true athletic potential. Black Belt Tennis is set up gradiently, which means step by step, as is martial arts starting with the white belt and all the way up to black belt. Unfortunately, we’re not seeing a truly professional expression when you watch the matches played today. There are various holes in their games and in the game itself. Sometimes, I go to tournaments and sit up in the stands and no one there knows I played professional tennis and I listen to what the public, the fans, are saying. And many are appalled at the fact there is little slicing and the net game is non-existent. I hear fans say “How come they don’t go to the net?”  So through training, through the arts, you learn the movements necessary to play a complete game. I’ll explain it to you very simply: when you go to a pro tournament and watch guys practice the volley. They’re hitting a thousand volleys standing up at net. But when they play they don’t know how to arrive at net. So you can’t put that volley into practice if you don’t know how to get to net. Even Roger, bless his heart, the guy is trying to do the right thing but it’s sort of like speaking in another language: it does not translate.

Tennis Week: But when I ask the players, even I remember asking Hingis who had very good hands and was World No. 1 in doubles too, they say the string and racquet technology and the ballistic speed players hit from the baseline means they can’t even get to net — the passing shots are too fast and there’s not enough time, they say. Do you buy that?

Chip Hooper: No, not at all. That just means the players are the effect of something. As if they are the victims of something. I’m a little bit surprised some of these former top players and net guys like a John McEnroe haven’t been able to pass on that knowledge. Some of the guys of my time who were great net players, they knew how to do it, but they did not know how to teach it. It’s like in school when the teacher calls on you and you give the right answer and then the teacher asks you to demonstrate how you got that answer and you can’t.  That’s the difference between a master — someone who can do it and demonstrate it — and someone who is very, very good at doing it, but can’t explain it so you can do it.

Tennis Week: So you’re saying your approach is not a theoretical one it is practical in that you are demonstrating it?

Chip Hooper: First of all, it is is education. The guys have to know the way they hit the ball is a strike in martial arts. It is very important I communicate this to you clearly. In the early days, I used a forehand as an example because it’s the most obvious to people, it’s the stroke most people can relate to. In the early days of tennis, you’d see forehands that were mostly a push. You dragged the racquet through from a closed stance. They’re thinking the side that is responsible to generate the shot comes from the racquet side. Actually, you pull with the opposite side. The fellow who does it closer (to the ideal) than anyone is Fernando Gonzalez. If you’re right handed you pull with your left side and that pulls everything around. It’s like a teeter-totter: you put the weight on one side the other side rises automatically.

Tennis Week: That’s physics.

Chip Hooper: That is physics and that is what this (Black Belt Tennis) is.  You see this application in many sports. I’ve had deep discussions with Olympic athletes and look at how these Olympic athletes hurl the discus or the hammer throw. You pull with your left side and that makes the right side come around in a circular motion and that’s a large part of my program. How do you do that? Knowledge and mastering the movements.

Tennis Week: Is your training done on the court or in the gym?

Chip Hooper: Some in the gym, some in the sand and some on the court. You have to learn the movement. Another thing I might say to explain it is if you turn on a video and watch Rod Laver playing Ken Rosewall back in the late ’60s or watch Pancho (Gonzalez) playing Charlie (Pasarell) and watch the pace and how they play and it’s a little bit like the polka. Whereas nowadays, it’s a little bit more like African dance. It is a new choreography they way they move around the court and of how they get to the place where they want to hit from. They pick up the ball early, they always have,  and that has not changed. Guys intuit where the ball is going to be and they go to that spot. The question is when do they start moving? Very many of the players in my era, almost all the top guys are like that, already moving to the spot. They don’t run to where the ball is they run to the spot where it will be. John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors, Nastase, Borg,  Gerulaitis, Vilas, they all had that and could all intuit. The only thing they didn’t have was this technology. The only way I was able to get it, Richard, is I wasn’t involved in tennis on a daily basis when I stopped playing for a few years. You can see something better when you are away from it. This is not a philosophical thing, I’m talking about actual events. If you have a basketball two inches from your face you won’t see the entire ball as completely as if it’s 10 feet away. Do you understand?

Tennis Week: It’s like a painting. If I press my nose up against a painting I may only see blurry brush strokes, but if I step back 10 feet the entire picture can come into view.

Chip Hooper: Definitely. Exactly. That’s a better analogy.

Tennis Week: I’ve talked to Agassi’s father, Mike, who was an Olympic boxer and it seems to me he taught Agassi this kind of explosiveness into the ball. Did Agassi have that kind of explosive moment you are talking about?

Chip Hooper: Andre definitely did this. He didn’t do it on the volley because he was never taught how to come up to net. What I’m doing for these guys is teaching them the movements that work specifically for their bodies. I worked with NFL guys before and they don’t know that much (about this training). Some are not flexible enough they don’t know the movement or motion but the thing about football they have a thing called a walk through where the players walk through the plays they are going to use in the game. So you walk them through the various postures they are gonna be in at a slow pace and you gradually speed it up as they master the movements. And some guys are just naturally stiffer. A guy like Todd Martin or Stan Smith is just naturally stiffer. They also tend to take shorter steps and have bigger back swings and a higher ball toss. Whereas if you had a Goran (Ivanisevic) or a Roscoe (Tanner) you saw on serve how Goran squatted down at the start of his serve and that thing was a real mother. I never met the guy, but I thoroughly understood what Goran was doing. And even he could have been a lot better if he was presented with this technology.

Tennis Week: Let me ask you about serving. Because I used to watch you play when I was growing up and you were a big guy who brought some serious heat. I’ve seen guys like Sampras at senior events and he still serves huge, I’ve seen Newcombe and Fred Stolle both can still serve well even today. Do you still have the big serve? Can you still crank it?

Chip Hooper: Of course.  You can say I have lifetime pass in the server’s club (laughs). Whenever I want to crank it, I can crank it. Some of the real servers, and you know who they are, can go out and crank it at any age.

Tennis Week: If you compare your serve now, using your Black Belt Tennis system, to what it was when you played the tour, is it different? How so?

Chip Hooper: Yes. Then, I was being a bit stiff and not being educated properly and it was take the racquet up, bring it back down, throw the ball toss up into Jupiter and hit it on the way down. And I did not really turn the body into it as much as I can now. There are many, many pictures of my serve from those days where you can see I was not turning my body into it. Whereas now I have to go out there and demonstrate serving at a clinic. I’ll show them both ways, kind of a before and after, like you can do it this way, but here is a much more athletic way to do it. Basically what I’ve been able to do is demonstrate the ideal scenes for each person, the scene that fits that player. And this what the whole thing is about. This is what Black Belt Tennis is: I can show you the ideal scene that works best for you. Meaning, you hit the ball a certain way and I hit it a certain way. Your way may be faster than me, but that may not the ideal scene for you because you are not maximizing the stroke in the best and most efficient way for your body.

Tennis Week: I’ll be honest: my serve stinks. You were a world-class server. What are some of your fundamental keys to a good serve?

Chip Hooper: Richard, I’ll give it to you like an athlete. Serving is throwing. Look at quarterbacks in football. You see the guys squatting down to receive the ball from the center and then they take the ball right to the ear so why wouldn’t one do that in tennis? Look at baseball. Of the position players the only ones who really wind up to throw are the outfielders. But of all the position players who has the strongest arm on the field? The catcher. What does the catcher do? The catcher takes the ball right from the ear and snaps the throw. Serving is throwing. There is really no argument anyway you look at it. But people do these things because tennis tends to be stubborn and sometimes resistant to change — that’s all — and it is hurting the performance of the players and the entertainment value of the game.

Tennis Week: When Andy Roddick came out as one of the first top-ranked guys to use the abbreviated service motion, some criticized him and said he would blow his shoulder out eventually. Yet Roddick still has one of the biggest serves and you see other players going to the abbreviated motion. Todd Martin uses it on the senior tour, Sharapova flirted with it. What’s your view on Roddick’s serve?

Chip Hooper: Roddick has got a serve from heaven. But he’s really missing the approach game.

Tennis Week: Some would say if he had that, he would have won Wimbledon.

Chip Hooper: It’s true. All the guys are looking for it they don’t know where to get it and I’m here to tell you I can give it to them. I know. Were somebody to challenge me they would lose. I know exactly what to do and I’m willing to present the data to show it.

Tennis Week: Since Patrick McEnroe has assumed responsibility for elite player development at the USTA he has made a point of working with various academies, coaches and facilities. Has the USTA contacted you? If they did would you be willing to work with them?

Chip Hooper: If they did contact me I would be more than willing. And that’s a really long story. I was in the USLTA I’m a lifetime member of the USLTA. They could really benefit from this because I really am interested in helping.

Tennis Week: I’m embarrassed to admit, I didn’t realize you were coached by Dr. Johnson until I read more about you. Obviously there are some major pro exceptions like Althea Gibson, Arthur Ashe, Venus and Serena, yourself, Mal Washington, Chanda Rubin, James Blake, but why isn’t tennis more inclusive in this country? Why is it we don’t see more people of color — not only African American, but Hispanic and Asian — actively involved in tennis? And I realize many are, but for example, Mr. Washington, Mal’s father, emails me sometimes and he basically says “You don’t know and you can write about it and talk about it, but you never experienced it so you’ll never know what it’s like for your child to get kicked off a court or get excluded from a wild card because of the color of his skin.” I guess my question is what will it take to make the game available and accessible to everyone?

Chip Hooper: Everybody Richard, even you, had your idols.  People like to be like people. Remember the old commercial “Be like Mike”? This is a very serious thing.

Tennis Week: Are you saying most of us are not comfortable in our own skin?

Chip Hooper: People always try to be like someone else. They’re not comfortable being themselves. I’m not trying to make a sociological statement, I’m telling you every single person is trying to be someone else. Even Arthur, put this down in your article, there were always these black players: Arthur, Althea… Chip Hooper. I was always thinking that guy (Ashe) should have done more for me. I didn’t realize that until after he was dead because you miss your father and he was really my father in a lot of ways. But I didn’t realize until after Arthur was dead that this guy had the correct order of understanding the magnitude for things to improve in this world and in this sport. It really isn’t about the color of your skin. We’re all hung up on that nonsense. I’ve been through it myself, seen it first hand and I’ve been through probably as bad or worse than Mr. Washington. I was never complaining about it, but I experienced it. I went back to Arkansas to honor the coach of my teams and some of the players were telling me they were burning crosses on the court back then. Ain’t nobody perfect. People, all people, have their problems in one form or another. Andre (Agassi) has his problems. I don’t know why he is coming out with the drug admission now. Someone needs to get with that brother and talk to him about that.

Tennis Week: Are you referring to Agassi doing crystal meth or admitting it?

Chip Hooper: Both. Doing it and then covering it up at the time, but publicly admitting it now.

Tennis Week: But can’t you argue the exact opposite: that the first step to solving a problem is admitting the problem exists? So in that sense is the fact he comes clean now a way to solve the problem. You played in an era where some champions have come out since and said they did drugs, cocaine primarily, so is Agassi’s admission a way of trying to deal with the problem?

Chip Hooper: I’m telling you that’s a symptom of the problem but what is the cause? That’s what we need to ask: what is the cause of the problem. People are alive and they do all kinds of things. So what? The more you live, the more you find out living one’s life is fabulous, it’s a gift.  So I’m not saying it should be any shock he did it. Everybody knows somebody who’s done something.  It doesn’t solve anything the way he came out with it.  Look, I’d have to speak to him directly about it to truly understand where he is coming from. My question is: what is it he is trying to communicate? What is his motivation for saying that, truly? Yes, admitting there is a problem is a step, but  where is he trying to shoulder the responsibility by saying someone with him brought it out? Obviously not with him. You must understand: when you’re a stellar athlete you have everybody doing something for you and I’m sure there is some degree of rebellion for that (drug use) although I cannot be absolutely certain because I’m not him. It seems to me he’s gotten upset about something and wasn’t dealing with it. I would have to talk to him personally to really understand where he is coming from.

Tennis Week:  How did you make it in tennis as a black man?

Chip Hooper: I made it because I wanted to. And, in some sense, I was only trying to keep up with the guys who I thought were worth something. At a very young age, I saw tennis to be really good and it was something that I was getting lots of attention for playing. Remember, when I was growing up playing in the ’60s there were black players, white players, Asians, Jews all getting together and playing tennis and it wasn’t just on the court we got together. I got a whole lot of attention from playing as one of the best juniors in my area because I was good, but there are a whole lot of reasons underneath as to why I played. There could be a good case I was running from something, but the thing about playing then is I was exposed to culture at a very different level. Because when we played tournaments then we did not stay at hotels, we stayed in the homes of other players and got to know their families.  I stayed in some pretty wealthy people’s homes all the time. We didn’t have any money and I’d stay at people’s homes who had money and you learn how to play a game in tennis and you learn that life is a game. Lots of people might argue with that, but think of the people you know who have made it or who are rich or who are famous or who are stupid or who are suffering and they know it’s a game. And you have to play this game.

Tennis Week:  But can’t you say that ideally that’s a beauty of sports or what sports ideally aspire to: that it teaches you respect for your opponent and for yourself — that it doesn’t matter if I’m white and you’re black — we can respect each other while we compete against each other. And that it teaches you problem solving and how to relate to others? How to live by a code of conduct, by rules, how to be disciplined how to master your mind and emotion when chaos is around you? Aren’t those all worthy ideas that sports can teach?

Chip Hooper: Yes, and you have to play it just like you have to play the game of life. And sports are really good for that and by playing this game you’re able to set goals and work toward accomplishing those goals. That’s what happiness is: it is not so much achieving the goal, like winning the tournament then thinking “Oh shit! I gotta go do that again.” It is setting the goal and working toward the goal and achieving the goal. That’s one of the great learning experiences of sports. But back to your question on the black issue and tennis. I can tell you what I think. There is more tension now. Because everybody is feeling the strain. It will take more of a concerted effort to recruit these young people. And recruiting them is one thing, you really gotta set them up to win, to succeed as opposed to setting them up to fail. Because there’s a whole lot of failing going on now in this world as you know. The economy’s failing all over the world. Wars are going on all over the world. A lot of people feel disenfranchised in this world.  It’s not so much about making some more Venus and Serenas and more MaliVais and more Chip Hoopers. It’s about devising opportunity so these young people can set goals and strive to achieve them. It’s about creating that opportunity and if you can do that, then believe me it (tennis) will come back tenfold. Anyone who thinks that (it’s about creating champions) has their priorities askew. Life is much, much bigger than this game. We were a much more solid tennis community in the ’60s, ’70s — the whole tennis community both blacks and whites. Sure they had their problems and some people in tennis were, aloof is maybe the right word. But I spent a lot of times with Gilbert and Stefanki growing up. My dad is 87 and last week he asked me “How is Larry Stefanki doing?”It’s just representative of how it was then, it was about people, and concern for people that’s more than the color of someone’s skin to me. Sure, I did what I thought I had to do when I played. Were I to do it again I would do it much differently and certainly not be as acidic. Where did you grow up and who did you you follow?

Tennis Week:  I’m from New York so I was a big McEnroe fan, but also liked many other players. But I rooted for McEnroe.

Chip Hooper: When I played, I was into copying personalities of McEnroe, Connors and Lendl. I tried to copy them back then.

Tennis Week:  Thank God I wasn’t interviewing you back then, you might have responded a little differently to some of these questions?

Chip Hooper: I would have found a reason to be upset and to be complaining about something (laughs). John is a good guy to talk to you, you just gotta get him out of the competitive element. I knew his parents when we were young. Here’s another thing — and please write this. In the 1970s when I was traveling with Dr. Johnson my parents were disallowed to go to a players party at a national tournament (because they were black). I did not know this at the time. My parents told me many, many years later. They were told they could not attend and my parents said “You’ll have to call the National Guard because we’re coming!” And this was in a southern state. So they walk in, the music stops and the black pianist there thought he saw a ghost. Blacks with big afros coming walking down the steps and it’s silent. All of a sudden John McEnroe, Sr. just bellows out “Oh hell, just let them in!”

Tennis Week:  That’s a great story.

Chip Hooper: It’s a freaking true story. And you ask me these things about being black and about blacks in tennis and one thing you have to do is be able to recognize the difference, but have the willingness to embrace it. You recognize it and embrace it and that was his point and that put one little black kid on the map. After that, my parents, my mother particularly, really got into tennis and we would have the kids from tournaments stay at our house. We had one year 13 or 14 kids staying over in our 3,000-square foot house. There were kids in sleeping bags all over the place. In those days the kids stayed at each other’s homes and that was part of learning and experiencing and understanding different cultures. That’s important.

Tennis Week:  I know you spent some time working with Jelena Jankovic. What was that like and what do you see for her going forward?

Chip Hooper: I had been putting this Black Belt Tennis together and I was trying to get some sort of player relationship because I have a whole bunch of stuff I can teach. I saw her in Miami and was asked “Can you help Jelena with her serve?” So I agreed and she agreed to me me. She was in a major depression when we met. She was crying and really upset. Remember, like I told you at the beginning of this conversation: people are looking. She was looking because she couldn’t get better on the serve and she went some place and it wasn’t the right situation.  I sat down and met her and her mother and her coach and her agent and the agent. I was a school teacher so I have all kinds of experience dealing with people in crisis and suffering. I felt that I’d be upset too if I was trying to play my best and didn’t know how to do it.  I told Jelena: “I can help you out you gotta realize you’re a marvelous person and life has kind of got you by the tail so we gotta fix what’s wrong and then put you on the right path again.” We cracked a few jokes she was laughing and we worked and worked on her serve some and I gave her lots of positive feedback.  I just kind of has her talk to me so I could try to figure out what was bothering her and we had fun and helped her put her on the right road. She want off and won Marbella and had a good run, but life got her down again. Her mother called me up again right before Wimbledon and asked me to fly over for Wimbledon. I did and she did Okay for a bit. She needs to really decide what and how she is going to do what she needs so whether I work with her again, I don’t know. We’ll have to see. You have to be willing to listen. It is the student who does it and if you think someone else is going to do it for you then it’s not going to work.

Tennis Week: What do you see as the future for tennis and what would you like to do to help shape it?

Chip Hooper: I’m just here to help and I want to get this data out so we can get beyond the position we are in. People on the street aren’t talking about tennis the way they once were, public courts are being bulldozed. There’s a lot of stuff going on that I’m not in favor of and I am of the opinion we have got to get people together, working together, communicating together and really show them how to play this game. The funny thing about this, Richard, is I have this system that works but you see bits and pieces of every great player you’ve ever found in there.  Brian Teacher’s forehand volley, Fred Stolle and John Newcombe — their volleying skills are unmatched. Their level of volleying is unmatched in tennis today.  Let’s face it. I said early on, I didn’t think tennis is really professional, meaning all aspects of the game, but it’s going to be. And the players you talk to and the ones who listen they know there are things they would like to be able to do better. They know it. It just has not been presented to them in a way that they can understand it. You can talk about it, but you have to show them. Sports people are like that: “show me. I need to see it.” That’s what I’m interested in doing: showing them.