Martin Baroch Tennis Academy & Human Performance Center

03/10/2024

With a small delay, best 75th birthday to the People's Republic of China (PRC)!!

While briefly observing the official celebrations in Beijing, I recalled countless memories of my two eye-opening trips there in 2008. Already then, it was fascinating to see what the PRC was able to accomplish since the changes initiated by its previous paramount leader Deng Xiaoping who led the country from 1979-97.

On my first philanthropic summer trip, which consisted of free Dynamic Total Body Tennis (DTBT) clinics and seminars for coaches in Beijing and Baoding, I had the fantastic opportunity to meet the back-then, Vice-President of the Beijing Tennis Association, Mr. Xie (in a dark red shirt standing next to me). But Mr. Xie was much more than just that, he was the former captain of the China Football Nation Team, turned businessman and investor who was amazingly connected to the leaders of China from the Hu Jintao era. According to his statement, he played friendly tennis matches with 9 of the 11 most powerful men from the Chinese leadership, the other 2 were table tennis players... He was also the president of his exclusive small tennis club, which had one beautiful artificial grass court, right on his company's property. Our first meeting there culminated in a doubles tennis match followed by my serving clinic for his club members present on-site. Later, during a dinner in the traditional Chinese dumpling restaurant, which Mr. Xie owned together with two of his friends, I was asked about the possibility of bringing for a visit over to Beijing a team of 8 senior players 60+ (with their partners) who would be playing friendly matches with Mr. Xie's club members and friends.

I have succeeded in making this happen, and in November 2008, I arrived in Beijing together with 12 people from 3 continents, among them my long-time friend, the American tennis coaching legend Ken DeHart. For most of us, this was the trip of our lifetime. It would take a small booklet to describe it all. The experiences we have had there were amazing! On the last full day of our stay, we combined our Dynamic Total Body Tennis (DTBT) clinic at the headquarters of the Beijing Tennis Association (the former site of the China Open) with an amazing dinner in one of the most prestigious Beijing restaurants owned by Mr. Xie's best friend having a fascinating private museum in the last floor of his building. During this dinner, I had the unique opportunity to meet also Mr. Chang, former private secretary to President Chiang Kai-shek. Mr. Xie and some of his extremely well-connected retired friends from high politics have, as it looked like, used our tennis event for a small informal China-Taiwan exchange. I was among the 6 people who received a beautiful hand-made calligraphic poster from Mr. Chang (below). It reads like: "Everything will be good..." One of the men who also received it told me: "Don't underestimate this! It has such a value that you could build a small tennis club for it.." I am still keeping it in a safe, but maybe it's time to sell it now... Any ideas..?

27/09/2024

The Czech tennis community is mourning the sudden passing of one of its most knowledgeable coaches, Karel Jandus Sr. (81 - far right, with the late George Bacso - middle, and me - left - during our unique joint CPTA/USPTA Seminar and Testing in Nymburk/Czech Republic in September 1997.

Karel started his professional career as an electro-technician, with tennis as a side job. Then, in 1984, at 41, he made a big change while taking over the position as head of the tennis school and junior tennis program in, back then, prominent Czech tennis club Slavia Prague. I still vividly remember his first days at his new job there. At the same time, Karel took upon his studies at the Sports Faculty of Charles University to obtain the highest Czech tennis coaching license.

The junior tennis programs at our club Slavia were originally started by the legendary Karel Burianek, then for years led by Antonin Vavru and significantly influenced by the "grey eminence" behind Czech junior tennis, my great mentor, the late Karel Cefelin. These programs, while starting the tennis careers of many successful nationally and internationally active Czech players, have been a certain benchmark in Czecho(slovak) tennis and Karel further improved mainly the highly comprehensive 3-year tennis school program.

Following the sad downfall of our legendary club (also the 1979 Tennis Champions League winner), Karel established his own private tennis program in 1991, and his Karel Jandus Tennis School was for over 25 years one of the biggest and most professionally led independent tennis programs in the Czech capital of Prague.

As Karel well understood the need for modern coaching education, he joined me as a board member of the Czech Professional Tennis Association (CPTA), which I established in 1992, and after my move to Switzerland, he took over the presidency of the organization. Over the years, we have organized, also with the big support of Karel's son Karel Jandus Jr. and Zdenek Janousek (without any profit for any of us!) several educational courses for the Czech coaches. The biggest among them was the 1997 joint CPTA/USPTA Course and Testing where we were joined by another dear mentor of mine, the legendary George Bacso (USA). Here, Karel was a new USPTA member coming also for the USPTA Certification. The Czech portion of the course took 50 hours, and George joined us for all of this, despite not speaking Czech. The course had also many practical parts on the court. Then, when the moment of the testing came, the always very precise Karel was a bit nervous about when his testing would take part. While setting up the line-up for the testing with George he tells me: "I have observed him (Karel) all week long, he is excellent, he is a P-1, testing him would be a waste of time." In my opinion, such an acknowledgment by George Bacso, could be seen as one of the biggest respects in the business.

Karel, many thanks for everything, I miss you and with me many other seriously-minded people in the Czech tennis community! RIP Karel!

05/09/2024

The upcoming American Emma Navarro has already eliminated the defending US Open Champion Coco Gauff. Who had a better forehand was not even much of the question in that match.

In a few minutes, the 2023 runner-up Aryna Sabalenka is Emma's next opponent. The forehand could be of a high importance again. For years, forehand was the weakness of Aryna Sabalenka. "Destroying" Aryna's forehand was one of the essential tactical elements to use against her. When Sloane Stephens started to partly used this tactic in their match during the 2023 French Open, she came back from 0-5 in the 1st set to find herself with a mini-break in the tiebreaker. Unfortunately, she left the successful tactic at that moment...

But the times have changed a bit. Aryna had made significant improvements in her forehand. During the current 2024 US Open, her forehand was clocked as the fastest one in the entire field, including men!! In my personal opinion, Aryna improved mainly one element leading to a significantly bigger body energy engagement in her forehand stroke. Mainly one important element still gets forgotten from time to time... So, the way I see it, disturbing Aryna's forehand might still be one of the deciding tactical elements in the upcoming match.
Photos from Flushing Meadows - New York - USA - August 2024

09/08/2024

In my personal opinion, the Olympic Gold Medal win by Novak Djokovic (SRB) was a fantastic achievement crowned by a very high level finals match against a very strong Carlos Alcaraz (ESP)! Personally, I have seen this final at the level of the finals of 2023 Cincinnati (Djokovic b. Alcaraz) and 2023 US Open (Djokovic b. Medvedev), and I consider these 3 finals among the best I have seen in my over 35 years in tennis.

After hearing a few rather negative comments about the finals match, I would like to share a few points:

- The fact that both sets have been decided in a tie-breaker, while Djokovic saved 8 and Alcaraz 6 breakpoints in a match with took almost 3 hours, speaks about the enormous quality of both contenders!

- Some voices criticise the amount of mistakes Alcaraz made (33). In general, the category "unforced error" can be often misleading, especially while playing against Djokovic who does not possess the physical power potential of his biggest (mainly Spanish and Russian) opponents nor does he possess the genius of players like Federer or Dimitrov. His game is based mainly on a fantastic active defense, which he is constantly improving, both technically and tactically. While returning most of the attacks of his opponents, he is putting their physical and mental (focus, patience) capacities to their limits. In addition to that, his opponents know that he is going to use any weak stroke from their side for a dangerous counterattack. This takes them to the mental state that they want to decide the points with an excessive power from suboptimal positions, and this leads to a high amount of "unforced errors".

- Djokovic has been and is steadily improving the efficiency of his overall game, also with ongoing technical adjustments - mainly on the backhand side lately. His serve and volleys belong in between to the best in business, and in general, he has achieved the highest level of the Tennis 3.0 (=body energy dominance) strokes among all the current players (with Alcaraz being close 2nd in this category). He seems to well understand the deciding distinct technical elements, which most of the other players and coaches have difficulties to recognize.

- When we look at the statistic details, Djokovic was slightly better in all the important categories:
Total points won: 101 / 90
% of all service points won: 71 / 64
% of 1st serves in: 74 / 66
% of 1st serve points won: 78 / 72
% of 2nd serve points won: 50 / 48
% of all return points won: 36 / 29

As a summary, in my opinion, the Paris Olympic Men's Tennis Final was a great match between two tennis giants, which was decided by the enormous overall game mastery of Novak Djokovic!

05/08/2024

Yesterday's Olympic Gold Medal win by Novak Djokovic from Serbia was, in my personal opinion, the most deserved tennis victory, which I was able to witness in my lifetime!! Bravo Novak Djokovic🥇👍👏👏😍!!

26/04/2024

SUPER DEAL - TENNIS OPPORTUNITY - 50% OFF!!
Based on the last moment cancelation - 2 places are available for the MBTA Spring Tennis Camp starting in Naturns - South Tirol - Italy tomorrow, April 27, 2024!!
50% OFF the list prices shown below!!
Please PM, if seriously interested!

20/04/2024

For all tennis fans, the first tennis museum of Switzerland is about to open next weekend!!
Big thanks and congratulations to Hans Markutt for his amazing efforts🎾🎾👍👍👏👏!!

Eröffnung 27. April 2024

28/03/2024

My talk is scheduled for tomorrow at 8:40pm CET / 3:40pm EST. I will be live joining the talk. If you are interested, and you have not registered yet, you can do so here: https://wtc4.coachtube.com/?sc=lyyhuWVA&ac=FIFVS1zj
The Ball Receiving & Follow-through" are for me the cornerstones of the game, which decide about the further player development and success, as well as about player longevity in the game!

11/10/2023

Novak Djokovic (SRB) - Forehand series in the practice, as mentioned in the previous post.

11/10/2023

Watching Novak Djokovic (SRB) in practice is a highly valuable experience for anyone seriously interested in the game. With a deep keen look, the observer can spot some of the important aspects, helping make Novak the world best player:
On pic 1/, can be well seen a long, calm follow through, despite having a slight off-center hit.
On pic 2/, despite a very low-energy warm-up shot, the elbow still goes far away from the body.
On pic 3/, the wide, high-energy stance, even in the practice
Finally, the video (in the next post) shows a top forehand shot series where all the strokes are based simply on the loading and unloading, and in all but one (slightly jammed) stroke, this leads to a long striking radius with the arm and racket being thrown against the target - this is what Forehand 3.0 - body energy dominated forehand with a long-axis pronation or also the 3-D Helix Forehand is all about.
From the pre-2023 US Open practice in the Arthur Ashe Stadium - Flushing Meadows - New York - USA - August 2023

24/09/2023

15/07/2023

Big congratulations to Marketa Vondrousova (CZE) & her team to the 2023 Wimbledon Championship win🏆🥂👏!
It was a wonderful coincidence that her win comes exactly 50 years after the first ever Czech(oslovak) Wimbledon Championship win by Jan Kodeš (in 1973) and that he (they are both members of the same club in Prague) was personally supporting Marketa in her winning campaign.
This 1973 Jan Kodes Wimbledon win can be than seen as a pivotal moment for the Czech(oslovak) tennis and a big motivational factor leading to a huge success story of the Czech(oslovak) tennis, mainly from the 1980's on!! It's well possible that without the 1973🏆, there would be not be the 2023🏆...