Czech Professional Tennis Association

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 1982, at 39, 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!

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🏆...

15/01/2022

Mark (50+ / UK) - Slow-motion of the 1st service 3.0 in a practice of an adult player getting ready to start with a tennis competition - Sports Zugerland - Cham/ZG - Switzerland - January 2022
At CPTA we believe that the application of a sound tennis technique of the DTBT-style leading to the Tennis 3.0 standard of the strokes is the right approach for the players of any age and level.