20 YEARS AGO
The night before last we celebrated the 20th anniversary of Sánchez-Casal, with the whole Sánchez-Casal family in Barcelona. All together, we passed games and challenges in team building activities. There have passed twenty years since the Academy’s foundation but yesterday we all played as if we were children.
What does altitude training do for tennis players?
From the Sanchez-Casal Academy we organized a pre-season stage in altitude with the advanced level players to try to achieve mainly three goals: The enhancement of physical conditioning level; The impact on the emotional and mental aspects of each tennis player; The socio-affective implication that results of the coexistence of a group of tennis players during a certain amount of time.
This special training context gives us the unique opportunity to pose complex challenges to overcome and remove players from their comfort zone. Do you want to read about our experience?
A Day at Sanchez-Casal Summer Camp
It’s 6:00am and Julia’s alarm clock sounds. Outside it’s still a bit dark and quiet. She prepares her tennis bag and grabs her racquet. She walks five minutes from the house to the cafeteria with some campers to meet the big group and have breakfast by 6:30am. Breakfast includes cereal, toast, ham and cheese sandwiches, fruit juice and milk.
At 7:00am she’s on the court to start her morning practice for three hours. It’s a sunny day as almost every day is in Naples, Florida. After tennis practice, she has an hour of fitness to stretch but also goes through a tennis specific performance training.
TENNIS IS TOO MUCH
The big day had arrived. The dream final: Rafa against his archrival. Rafa spent months changing his game to be more aggressive and had created great expectations. The whole world of tennis predicted a great battle, even I thought it would be another epic final that would ultimately depend exclusively on the mental pillar.
Sánchez-Casal Pyramid®, the path to success
At Sánchez-Casal Academy, the development of our long-stay players is very important to us. That is why we created the ASC Player Development and Competition Plan, summarized in the Sánchez-Casal Pyramid©, which shows players the path to success in the professional world of tennis. Do you want to follow the same path as Murray, Kuznetsova, Sanchez V, Dimitrov or Monaco?
CASPER’S LEGACY, THE CASPER TOUR
I accompanied Verdasco to the Rome Masters in May 2017 and when he lost, I got the urge to stop by Madrid to visit Casper, something within me pushed me to visit him instead of going to Barcelona to see my mother.
“OUR BIGGEST ASSET IS THAT WE BUILD CHARACTER”
“When students come to ASC, they don’t have a lot of experience, but when they leave, they know they have learned something that will help them for any life match they play in their future. Values build character, and the right attitude can multiply the outcome, so parents often congratulate us and thank us for helping their children work on those values and develop their character.” Interview with Emilio Sánchez Vicario.
A COACH THAT CARES IS A COACH YOU CAN TRUST
At first glance he seems shy, or maybe he is, but as soon as he speaks, his low tone captivates you. His arguments are very strong, and he knows how to put himself in your place. Víctor Hugo Camargo puts effort into what he does, he is always available, and the ASC values are his DNA. He is involved with attention, his greatest virtue is that he cares about others and gives everything for them.
EXCELLENCE AND VIRTUES OF AN ASC COACH
I want to take this opportunity to introduce you to Vovodymyr “Vova” Nikolenko, another great traveling coach who has been on the Sanchez Casal team for many years. He started playing tennis early on at the age of 7 in his home country, Ukraine and arrived in Barcelona as a student-athlete in 2003. After high school, he decided he wanted to continue being a part of ASC and started coaching in 2006.
THE SPANISH PLAYER ROBERTO CARBALLÉS, I CHALLENGER SÁNCHEZ-CASAL MAPFRE CHAMPION
The nº 1 seed, Roberto Carballés, was proclaimed champion of the Challenger Sánchez-Casal Mapfre, by defeating another Spanish player, Pedro Martínez, by 1/6, 6/3, 6/0. Carballés commented that “I felt at home during this week, which culminated with this important triumph, and I encourage more tournaments of this level to be organized in Spain.”
