Tennis is a big part of my life, so most of my writing revolves around tennis. In life or tennis, I’m always interested in seeing the bigger picture. I always ask myself: what are all the things that influence the development and growth of a tennis player? It has to be more than just hitting the ball perfectly. I hope you will follow me on this journey of discovery and sharing thoughts, experience and knowledge.
We often tell kids: “It’s not about winning.” But what if, sometimes, it is? In today’s culture, competition can feel like a dirty word. Children are praised just for showing up, and any desire to stand out is too quickly labeled as arrogance. But in life, and...
In tennis, growth is not optional. Players need to keep improving, evolving, and finding new ways to reach their potential. But the same is true for coaches. If we want to guide others toward excellence, we need to keep learning ourselves. I’ve experienced this truth in...
The world of junior tennis never stands still. Every year, I spend a lot of time on the tennis court, watching young players compete at tournaments across the world. And every year, I notice small but significant changes in the way they play, train, and...
Hi, I' Nikola, but unless you're my mom, you can call me Nick. “Tennis will open the doors of the world for you,” my father told me when I was a boy. I didn’t fully believe him — until I saw those doors swing open, one by...
Have you ever seen a soccer player playing tennis and thought to yourself – wow, this guy is moving really fast? It was a very hot summer afternoon in Petrinja, a small Croatian town that was badly hit by an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.4...
I was inspired to actually write down my coaching principles by the words of John Wooden: I believe more in the concept and principles, and less in solutions for any specific situation. If the former is good, the latter comes naturally. This is one of...
Why we should NOT get too exclusive when talking about first four shots? In the last few years, 0-4 shots theory made a great impact in the world of tennis, and many of us coaches accepted it as valuable information. I personally respect the theory, it...
My takeaways from Hrvatski premier tenis tournament in Osijek From the commentator booth at the Hrvatski premier tenis tournament in Osijek last weekend, among many other things, we talked about the impact of “Corona break” on tennis players. It’s been the longest collective break for all...
A head start My dream of becoming a professional tennis player was very intense, but it didn’t last for too long. In my early years, we lived in the apartment next to the tennis courts and every kid from the neighbourhood played tennis, so I guess...
And he refused to specialize in anything, preferring to keep an eye on the overall estate rather than any of its parts. And Nikolay's management produced the most brilliant results. – Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace Recent technological advances have increased the demands for hyper-specialised knowledge....
The more I learn, the simpler solutions I see. Many people from different areas of expertise tend to make things overly complex. There are situations in which complexity is inevitable and absolutely required, but many times it’s really not the case. Complexity can be a real...
What can a tennis player learn from a professional dancer? Dancing and playing tennis are both skill-related activities and, therefore, we can find some similarities between them. According to experts, the quality level of a basic dance step is the key ingredient of every complex...
Delayed gratification is a cognitive process associated with resisting a smaller, immediate reward in order to receive a larger, more enduring reward later on. The most famous research on delayed gratification was done by a Stanford University psychologist Walter Mischel with his well-known “Marshmallow test”....
Recently, I wrote an article about how we all have a tendency to look for solutions top to bottom, expecting and relying on crucial information from people around us, while we often forget about the very foundations. Searching for something special from the outside, in...
We spend so much time searching for solutions top to bottom, looking for hacks in the system, while, in the meantime, we often ignore the very foundations. Don't get me wrong, I totally get that basics are hard - not easy, simple - not sexy,...
First half (two and a half sets) It all started with Rafa Nadal's tactical lesson on how to play against counterpunchers. Variety, variety, variety, and the savvy alternation between a passive and an aggressive game. A “passive” play with no angles from Nadal was forcing Medvedev...
The past Sunday afternoon around 6:20 p.m., Novak Djoković made one small step to the right side of the Wimbledon central court, while the ball from his opponent`s racket flew straight and fast to the left side of the service box. If the net had...
From the commentating booth So, I got a phone call if I would like to be assistant commentator for Roland Garros on Croatian national television. I was hesitating to give a straight answer because I was afraid of a challenge, yet somehow deep inside me I...
Without a doubt, a champion’s mind is a set of specific human skills that make all the difference between a good and a great athlete. Recently, I`ve come across an area of research from different authors who explored particular aspects of brain function as important...
It’s late Friday afternoon, and we are watching the sunset from the terrace of an authentic French restaurant (pictured above). So far, we’ve had the happiest and most relaxing time, and it’s not over yet. With the taste of French champagne in my mouth, I...
“Endurance is the struggle to continue against the mounting desire to stop” (Samuele Marcora). Endurance in the most limiting and arguably the most important factor in the science of human performance. To a certain extent, we all have a lack of endurance in something that we...
What am I doing wrong? Why have I missed that shot into the net? Why can’t I control the ball? Why, why, why and a thousand more why? Those are very real questions and players ask them all the time, but a bigger question is at...
Let’s assume you are a coach, any type of a sports coach. Imagine you are sitting in a room full of TV cameras in front of fifty very curious people and you’ve been asked this question: “Mr. Jones, how do you plan to improve your...
It was a nice summer afternoon, just another tennis tournament in yet another city. Standard routines were on: arriving on site, walking around facilities, getting acquainted with the officials, booking the practice, saying hello to very familiar faces and exchanging the usual questions like: “When...
Croatia is currently the leading nation in the world`s elite tennis coaching. Twelve Croatian tennis coaches are currently working with players ranked among top one hundred in the world. Impressive? Yes. Coincidence? I don’t think so. Not many people actually know this information because tennis...
Yesterday I played a tennis match. It was actually only one set against a high-level junior player from my home club. We often play together when I’m at home, mostly standard practice drills, but this time we played a whole set. It was the first...
External vs internal focus Let me start with an example: In a situation where a tennis player hits the ball too flat and has a problem of hitting too many balls into the net or out, one of my favourite exercises is to get two players to...
These three words are key to any achievement process! Eureka Nick, you have just discovered America! You are telling me that if I do something with high quality, consistently, I might achieve something in life? No s…, Sherlock! I know, and also, I agree that this sounds...
A couple of days ago, I watched a practice session of Serena Williams, the best tennis player in the history of women’s tennis. She is a wife, a mother and a winner of 23 grand slam titles who is still eager for more victories. There...
“What am I doing wrong, please tell me?”, is the common question a professional tennis player asks his/her coach when things get tough. If the coach doesn’t come up with an answer quickly, the following thought could emerge in the player’s head: why are you...
Intuition, argues Gerd Gigerenzer, a director at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, is less about immediately "knowing" the right answer and more about instinctively understanding what information is unimportant and can thus be discarded. Intuition has never been titled as a form of intelligence,...
I have recently written about high psychological demands of tennis, and the scoring system is one of the factors that makes it so difficult. There are a couple of reasons why scoring system in tennis is one of the most demanding in the world of...
So many times, I`ve heard people saying: “why do you practice and focus so much on nutrition? It's a waste of time. There is no guarantee that if you eat certain food and exercise, you are going to live longer or avoid being sick, so...
Of course, a coach can and should make a difference. There are many periods in time when a coach can influence a player’s path, but here I will specifically write about the player’s development period. I want to explain how a single decision of a...
Information vs Transformation in Tennis When I was a junior tennis player I practiced in a hometown tennis club in Croatia. It was a different era in tennis, when everybody was having more fun playing club games and doing group practice, and above everything, everybody was...
Today, all the people and organizations working in health and nutrition industry are facing a competitor that is impossible to beat. He is everywhere around us, in our pockets, on the screens, within just one click away from all the information in the world. His...
I would need to write a book about the last year and a half of my work with Donna to be able to put all the memorable moments into words. So, for now, I just want to share some of the most important highlights. We started...
Not so long ago, I experienced the toughest match and the sweetest victory of my coaching career. I’m thinking about it quite often, and I like to call it, “A story from Egypt”. Not only because it happened in Eqypt, but also to make it sound...
Let me start with a question. How many really great and successful tennis coaches do you know? If your daughter or son is 18 years old and is about to turn pro, how many coaches can you think of that you would entrust your child`s career...
So many times in my coaching career, I`ve heard players say: "I missed some easy shots at crucial moments". Usually, this "easy ball" is the one you need to put away for the winner. Is this shot really an easy shot? I’m not so sure! Another...