The TennisWorthy Podcast is back for Season 2! The International Tennis Hall of Fame and host Chris Bowers bring a new set of enlightening interviews with legends and Hall of Famers for the new year. The podcast dives deep into the mindset of champions and uncovering the unique, special characteristics that define excellence on and off the court.
Four-time Grand Slam champion Jim Courier brings candid honesty, as always, to start off the season. With Chris, Jim reflects on his youth, competitiveness, and choice to focus on tennis as a junior in Florida. He gives insight into three legendary guideposts during his tennis career – coaches Harry Hopman, Nick Bollettieri, and Dr. Jim Loehr – and how their differing styles molded him. Jim also touches on his relationships with his Hall of Fame peers Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi, and shares a bit on his immense talents outside of tennis.
Jim Courier is a two-time Australian Open champion, two-time Roland-Garros champion, former world number one and two-time Davis Cup winner from the 1990s. A member of a golden generation of American male champions and now a regular media personality on the tennis circuit, he was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 2005.
Episode transcripts and more information can be found on the podcast homepage: tennisfame.com/podcast
Welcome everybody to season two of the tennis worthy podcast brought to you by the international Tennis Hall of Fame I’m Brett Haver in 2023 the Hall of Fame launched the tennis worthy podcast with 12 in-depth interviews with Legends of the game such as Tracy Austin Leon hwit
Ivon lendel matz Vander Mary Pierce and John Nukem these fascinating interviews are all still available on tennis fame.com slmp podcast and and we’re excited to be launching season two of these interviews with Legends right here Chris Bowers an esteemed tennis journalist of more than three decades and biographer of Roger Federer and
Novak jokovic will be chatting with our legendary guests here on on the tennis circuit Jim Curry I didn’t play basketball as a kid but if if I was on a basketball team I’d be the one that wanted the ball as the buzzer beater was coming I wanted a shot that’s the thing
That the best Pros do is they have everything that’s in their controls under control when we’re on the court you put your mask on and you perform and then you shake hands and you’re back to being friends don’t expect that things are going to happen because people tell
You you’re great you got to go earn it every day Jim grew up in Florida profiting from the tutelage of such contrasting coaches as Harry Hopman on one end and Nick Boler on the other and he speaks totally honestly about the different cultures those two highly successful coaches in gender as you
Would expect if you know anything about Jim he is brutally honest about the ups and downs of his career Jim what is the attribute that you think makes a hall of famor well I think good luck you have to start there you have to have the right setup you
Need you need a good family situation most of the time because that’s how most tennis players will find themselves on a tennis court is because someone in their family is interested in it and then from there it takes a series of of events
With a lot of luck a lot of hard work a lot of persistence and dedication and ultimately you know a desire to perfect your craft and be willing to make lots of sacrifices along the way tennis is is one example of that but anyone who wants
To be great at anything has to sort of find that that Silver Bullet if you will of we’re going to stay committed to this we’re going to ride the ups and downs of whatever it is I’m going to be a a great musician if I want to be a talented
Writer whatever the case may be it’s not that it has to be all consuming but it has to be enough consuming that that you put your life’s work into it you’ve talked a lot about growing up in Dade City name Miami and that there wasn’t a lot of tennis infrastructure there was
There enough backup in your family and friends so that you got the start that you needed and that you’ve just talked about so tennis in the 1970s when I was a child was extremely popular with families it was a it was very much a sport that was aspirational a lot of
People that didn’t even play tennis wanted to dress like tennis players it was the era of Arthur Ash and Billy je King and Martina naala and Chris Everett and bejor Borg and John minro and it was cool so my parents did it because it was cool they did it with their friends and
They weren’t uh particularly great tennis players they were good athletes who played tennis but it was something they loved and they enjoyed and and as a child my sister and I we would go to the tennis courts the local public park with my my parents and we’d play on the
Jungle gym but we wanted to do what our parents were doing as most children do so we fell into the sport there wasn’t a great infrastructure in town there was no tennis club in town there were just some public courts and high school courts but my parents saw that I was
Passionate about it and they got a basket of balls and they would feed balls to me and we found a local college coach who was uh a good a good educator as far as you know teaching tennis to a young person like myself and we took it
Step by step we were blind we had no idea where we’re going but it worked out uh amazingly well so when did you first get the sense that you had the determination to put in the work necessary I think I had that very early and I think I had that in general um
When did you start what’s I started playing tournaments when I was about seven or eight but I was the kid whether it was a baseball that I would throw against the wall and and have it come back to me I was I was the kid who didn’t want to leave whatever I was
Doing I never wanted the sun to go down because I wanted to keep playing whether it was tennis or baseball or football or riding my bicycle I just had that type of personality so tennis was a great outlet for me because it was one of the
Few Sports at that time in the United States that you could play year round you took talk about having played other sports when it came to the decision to focusing on one what were the thoughts that led you to tennis so it was really a question of not wanting to be left
Behind and I was very passionate about baseball I was very passionate about tennis and in tennis it was a little easier to understand where you stood in the hierarchy because there was a ranking system not just a State ranking system but a national ranking system so
I knew where I stood I knew that by the age of 13 I was number five in the United States and in baseball I was good but I didn’t know how good because there was no way to know you knew you were good in your area and your state but you
Didn’t know what what else was out there so for me tennis was a very it was a very logical decision to go to because I knew that that worst case and this was going to be a best case in a lot of ways I was going to get a scholarship to play
Tennis at a college so it was going to be my Pathway to the next level of education and then whatever life would follow after that would be would be my path but I didn’t didn’t think professional tennis was on the horizon I wasn’t one of those chosen ones but I
Knew that if I chose tennis that it was going to be good to me and it was going to provide opportunities makes it sound very mathematical when you’re talking about motivation is that just post Haw rationalization for what happened or were you conscious of that at the time
I’m also extremely competitive as most people are that that played Sports at that level I was very competitive and I also played a year of baseball in the summer and my tennis suffered because I wasn’t playing the national tournaments my ranking dropped for a period And I
Had to work my way back up so there were practical realities happening around me that I could see if I didn’t commit to it I needed to commit to one of them I had to if I wanted to keep up in either sport and I just knew mathematically
That tennis was going to guarantee me a division one scholarship someplace that would lead to better things in life so as a youngster playing you must have played against kids who had the same sort of forehand and backhands as you what made you bit win most of the
Matches I think my instincts were really good from what I hear Chris my mom tells me that even in the when I was eight and nine and 10 years old when it was pressure moments in matches I was aggressive I had the The Thirst for those moments and I didn’t back down I
Wasn’t afraid to play at those moments effectively if if we’re talking about a basketball team I didn’t play basketball as a kid but if if I was on a basketball team I’d be the one that wanted the ball as the buzzer beater was coming I wanted
The shot I wasn’t I didn’t want to pass the ball and give up responsibility I embraced pressure and I think that’s something that was evident pretty early from what my mom tells me was that just how you were or do you think somebody taught you to seiz moment I think that’s
I think that’s who I am and it’s it’s funny when you now nowadays we have the the luxury of being able to watch some of our great current players when they were young kids on YouTube there’s wonderful video of them playing and you can see those instincts in someone like
Alcaraz his aggressive instincts his his Instinct was thirst for danger in big moments was there from the beginning it appears and I think that’s true of most players I think most players have a personality type that really shows in the choices they make uh when the chips
Are down did you have setbacks or doubts tons tons of setbacks and doubts I didn’t have a lot of injuries when I was young I was very fortunate with my body Chris and not all players are lucky like that but I I had certainly plenty of
Moments of Doubt where I didn’t think I was going to be good enough and Tennis can be a tough sport because of the solitary nature of it as you know it it can be difficult to process loss uh for for the emotional state you’re in so you
Have to learn how to do that over time but I had plenty of setbacks plenty of moments where I didn’t think I was going to be able to do it but I had enough fuel and and determination to keep pushing forward anyway and did you have the right people around around you to
Help process cuz processing on your own is hard it’s a lot easier when someone can reflect back to you first of all I had I had and have a great family very supportive family who never made um you know their their attention on me dependent on my results so I was very
And I had brothers and sisters you know a brother and a sister too so it it wasn’t always just about what I was doing and I was a very healthy environment from a family standpoint and at bitar’s I was incredibly lucky to have access to Dr Jim one of the the
First sports psychologists at least in the United States still a preeminent voice and we could go talk to him and and get things off of our chest at a time when I don’t think that was readily available to to many athletes in general I’ll come back to Jim l in a minute but
Your first Guru that you came into contact with is Harry Hopman that’s right what did you learn from Harry Mr Hopman was amazing because I went down there I’d been earning money mowing La mowing lawns in my neighbor neighborhood and I earned enough money to go down
There I had another friend who was coming down for the weekend a gal from uh who played National tournaments with us she came down with her family and it was $50 a day in 1981 to to go to Harry hopman’s for like a day pass which is a
Lot of money N9 10 years old I’m 11 years old 11 so I saved my money I had my $100 and I went down there and paid my $100 to go my mom took me down there drove me down it was about an hour and 10minute drive from our house and I did
The camp and Mr h put me on a court with another really good Junior player that I played with and he worked us out hard and I’d never seen anything like it I think he was doing the same drills that he would do with with rocket and fiery
And all the great Aussies and he was testing me and it was amazing to to see what the next level looked like cuz I didn’t have any idea what that looked like and there were other Pros around too but it was my first taste with high high level tennis training and I was
Smitten and he was always Mr Hopman Mr hotman absolutely and so then a couple of years later you went to bolar’s what did Nick give you Nick Boler compared with Hopman so there were different environments M Mr hopman’s environment was much more sort of old school it was regimented it was quiet it
Was you know very refined from that standpoint Nicks was much more of a renegade outfit no one’s wearing a shirt there’s a lot of screaming and yelling and you know racket tossing and a very different environment and it was a little bit more of the wild west but
There there was so much appetite for success and so much desire on display and at the same time Nick was extremely Progressive with having uh Sports you know strength and conditioning coaches having a sports psychologist on board there was just a lot of progressive thinking going on there because Nick
Didn’t believe in the Box he wanted to jump over the box and create his own playground for us to play in and above all Nick collected players at that point he would offer scholarships to people like myself and and there were a lot of hungry people there that wanted to get
Better that were willing to do everything to to get to the top and it was amazing the energy so if it was a bit of a wild west with people not wearing shirts and throwing the rackets where which is a bad idea for me Chris
Cuz I don’t tend so I don’t know why I did that well you’re very blonde aren’t you yeah it was red where did the discipline come from because there must have been some at such an access such a successful Academy as bitar still there was discipline in what you were doing on
The court there wasn’t discipline as as it revolved around the behavior there there was a lot of lot more lack there than than than b than at hopman’s for sure but you know Nick was a Taskmaster came from a military background so you when you went on his court in particular
You were at attention and ready to get his attention and try and keep and try and impress him so it was um it was a special place with with its own little momentum right players competing day in and day out in these Cutthroat matches where you’re in ladders in groups and
You’re trying to stay in your group and if you lose you might get demoted effectively so it constant competition constant competition which was an amazing Ambiance to be and did that find certain people out did people leave because they couldn’t stand the competition and people like you survived
Probably um I never really thought of it that way cuz I was so young and so myopic at that time but I’m sure that it called plenty of the herd we mentioned Jim I mean as the preeminent tennis psychologist he’s obviously helped lots of people what did he help you with well
First of all just having someone listen is really important for mental health has become such a hot button topic now and it was a taboo back then it was a sign of of weakness if you talked about needing help mentally you were you were indicating quote unquote weakness as an
Athlete that’s not the case it’s just another area that needs to be nurtured like like your your lungs and your legs and and every other muscle that you need to play tennis your your fragile ego is something that needs to be nurtured too when you’re losing and winning on a
Daily basis so Jim was was first and foremost a place to to go talk about what was happening and have him be real thoughtful about it give you some feedback on that but he also helped with dealing with stress on the court by giving a lot of us uh rituals and
Systems to deal with stress so ways to stay focused and not get distracted with everything that was going on around you so you had had a template of what to do in between points that gave you that framework to stay focused we got on to Jim lur because I asked you about
Setbacks yes so looking back how did you overcome your setbacks well there were many ways to to overcome them sometimes it would be writing thoughts down keeping journals and then looking at them a few days later and trying to figure out exactly what it all meant and
And finding a way to stay motiv moated I mean tennis is a Relentless business tournaments week in and week out one winner you know many enter only one leaves undefeated so you had to learn how to deal with those setbacks and ultimately it also came down to having
Not just people like Jim Lair around but also people like Brad Stein and Jose Garis around or Craig Boon that could help me set goals and and understand that I was still trying to get better it didn’t matter what the ranking next to my name was whether it was a single
Digit or whether it was Triple digits still areas to improve and that was a way to keep things moving forward and to sort of cushion the blows of some tough defeats that inevitably happen if you play at this level if you look at the progress of your career it really took
Off in early 91 when you won Indian Wells kis skain and Roland garos but you turned professional three years earlier and the buildup in those three years was gradual just one title in that time what were you building up what strengths were you building up there’s a lot of learnings when you come
On the tour you learn where your weaknesses are pretty quickly cuz these veteran Pros who are Savvy they’ll exploit you so I learned that I needed uh more defense on my backhand it was too fragile I learned that I needed to add things like a slice backand to play
Defense and stay in rallies I learned that my fitness wasn’t good enough on many occasions as a young pro when I would run out of gas and cramp up in matches and lose because my fitness was wasn’t up to standard ultimately what I learned which was a real key in that
Time frame Chris was I learned that my opponents had strengths and weaknesses too and I and I started looking across the net in better understanding that they could make mistakes and help me and I didn’t have to do everything myself as an offensive-minded player sometimes I
Would be too offensive and would make a lot of mistakes and that would hurt the end result anyone who watched you playing at your Prime would be astonished to say my fitness wasn’t good enough I had to work on it it cuz you were at your Peak strong as an ox but
This was before that this was the first couple of years on tour when I lost quite a few matches due to Fitness and then I made a determination I’m not going to lose any matches or I’m going to do everything in my power at least to
Be as fit as I possibly can and I’m going to check every box that I can control like that’s the thing that that the best Pros do is they have everything that’s in their controls under control and they’re prepared for all the inevitabilities because there are always
Things that are outside of your control that your opponent’s doing that the weather’s doing that the schedule does that you just have to deal with but if you take care of what’s on your plate you have more energy to deal with the other stuff you had a slightly unconventional playing style had you
Taken some elements from other sports that you played and in fact were you aware that you had something that was a bit different to others I did know that my backham was unconventional and I deeply regret that I didn’t listen to my coaches to change it when I should have
But I was a stubborn kid and there’s something to uh stubbornness leading to some success but it also led to me having to overcome my backhand inefficiency you know the grip was definitely a problem I it was a baseball backhand swing so I tried not to hit too
Many backhands and I tried to work on uh making it at least solid enough not to hurt me and and it inevitably it became a shot that I could at least rely on to make but it wasn’t a weapon and it could have been possibly if I had a little
Little better technique in that wonderful period from middle of 91 to early 93 you won four slams most of the time you were number one in the world how did you deal with being world number one which is a a role albeit one without any definition well it’s one that you
Learn on the Fly because there’s no school to prepare you for that necessarily you learn that there are commitments that you have to deal with there are lots of people who want things for you for all the right reasons and sometimes not but you learn how to filter
And above all you learn how to keep the people that are meaningful to you very close to you um that’s a dangerous time to to make new friends let’s put it that way and I was very good at that I was very good at at staying insular and
Focused and not not losing um the energy that I needed to extraneous activities so I continued to try and get better as a tennis player um all throughout my career but you know certainly in that time period it was uh head down move forward keep getting better because
That’s what led me to that position in the first place your first Grand Slam title you beat Agassi in five sets in the final you’d been with him at bolet teries you said in an interview not so long ago you’d seen him in his underpants which I found a a lovely line
Because it indicates you’ve seen him vulnerable yeah is that a like a a mental Ploy that you use that imagining somebody whether you have seen them in their underpants or not without clothes as a way of taking the fear away the the fear of the moment in playing a major
Final for me was was in that case was playing the moment it wasn’t playing the man if I had played someone that had been more of a hero to me if it had been more of a a macenroe a borg a lindel you know all these players and I’m leaving
So many out that I would have been intimidated by Matt Vander people that I’d watched and dreamed of being on the court with that would have been you know more much more of a hurdle to overcome and we see that with with the modern players having to face someone like
Jokovic in a final that it’s intimidating to face him on top of the situation but Andre was my peer you know I i’ slept in the same room as he had for many many years and and I knew he was just a kid like me chasing a dream
So it was more easy for me to manage that aspect of the moment um because of you know the fact that we were just peers and I think that that stands true today you look at cner and and alarz and sinner is not in the least intimidated
By alarz and plays great against him because they played a lot of junior tournaments together I’m sure you also a peer of Pete Sampras but you didn’t spend as much of your childhood with him was there a different way of dealing with Pete especially as you used to play
Golf together in the early days well Pete and I turned Pro the same day we were doubles partners for the first couple of years on tour together and practiced a ton ate every meal together Pete and I were ex as close as anybody he was my best friend on tour the first
Couple of years out before we started to do better in singles and and primarily before we got girlfriends and that was really what sort of broke up the the the brohood if you will but um so don’t get a girlfriend no it was great that was a
Great part of life too it was necessary so um you know Pete and I were extremely close and and that um you know that had very little to do on the on the court you know the fact that we’re friends we’re certainly able to put that away
And we’re all chasing big prizes and we’re big boys and and he was better than I was we had a lot of great battles and and it was a lot of fun to to be a part of that generation with him but he was I was every bit as close to him even
Closer than I was uh with Andre certainly from a personal standpoint at that time in our lives and how did you learn to deal with not being a good friend of his when he was on the other side of the net I was so I learned that
Very quickly I think I had that innately if you ask Mark nolles who has been one of my best friends since that time too Mark and I we’re at ballares together as well we played very early on he got a wild card into a small ATP tournament
And we played in the first round and I beat him and after the match he he still tells me he’s like you you know you shook you look me in the eye you were pumping your fist the whole way like you didn’t know who I was and then we shook
Hands you said you apologized to me and said sorry man business is business and that was sort of the way that I approached it when we’re on the court you put your mask on and you perform and then you shake hands and you’re back to being friends at your Peak you were on
The wrong end of Stephan edberg single best match in the US Open final he beat you you won six games against him and yet four months later you beat him in the Australian Open final was that just two different days or had you leared something that you then put into
Practice in Melbourne both um Stefan played so well I don’t know um that I could have possibly made it I mean I was playing great in that tournament I didn’t lose a set in route to the final and he just crushed me he was awesome
And by the time we got to Australia I’d picked up a little bit on his service patterns after studying the match and and had a little bit of a better idea of how I wanted to play him and and Stephan I had played several matches you
Mentioned the one title I’d won as a teenager that was against Stefon and bosel I beat him 75 in the fifth set so we’d had some battles before and he he’d never played as well as he did against me in the US Open that year in ‘ 91 but
Then I played you know unbelievably well against him from there on in so you beat him again in ’93 then you got to ringos final which you lost in five you got to The Wimbledon final which you lost in four when you were looked like you were mounting a really good comeback yeah
After that you seemed to lose something when you look at your career trajectory did something inside you get lost or did did other players just work you out or what I think it’s probably more that other players started to work me out certainly Pete started to work me out
You know Pete really started to lift after that Wimbledon title that was really the beginning of his big run where he would be year and number one I think six straight years so Pete put a stop to a lot of my progress after that but there were other players like Cedric
Peine who beat me at the US Open that year in the round of 16 who figured out if he hit his backand down the line I couldn’t run around and hit forehand inside out so there were players started to pick up on my patterns and started to
See how I was vulnerable and it was hard for me and I kept working every bit as hard had some success but it was never quite the same as that little run you mentioned before where I had that you know really strong run to a lot of
Finals I suppose not knowing what the future holds means that you look forward to the next seven years you went on playing for seven years after the middle of 93 and yet you never achieved anything like what you’d achieved in the two and a half years before yeah but I’m
So grateful for ever being on tour first of all like that’s not something that I ever had taken for granted like I I wasn’t a kid at the age of 12 that was looking at it going oh I’m definitely good enough to be on tour you know that
This was a dream of mine to be a top 100 player for 10 years that was my goal the day that I turned Pro I got to be in the show I got to be a big part of the show for a period of that time and I I’ve
Lived an amazing life through tennis so I have nothing but gratitude for it and uh I would have been very very happy to to have done much much less in tennis that’s interesting is that again post Haw rationalization or you could have asked me at any time in my career and I
Would have told you I can’t believe how lucky I am that this is happening let me ask you something else which is not strictly relevant to tennis but I wonder how much it helped building your own character you leared French you learned a bit of Spanish as well and you were
Willing to speak French on court at Roland garos what did that do for your broader tennis game and yourself as a person so when I grew up playing tennis I also grew up playing music my grandmother rest her soul bought me a drum set and my parents allowed that to
Take place cuz this was not one of your electronic drum kits that makes no noise this was the booming acoustic full set with big crash symbols and everything so I was always quite Musical and I loved playing music I’m still musical to the day I I have a drum little electronic
Drum set at home for my kids that I get on more than they do and I have a bunch of guitars and I love music so that’s another language and I love music and I fell in love with French Brad Stein who was traveling with me as one of my
Coaches back in that time Brad speaks French so I started become interested in the language and then I made a determination after I won roling Arrow the first time that if I was ever lucky enough to win it again I was going to
Try and say a few words in French so I I just bought a little book and I would study every night it was actually one of the great things in that time period in my life when everything around me was changing that I would just simply sit at
Home or my hotel room and read a little bit of French and study it every night for six straight months and then I became courageous enough to start speaking my you know basically kindergarten or first grade French level in public and I love it because it’s another way that your brain operates
It’s another area of your brain that activates when you when you find yourself in another language and I did enough of it that when I’m in France now and I speak again that there’ll be nights where I’ll dream in French and that’s always so interesting when my
Brain converts over to that language for just you know even if it’s only for like an hour cuz there’s a generally recognized link that the soccer players who live in a foreign country if they learn the language they’re far more likely to succeed that’s interesting and
I just wonder whether you felt that it helped make you a better tennis player not just that you had the crowd with you at rolling Aros I don’t think that necessarily it made me a better tennis player but I think it probably was part of the package that allowed me to play
Better tennis because there was a time with a lot of distraction available to me and I stayed focused on improving and that’s part of improving as a human being is to find things that you can get better on and I was doing that while I was you know pursuing another dream one
Other aspect of tennis you played a lot of Davis Cup you were on two winning teams 92 95 you played an amazing live fifth rubber in 99 against retki what did the team variant of an essentially individual sport do for you having played team sports as a kid I loved it I
Loved being a a part of the team because of my background of playing a lot of baseball uh I think I was a good team player I was very supportive of my of my teammates and I loved getting their support as well because it’s it’s a interesting Dynamic when you have our
Teams which were largely comprised of people that were winning the majors at that point in time coming together and pooling our energy in One Direction as opposed to fighting each other for a prize so it was it was an interesting Dynamic and I love the the practice days
As much as I love the matches the the card games the meals together the camaraderie those are some of my Fondest Memories in tennis not not just the weekend matches but the Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday when it’s the buildup to it because you played on that amazing
Team in the final in 92 you sis Agy and macenroe did you all put your egos sufficiently to one side we did and it was interesting because at that point in time John and Pete were the doubles team and so Andre and I were playing singles
That’s how good the team was so they did an amazing job of of sort of helping get us ready for the singles and then doing their job in doubles and it was uh it was an amazing team to be a part of I still kind of pinched myself in 2005 you
Were inducted into the international Tennis Hall of Fame in your induction speech you said I’ve always been alive what did you mean by that well I think that when you are lucky enough to play in a sport like tennis where you get feedback on a constant basis you realize
That you’re alive you don’t have to wait to know how you’re feeling it happens very naturally so I feel really lucky that that I’ve just always had the the job that allowed me to feel so much emotion whether it was positive or negative there was never really a day
That it was boring there was certainly a never day where I doubted whether I was feeling good or bad because I knew something either hurt or it didn’t I’d won or I’d lost but I was in touch with those emotions and that for me is what life is about is th those emotional
Connections and that’s before I was married and had kids and you know that takes on a different uh kind of different mindset it takes on a different meaning but at that point in my life I had met my wife didn’t have kids but I was very much
Alive in my own little space and do you sometimes see people and you think I wish you were more alive I do I do but that also helps me realize that I’ve been very fortunate the world is full of kids who play tennis and dream of making it to
The top some have a chance what would you say to aspiring kids and their parents about how to handle the hazards of childhood as a gifted tennis player so the the thing that I would say first and foremost to the parents is let your children pull you into the sport as
Opposed to you pushing them into the sport I think it’s a it’s a healthier way to go and i’ I’ve seen both sides of that coin I’m someone who pulled my parents into the sport and they supported it and I never resented the sport as a result of that but the other
Side of that coin you see a lot of players and hear a lot of stories about players who resent the childhood that they live we only get to be children once they they should enjoy it for the children just enjoy it just go have fun
Go get it and see what happens but don’t expect that things are going to happen because people tell you you’re great you got to go earn it every day tennis is a meritocracy the tennis ball doesn’t care where you’re from what you look like it
Just goes where it’s told to go so if you’re good enough to tell it where to go you can put your hands on some pretty good Hardware at at a big tournament someday Jim CER it’s wonderful that you consider yourself lucky so are people interact with you thank you very much
For sharing your thoughts and memories thank you Chris you’ve been listening to Jim Courier talking with Chris Bowers and when you hear that interview it’s it’s no wonder Jim is one of the most astute commentators in tennis today and one of the great onc court interviewers at the
End of matches next time we hear from another man who triumphed at both the Australian and French opens but in a much earlier era going back to the 1950s and extending into the mid 70s a man who truly straddled two very different eras of tennis the Aussie Legend Ken roswall don’t miss that
Interview and if you enjoyed our interview with Jim Courier do tell your friends colleagues and family about the tennis worthy podcast the best way to support these interviews is to spread the word so they reach as many people as possible and not just tennis fans there’s a lot of wisdom in them for
People in all walks of life the tennis worthy podcast is brought to you by the international Tennis Hall of Fame in association with the tennis radio network I’m Brett Haber thanks so much for listening we’ll see you again next time
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Really good interview, great questions. Always a pleasure to listen to Jim. He was my idol as a teenager, as i was a redhead, played baseball, and had a screwed up backhand technique as well.