Francois Vogelsberger speaks about Dylan Alcott
Francois Vogelsberger is coaching two of the best wheelchair players in the world at the moment - Dylan Alcott and Heath Davidson.
Alcott, who is World No.1 in his division is the reigning Australian and US Open champion whereas Davidson is closing in, ranked No.5 in the world.
“He’s working very hard on the mental aspect of the game at the moment. He’s getting help with the Victorian Institute of Sport because he’s on a scholarship there. He’s making huge improvements in training, he’s working really hard,” Vogelsberger said of Davidson. “Transferring these improvements in training to a semifinal of the Australian Open (is a challenge). But he’s got big potential, and he realised it, and he’s disciplined in training. He’s getting better and better.”
Speaking about Alcott, who has played limited events, Vogelsberger added, “After Rio (where Alcott also won singles gold) he took some time off and he wasn’t competing and wasn’t training,” revealed Vogelsberger, who has worked with Alcott for more than four years.
“You can bring a horse to the pond but you can’t force them to drink. I knew that the US Open was coming up. But I said, OK, I’m gonna leave the experience (to him) and he’s gonna understand with the experience. He came to the US Open, hadn’t played, and he was shocking. And I think that experience helped him realise: maybe I can tweak my schedule, but I still need to train. Because if I don’t do that, I can’t win.”
“We had the discussion after that US Open, tried to lock (in) some training sessions, and lock time during the day where he doesn’t take any media commitments.”
Speaking about clashing schedules and managing the two players, he added, “I spend more time with Heath (on the practice court) because Dylan’s got other commitments,” Vogelsberger explained.
“I try to spend quality time with them, one-on-one, during the entire (training) week, except once a week they play against each other. Or their sessions might sometimes overlap for 15-20 minutes. It’s just always communication and discussion and to see their point of view. I think it’s been well received by them and they’re pretty happy with that (arrangement).”
from Tennis World USA http://bit.ly/2Lp8MZo
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