My Italian Tennis Adventure
Scott Murphy
Talk about destiny. In my wildest dreams I could not have imagined the course of the events that unfolded from such a simple request when, last March, John Yandell forwarded me an email from an Italian father with questions regarding strings for his daughter's racket.
At the time I was in the middle of planning a trip to Europe that would include a stay in Italy. The summer before, my wife Cynthia and I had spent a wonderful week in Monza with Marco Mottadelli and his wife Franca. Marco had been an admirer of my articles on Tennisplayer.net and after years of emailing and phone calls we finally met up in Italy to share our passion for tennis. Cynthia and I became great friends with Marco and his entire family.
That trip also included a visit to Prague (gorgeous) and my first ever appearance at Wimbledon. Based on that fantastic trip the wanderlust hit me head on. Since I was no longer directing the Nike Tahoe Tennis Camp, we were free to return to Europe the following summer for an even longer stay.
While we were putting the itinerary together, the string question came in from the Italian dad, Roberto Trovi. As had been the case with Marco, Roberto and I struck up an email friendship, and eventually, I asked if in our travels we could stop by and hit some balls with Roberto's fourteen year old daughter, Chiara (pronounced Key-ara). The answer was an enthusiastic yes.
Our trip began in London on June 29th. The following day, thanks to our great friend at Nike, Mike Nakajima, Cynthia and I found ourselves at Center Court at Wimbledon, directly behind the Royal Box. We watched Roger Federer defeat Lleyton Hewitt and a bit later saw the Andy Murray and Richard Gasquet five set thriller won by Murray as darkness fell. We were also able to hook up with my lifelong pal and college roommate, renowned San Francisco Chronicle sportswriter and author Bruce Jenkins who's been covering Wimbledon for some 22 years.
Unlike the year before, the weather in London was beautiful and we tried to do everything there we hadn't done in previous trips including playing tennis in Hyde Park! On our last day in London, during one of our many rides on the Underground, who should sit down right next to Cynthia? It was Agnieska Rudwanska, and we'd actually watched her defeat Svetlana Kusnetsova on Center Court a few days before. Cynth reported that Agnieska and two girlfriends were out doing some very serious shopping.
After four great days in London we were off to Italy where Roberto and Chiara picked us up at the airport in Pisa. We hit it off amazingly well, and what we had intended as a brief visit had developed into a two week stay. And here we hatched a plan for what we're hoping will be an exciting new chapter in Italian junior tennis (more on this later).
Roberto and his family, his wife Daniela, Chiara and a younger daughter Alice (pronounced A-lee-shay) live in a town (municipality) called Quarrata in the province of Pistoia in the region of Tuscany. It's located about 30 kilometers north of Florence and about 20 kilometers south of Pistoia, with a population of approximately 25,000.
Quarrata lies at the foot of the Montalbano hills, an area full of Etruscan settlements and fine medieval boroughs. It was used by the Medici family in the Renaissance as their private hunting reserve called the Barco Reale where beautiful villas were established such as the Villa la Magia.
The town is known as the "Citta del Mobile" for the many small and medium sized industries specializing in furniture. Roberto Trovi himself runs a very successful company called "Quarrata Forniture" that builds the machinery to make soft furniture. There are over 200 furniture showrooms and people from all over Tuscany come to see the extensive fare.
The Montalbano hills also produce some of the best wine and olive oil in the world. My favorite spot in Quarrata is located in a corner of the town square, a gelateria called Garten 3. The gelato they serve there is unbelievably good - .on a par with the gelateria in San Gimignano that has actually been declared by world experts as THE best gelato in the world.
Roberto had arranged for us to stay at an "agriturismo." Agriturismo is a combination of the words for "agriculture" and "tourism." Essentially it's a farmhouse that has been turned into a vacation home or apartment. The Agriturismo Baldi Franco in a little town outside of Quarrata called Cantagrillo.
Our house was atop a hill with an awesome view of the valley below. It was quiet, totally surrounded by olive tree groves and the perfect place to relax after a day of tennis and sightseeing. Roberto had also arranged for us to dine nightly at the restaurant down the hill, Podera Villa Fredda, that's run by the owners of the agriturismo. I don't think a day goes by that Cynthia and I don't dream about the fantastic food there (despite all of the fabulous pasta dishes I yearn most for the panna cotta)!
Quarrata may not be as well known as some of its neighbors such as Siena, Lucca and San Gimignano to name a few, but we loved it, and more than anything because of the people there. (Marco Mottadelli, who lives in northern Italy, was so right when he told us that the people in Tuscany were some of the most friendly you could ever meet). It didn't matter if they spoke English or not, they always made us feel like they were glad we were there.
In Quarrata they also have an amazing love for the game of tennis. There are two tennis clubs within a kilometer of each other, Tennis Club Quarrata and Selva Bassa and another Tennis Club Casalguidi, a few kilometers away in Casalguidi.. The Tennis Club Quarrata stole my heart from the minute I stepped on the grounds. Totally unpretentious and nestled up against the Montalbano hills it has two of the most beautiful red clay courts you'll ever see or play on. These courts are nurtured constantly and every morning when I'd arrive to work with Chiara just looking at them made me think of Roland Garros. There's also a synthetic grass court that remains covered year around and it was actually on this court that I had my first lesson with Chiara.
Roberto had pretty much kept me in the dark about Chiara. All I knew was that she was about to turn 14, she hit with two hands on both sides, she'd decided to use the string I'd recommended, and a recent loss in the finals of a tournament had upset her no end. It didn't take long, however, to see that this was a girl with exceptional talent, possessing all the ingredients to play high level tennis.
The day before we started working together I watched Chiara drilling crosscourt groundstrokes and noticed that she used two hands on absolutely everything, including very low and or wide balls. At that point I decided we'd work on a one handed slice backhand for our first lesson.
When I discovered that Chiara had never hit this shot and that we had a sizeable audience to boot, I was concerned that maybe I'd made a bad choice for my debut. For many players, the initial attempt at slice backhand can be very frustrating, but not Chiara. In all the years I've been teaching tennis I've never seen anyone connect so immediately with this shot.
My wife, a 5.0 player herself, was incredulous. "It's the first time she's ever hit it and she hits it better than I do!" And so this is how it was for the next two weeks. Whatever it was we worked on Chiara proved to be an exceptional athlete with a real passion for tennis and a burning desire to improve - a coach's dream.
Each day when my two hour lesson with Chiara ended three other very talented juniors would join us: Andrea Costa, Silvia Amerini and Dania Discianni. Despite the hot and humid weather of July they would always play hard from start to finish, relishing in the discovery of every dynamic drill or game I presented to them.
On occasion we'd be joined by Niki Besser, 17, who is part of a renowned tennis family in Quarrata. His older sister, Astrid, 19, plays on the WTA Tour and his younger sister Suleika (Suli), 14, is a great friend and practice partner of Chiara's who sometimes plays doubles with her sister in ITF events. Niki serves as Astrid's practice partner when she's home. All three are coached by their father Ike and you'll never meet nicer people anywhere. The group was always happy to see Niki arrive as he would always spur a higher level of play.
Between my sessions at the tennis club, Cynthia and I would make excursions to places like Vinci to visit the birthplace of Leonardo, and Lucca, totally surrounded by a wall so huge that cars can drive on it. Better yet were our days spent with the Trovi's visiting Florence, Pistoia, San Gimignano, Certaldo and Volterra. All of these cities are steeped in fascinating history and are basically no more than 20 minutes to a half hour from Quarrata.
I mentioned earlier that what had started as a "stop-by" to hit a few balls with a junior player had snowballed into discussions about creating something that could positively affect whole city and reach many Italian junior and adult tennis players. I found that there was an insatiable thirst for high level coaching information, and also that Tennisplayer.net was basically legendary throughout the region. I was simply mesmerized by the potential I saw and the incredible daily interactions with the tennis community there, both on and off the court.
I was born, raised, and have lived my entire life in Marin County, California, but when something feels right, it feels right. Having just concluded 10 years as director of the wonderful Nike Tahoe Tennis Camp, the timing was perfect.
So I'm very proud and happy to say that starting in June of 2009 I'll be directing the Quarrata/California Tennis Academy. This was truly a community decision, made with the full support of Roberto, the board of directors at Tennis Club Quarrata and Franco Burchietti who makes sport related decisions for the municipality.
Although primarily for juniors we will also have adult camps. We will be working with the full range of all abilities for both juniors and adults. And yes, Americans in both age groups will more than welcome. (As will Tennisplayer subscribers from everywhere else in the world!) If you are interested in receiving more information about what the camp has to offer, please feel free to email me directly at: scottmrph@yahoo.com.
I'm hoping that this endeavor will bring a fresh perspective to the Italian tennis scene and encourage more players of all ages to improve their games while thoroughly enjoying themselves both on and off the court. And it all started because John just doesn't really care much about one of my personal obsessions, the complexities of tennis strings and stringing. Writing for Tennisplayer.net just gets better and better.
