Emilio Sánchez and Sergio Casal, honored at the London ATP Masters 2016.

Posted on 24 November, 2016

By Daniel Muñoz Pozo, Head of Communications & Media at Sánchez-Casal Academy.

Last weekend the ATP Masters Tournament in London honored Emilio Sánchez Vicario and Sergio Casal, former ATP players who competed in the Masters events in the 80’s.

The Sánchez-Casal doubles team go down in history as 5th best All-Time World Doubles players, winning 2 Grand Slams (US Open and Roland Garros) and the Men’s doubles silver medal at the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul.

The ATP also invited Emilio Sánchez Vicario and Sergio Casal to be part of the “Finals Club”, an exclusive club that celebrates the heritage of the ATP World Tour finals, honoring the players who had an important role in the event’s success.

Emilio Sánchez Vicario and Sergio Casal (who played four Masters in the 80s and another four in the 90s) are part of this great historic event and have become a benchmark for the Spanish team in the Davis Cup.

Video courtesy ATP

Emilio Sánchez played the Davis Cup for 12 years and was also the Captain of the Spanish Davis Cup Team, bringing them to victory in 2008. In 2011 he was presented with the Davis Cup Award of Excellence by The International Tennis Hall of Fame & Museum and the International Tennis Federation (ITF).e las finales”, creado el pasado año por la ATP para dar un reconocimiento a todos los jugadores de individuales y de dobles que se han clasificado para el torneo de final de temporada del circuito desde el inaugural en Tokio en 1970.

Sergio Casal played the Davis Cup for 14 years, and received the ITF Davis Cup “Commitment Award” during the Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell Trofeo Conde Godó in recognition of his important role and dedication to the Davis Cup.

Emilio Sánchez Vicario and Sergio Casal are an excellent team both on and off the court, running the successful Sánchez-Casal Academy since its foundation in 1998.

Daniel Muñoz Pozo
Head of Communications & Media at Sánchez-Casal Academy.

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#12 SUCCESSFUL HABIT FOR OVERCOMING ADVERSITY

Posted on 22 November, 2016

#12 Regardless the difficulty, believe that your ‘actual state’ is going to help you overcome problems. Training will help you to achieve your ‘actual state’ in stressful situations (emotional)

By Emilio Sánchez Vicario, CEO & Founder at Sánchez-Casal Academy.

Michelle Konkoly is all energy and determination. Last summer, the 24-year-old athlete saw her dreams fulfilled when she won 4 medals at the 2016 Paralympic Games in Rio and broke two Paralympic records in the S9 100m freestyle and the S9 50m freestyle.

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IMPROVE YOUR TENNIS LEVEL WITH SELF-TALK

Posted on 15 November, 2016

By Andrea Crosas, Sport Psychologist at Sánchez-Casal Academy, Barcelona.

In sports it is important to introduce on the training routine of the athlete the training in psychological abilities, understanding that like the training that uses technics and strategies designed to teach and improve the mental abilities that help on the performance and positive view of the competition sports.

One of the most important technics to put in practice is the self-talk, defined for Hackfort and Schwenkmezger (1993) as the dialogue in which the person can interpret feelings and perceptions, regulate and change evaluations and convictions, and give self-instructions and self-support. We can talk about two different kind of self-talk: instructional self-talk and motivational self-talk, that are useful for different functions depending on the contents of the self-talk.

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We will refer to motivational self-talk to that one that responds to motivational content, in which will help to motivate, increase the confidence and regulate the effort of the players. To work with this self-talk in Sanchez-Casal Academy we train with our tennis players the routine to finish every point with a positive message of encouragement like “come on”, “you can”, “keep going like this”, regardless of which was the result of the point. Is very important that the players understand that this message gives them power to keep going and at the same time, it shows to the opponent that they are encouraged and with competitive attitude.

In another hand, we find instructional self-talk in which refers to that functions with instructional content that help to increase and redirect the attentional focus based on what the players have to do, making easier the execution of the game in training and competition. One of the exercises that we practice daily in the Academy with the players is with a creation of key words based on specific instructions in terms of technic, tactic, physic and mental.

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For example, one player that has the technical instruction of hit the ball higher on the forehand choose the key word “high” to remember that instruction, the one that during the training will repeat before realise that shot. Practicing this exercise we get that this player just thinking about the word “high” will remember what he/she has to do. The words can also be with tactic content as “position”, physic as “fast” or mental as “brave”. When players have some key words, they note them in a paper to can remember and have them present. By the way, for some players is helpful to note that key words on the hand or in a side of the racquet to remember that instructions in a fast way during a match, technic that we can find with some professional tennis players.

Like this, working daily with both type of self-talk we get that our players are motivated and know how to encourage themselves, and at the same time they get better results in the execution and precision of the shots thanks of that key words that remember them what they have to do.

Andrea Crosas
Sport Psychologist at Sánchez-Casal Academy, Barcelona.

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From student-athlete, to number 1 in the world

Posted on 8 November, 2016

By Emilio Sánchez Vicario, CEO & Founder at Sánchez-Casal Academy.

Work on your Actual State of Mind. Review what you are going to do to face the next step. Believe in it. (Mental)

#11 Successful Habit for Overcoming Adversity

Today is one of those days when you walk around with a big smile on your face. I am proud of what I do; I am part of the journey helping others create opportunities in tennis, education and life. Therefore when you wake up and realize that one of your student-athletes has fulfilled his potential and becomes NUMBER ONE IN THE WORLD, it just fills you up with a sense of pride and accomplishment. Everything that you work for makes sense.

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DO YOU WORK WITH A SPORT PSYCHOLOGIST? YES, I DO.

Posted on 4 November, 2016

By Eva Borras, Head of the Sports Mind ASC System

“I had a good forehand and backhand, and we were always working on my serve, but I could start to feel very negative during tennis matches,” Cibulkova told Sport360. Teaming up with a sports psychologist, however, “has really helped me to get into the match.”

Sports psychologists are not new to tennis. Ivan Lendl travelled with Alexis Alexis Castorri in the 1980s, and Martina Navratilova worked with one too. When somebody asks me if this role is key to a successful tennis team, my answer is always ‘no’. However, I would argue that working with a sports psychologist brings a lot of benefits, and can help tennis players, coaches, parents, even businessmen and women, to develop their game.

As in other sports, during a game of tennis, you have to handle a wide variety of situations, both on and off the court.

Situations, for example, such as when you have to close the set, or the match. When you are winning 4-1 up in the first set but just one minute later you start losing all subsequent games and you don’t understand what is happening…and your score jumps to 4-5 down. This is a typical situation which could happen in any tennis player’s match. By working with a sports psychologist or a coach with specialized training in Sports Psychology, you can work to find different solutions.

There is no unique solution for all players. As a psychologist myself, we try to understand each person’s individual characteristics: their progress, age, environment, stress control, mental strength, personality and even their courage when faced with challenges. Every player has different ways of understanding and coping with a situation:

– Maybe the player’s energy is low.

– Maybe they have been very stressed since the beginning of the match, and closing the set was just too difficult for them.

– Maybe they are unable to understand or recognize their emotions and they feel frustrated.

– Maybe they do not have enough confidence to manage a situation like that one.

“I tend to bottle up my feelings in my professional and personal life,” Carla Suarez explained to Sport360. “I didn’t think that my coaches and I would be able to find a solution, because I was playing well and practicing well, so it was something with my mind for sure.”

At the Sanchez-Casal Academy in Naples, I work with our players every day both on and off the court, helping them to develop their mental skills. This type of training is not just useful for practicing and playing tennis, but for other challenges such as preparing for exams at school, and countless situations they might come across throughout their lives in the future. One more thing to learn, one more thing to improve.

The role of the sports psychologist is to provide every sports player with strategies to work on. In sport, at work and in life in general, we are always having to face and manage different situations. If you have the tools and strategies available in your “mental backpack”, your confidence will increase, your enjoyment in what you do will grow, and your performance will improve.

You will not necessary become the best in the world…well…maybe you will, maybe you won’t.

But you will be able to be the best that you can be, and perform at your best.

Eva Borras Head of the Sports Mind ASC System

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#10 SUCCESSFUL HABIT FOR OVERCOMING ADVERSITY

Posted on 25 October, 2016

By Emilio Sánchez Vicario, CEO & Founder at Sánchez-Casal Academy.

#10 Sport is always fair: it always provides new opportunities. To be prepared for every opportunity, learn to leave the past in the past.

We are the past, the present and the future at the same time, all the time. When we are facing a difficult situation in a game, at a turning point, or in whatever circumstances of life, the past and the future will affect how we will act.

Previous experiences shape the decisions that we make, affect our attitude and can determine our performance. The future does the same thing; thinking about consequences, fear or stress can lead to a “no win”.

Both situations are a “hindrance”. One has to learn to concentrate on the present, forget the past, and focus.

Sport is fair. Life should be fair as well. We may make mistakes, but if we persist, a new opportunity will come along. It will always end up appearing. But you should be prepared, working, looking forwards with confidence but not in a rush.

Anchoring yourself in the past and not preparing your tools is one of the worst mistakes that you can make. If I had allowed myself to be affected by comments when I was a little boy, as I mentioned in the first tip of the series, I would not have got to where I did. Did you know that Michael Jordan was kicked off his college basketball team? The coach thought that he wasn’t good enough and moved him into a lower category. Michael, however, refused to be beaten and continued working tirelessly until his moment arrived.

Hugo is a boy at our Tennis Academy in Barcelona and the perfect example of some who has overcome momentous difficulties. At 7 months old Hugo was already walking and at 8 and a half (months!!! Not years!!!), he was already riding a motorbike, a Pocketbike with stabilizers. Born and raised around motorbikes, which were a huge passion of his father’s, he had his first motorcross bike aged 2 and a half years old. When he was 6 he was already competing in the Catalonia Supermotard, Motorcross and Speed Championships.

Always “full throttle“, no fear, he raced round the tracks at full speed. It was at full speed, only 8 years old, that he had a tragic accident. While he was training at the circuit, travelling at more than 100 km/h, Hugo lost control of the bike going round a corner and was thrown off with such force that he flew over the track’s protective barriers.

Suddenly the world stopped, for him, for his parents, for his friends… and it restarted extremely slowly. For 6 months, he was in a wheelchair having to “relearn how to walk”. But what did he do as soon as he got out of the hospital? “Daddy, take me to karting. I want to get back on a motorbike”.

It’s funny how children are able to get over these types of situations. With no fear, he just needed to get back on the bike – even though he still wasn’t able to support himself – and see, analyze, understand what happened. He went back to the track where he had the accident, he asked a thousand questions; he looked, watched, processed… and turned the page.

This is learning. The values of sport are what motivates and inspires you: work, consistency, effort, discipline. Hugo went back to riding, he had another opportunity and he had worked hard prepare himself. This being so, a new accident, this time suffered by Hugo’s father, caused the family to reconsider their future and their passion. Too many risks. How do you explain to a kid of 9 years old that you don’t want them to continue in the only world they have ever experienced? The most incredible thing was his response: “If I’m not going to race motorbikes, I want to play tennis”.

Hugo focused his energies on a new sport. Tennis gave him another opportunity. His competitive spirit and willingness to learn meant that he quickly stood out as a player. This year, along with his team, he became Catalonia’s Junior Champion in the silver category and we believe that his future has great things in store for him. But now, he has to concentrate on the present. Learn, improve, find his game, establish himself, but above all, have fun in the process.

Hugo has understood to leave his past behind and he’s only 12 years old. Sometimes children provide us with insightful life lessons without meaning to.

Leave behind the negative experiences of your past. Only take with you what you’ve learnt from those experiences. Focus on the present and prepare for when your moment arrives. Remember, sport is always fair and life should be fair as well.

Thank you very much to the Salmerón family for sharing their story with us. Thank you to Eva Pascual, co-author of this post.

Emilio Sánchez Vicario
CEO & Founder at Sánchez-Casal Academy

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#9 SUCCESSFUL HABIT FOR OVERCOMING ADVERSITY

Posted on 18 October, 2016

By Emilio Sánchez Vicario, CEO & Founder at Sánchez-Casal Academy.

#9 Respect your opponent. They have the same goals as you.

With 17 Grand Slams in his pocket, Roger Federer has lost multiple finals since 2008: to Nadal four times, once at the French Open, once at Wimbledon and once at the US Open; and to Djokovic, three times.

This amounts to more than ten Grand Slam finals lost – we can only imagine where he would be in the ATP ranking. However, today I’m not going to talk about the matches in particular, or about tactics, physical condition or mindset. Today I want to commend Roger Federer as a role model, as a player who respects his rivals when he is defeated.

Many times I have tried to put myself inside his head, and dig around to see what I can find. I already admired Federer when he started losing against Nadal, and won the French Open the same year that Rafa lost against Soderling. Then more defeats came against the player from Manacor, and then Djokovic appeared, bringing yet more setbacks. But he carried on, trying.

I don’t remember a single time that Federer did not respect one of his opponents, or when he did not understand and appreciate that his rivals also wanted the throne. Instead, thanks to them, he continued to improve. Innumerable occasions come to mind when, after he lost a match, the press would ask him if he was going to retire, and his answer was always the same: “If I compete to win, why would I retire?”

He changed coaches, improved his technique, changed his tactics to be more aggressive, improved his physical condition working in a different way, and faced his matches with a more ‘warrior’ mindset, with the sole purpose of competing – a highly admirable approach.

I don’t know if he will maintain his Grand Slam victory record for a long time, or if he will win another trophy and become unbeatable. I hope he manages to achieve it. But what is certain is that his legacy in tennis is outstanding. Technically, he has developed a classic, beautiful style of play that has challenged modern tennis, providing coaches with the opportunity to train by the book and in a more natural way. Tactically, he is has become highly strategic in maximizing his performance, playing more aggressively and a lot closer to the net than since he trained with Edberg. Physically he has been able to keep up his strength even when competing against the strongest athletes such as Nadal or Djokovic. Mentally, he has been able to keep calm in the face of defeat, believe in his options and above all, respect his opponent.

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I would like to take this opportunity to share my admiration for Federer, and congratulate him for the positive message he sends out after his matches, both when he wins and when he loses. Just like other great players, this message has to be practiced and worked on – this is why I encourage trainers and parents to hold him up as a role model.

If we take pleasure not in victory itself, but in the competitiveness that leads to it and to defeating our rival with respect, we will be able to better understand our opponent’s shots, sense their tactics and their next moves, hold up in battle and evaluate their qualities to ensure that they cannot use them in key moments, when instead, we can utilize our own.

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Yet tennis is an individual sport. If we only think of ourselves, we will be able to win occasionally, but we will never become one of the great players nor will we be able to enjoy the ride as much as Federer does thanks to his respect for his rivals. I want to emphasize that his legendary status in tennis and the admiration of the public has increased with his defeats over recent years, even more so than when he won on a regular basis. I’m sure that if we conducted a survey, his personal values would come out top of the list of reasons why people admire him.

Emilio Sánchez Vicario
CEO & Founder at Sánchez-Casal Academy

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A STORY OF SPORTING AND ACADEMIC SUCCESS

Posted on 11 October, 2016

By Daniel Muñoz, Head of Communications & Media at Sánchez-Casal Academy.

When Emilio Sánchez Vicario and Sergio Casal first started the Sánchez-Casal Academy, their idea was to create a high performance program in tennis and school studies. Sixteen years later, many Sanchez-Casal alumni are the protagonists of personal, professional and sporting success stories, and one of them is Mike Vermeer, who initiated his journey at Sánchez-Casal and ES International School in 2005.

Mike spent nearly seven years in the academy and school, in which time he learned the keys to high performance, which are dedication, effort, determination, and values, some of which only made sense to him many years later.

Mike played the Davis Cup with Luxembourg, where he met another ASC alumni, Andy Murray, in the qualifying round against Great Britain. The Sánchez-Casal Academy is proud of both of these alumni, each with their different goals, but both endowed with the same values of high performance and success.

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Mike later enrolled in the University of Columbia, and this was an important moment in his development. This was when he faced that difficult moment in a tennis player’s life – like Johanna Konta, another ASC alumni did earlier this year during Wimbledon (J. Konta, The Guardian: “There are moments where you fight against your passion“ ) – and he decided to quit tennis, abandoning his passion, and leaving his rackets in the locker room.

After his first year at university, he decided to face his demons one day and asked if he could hit some balls with the tennis team. His plan was not to begin playing again; rather, it was just to see how it would feel being back on court. Mike’s love for the sport was quickly revived and within just a few days, he had officially joined the team.

After that, Mike never looked back. He contributed enormously to Columbia University’s tennis team. Columbia is one of eight universities to play in the prestigious Ivy League Conference, and its men’s tennis team won the title of Ivy League Champion for each of the three years that Mike played with them.

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If you see the footage of Mike being interviewed for Columbia University TV, you will see how tennis and studies have combined to provide a perfect mix of personal, professional and athletic experiences, all of which endowed him with an enviable confidence and maturity.

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You might also ask how Mike did in school. Well, he spent hours and days in the library of the university, dedicating himself to his studies with the same determination and spirit of triumph that have shaped Mike’s character in tennis. Mike demonstrated the same values in academics as those he learned at the Sánchez-Casal Academy.

Most recently, Mike won a very important “set”: the Cum Laude title, and a professional position working for an international company in United States. Well done Mike.

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This June, for the first time in 16 years of ASC history, we held an Alumni Dinner at the Sanchez-Casal Academy in Barcelona, and it was attended by alumni from all over the globe. Many students’ stories have been written in these 16 years, and many of those were re-lived when we met on this special day. The students who graduated in June 2016 are included in these stories, as they take the important step towards the next chapter of their lives.

Daniel Muñoz
Head of Communications & Media at Sánchez-Casal Academy

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#08 SUCCESSFUL HABIT FOR OVERCOMING ADVERSITY

Posted on 4 October, 2016

By Emilio Sánchez Vicario, CEO & Founder at Sánchez-Casal Academy.

#08 Respect your teammates. Respect them because they have the same objectives as you.

This is the first quote about values, something I consider very important and that I have always wanted to highlight during my time as a player, later in our Tennis Academy and finally as captain of the Davis Cup: you should always be respectful towards your teammates, because you are part of a team and you will need them at some point.

Tennis is an individual sport, and in competitions and on the court you are essentially playing one on one with a rival in single. However all the preparation, the travel etc. is normally done in a team, the team who stands by you in both the best and worst of times – or at least that’s how I have experienced it.

Teammates who you train with, travel with, warm up with before a game, teammates who you learn from, who you can play doubles with. In my case Sergio Casal and I created a doubles team that lasted for many years, and then went on to found the Sánchez-Casal Academy, a physical symbol of our respect for each other.

I remember one tournament in Kitzbuhel. It started raining and we couldn’t play on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. We started to play on Friday, and on that day Sergio lost, but I played two singles and one doubles matches; then on Saturday another two singles and one doubles matches, and I finally got into the singles final and the doubles semifinal. I played the final best of five, and I won it. I was exhausted, I didn’t want to play, but there was my partner looking for me and I couldn’t give up. We played the semifinal and we won, and after half an hour we went back to the indoor court and Sergio fought for both of us, he did it by himself, he was a great and respectful partner. And we won.

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In other words, from this relationship, from those same dreams, from those same difficulties, from the same excitement, this tip –which to me is fundamental– came up:

“Respect your teammates. Respect them, because they have the same objectives as you”.

Sergio Casal told me that during the time we travelled together and played as a doubles team in numerous tournaments, and especially in the Davis Cup, he learned a lot about respect and teamwork. There was a time when we worked so well together that he knew beforehand what I was going to do on court, and vice versa.

To replicate that, when he travelled on tournaments with Svetlana Kuznetsova, he encouraged her to play doubles with Martina Navratilova, so that she was imbued with these values.

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That’s also the reason why today at Sanchez-Casal Academy, our joint project, we encourage our players to play doubles and learn from the team dynamics.

As a value, the respect for your teammates is something which everyone learns at the Sánchez-Casal Academy from the first day they arrive as a student and start living alongside others from all over the world, sharing in training sessions, in fitness, in mental preparation, going to school, eating together, traveling together… essentially living together.

After high school, American universities also encourage this value, where respect for your classmate who cheers for the colors of your team is vital, and later on in your personal or professional life, you will become citizens of the world with this intrinsic value.

As an example, it’s worth highlighting that the players who make up the tennis teams at American universities show this fundamental value of respect for their teammates. If one of them arrives late to a training session or doesn’t follow the rules, the whole team receives the same sanction, whoever it is that didn’t do what they were meant to.

That’s why I think that both professional tennis as well as college tennis are great ways to learn how to respect the others. To me, fighting alongside Sergio Casal in the tennis circuit showed me a lot about compromise and not giving-up. What about you?

Thanks to Daniel Muñoz, co-author of this post.

Emilio Sánchez Vicario
CEO & Founder at Sánchez-Casal Academy

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From the Olympic Games to the US Open: are we abusing our players?

Posted on 27 September, 2016

By Emilio Sánchez Vicario, CEO & Founder at Sánchez-Casal Academy.

In the aftermath of the Summer Grand Slams and Olympic Games, today I would l like to offer an analysis of some after event facts. As usual, I will try to focus on the technical, tactical, physical and mental ‘pillars’ of tennis, with a special emphasis in the US Open and the Olympics.

I would like to analyze them with the perspective of time, and add something to our tennis ‘toolbox’. What can we take away from the 2016 US Open?

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