When Fernando Gonzalez first called Larry Stefanki to explore the idea of establishing a coaching relationship, Stefanki first question, essentially, was: Dude. Are you sure you've got the right number?
This wasn't because Stefanki had a low opinion of Gonzalez's game; quite the contrary. He was aware of the whiplash backhand and service bomb, and felt that Gonzo had the best forehand in tennis. But he had no history to call upon. Yesterday, after Gonzo played three sets - afterburners all the way - and bounced Rafael Nadal out of the Australian Open, a couple of us tracked Stefanki down in the bowels of Rod Laver Arena. We got the skinny on how he came to work with Gonzalez, and how he's helped shape his game.
"The first time he called, I asked him:' Fernando. Do you know who I am?' I mean, I had maybe encountered him twice, going in and out of a locker room when I was working with Henners (Tim Henman). You know, I said, "Hi Fernando, what's up?" And he'd just said, "Hi" and that was the extent of it."
Gonzalez replied that he certainly knew who Stefanki was; he had observed him from afar for quite some time and liked what he saw. It probably helped that Stefanki had brought another Chilean, Marcelo Rios, to his brief, brilliant apotheosis in the game; as Stefanki put it, "I think Fernando knew I had some familiarity with his culture." It undoubtedly helped that, in addition to Rios, Stefanki had worked, often without a great deal of fanfare, with some serious heavyweights. Players familiar with the thin air of the high peaks in the game: John McEnroe, Yevgeny Kafelnikov, Henman.
For those of you who aren't familiar with Stefanki's CV, he was a hard-working journeyman on the tour in the 1980s, known primarily for his intensity and combative appetite. If he had a shortfall, it was in the department of raw talent. He absorbed a lot of his coaching philosophy from his father-in-law, the NFL Hall-of-Fame candidate for former San Francisco 49ers quarterback, John Brodie. Stefanki is a distinctly American character: he's intense and business-like, and while he's an astute technician and fine-tuner of both strokes and strategy, he's always stressed the metaphysical ingredients in success: attitude, attitude, attitude. Seize the (warrior) moment.
When Gonzalez first called he told Stefanki, in so many words, that he was tired of being Gonzo, the Greatest Sideshow in Tennis. An antic rider on the roller-coaster of his own talent and undisciplined game. He was tired of being ranked in the 15-25 category,and wanted to develop a better return, backhand, and volley. More importantly, he wanted to commit to the game, and maximize his shot at winning a Grand Slam event.
Stefanki didn't exactly drop the phone and run to the airport. As he put it, "I was reluctant to leave the couch." In Stefanki's case, this was a metaphorical construction, for he had been working with juniors near his home in San Diego, and he had three kids of his own to keep him busy. "But," he admitted, "I still had that competitive itch."
So Stefanki told Gonzalez: "I'm not going to tell you you're great. You have a lot of flaws. You've been ranked high, but you've never really done anything. So let's talk about this to make sure we both know what we're getting into here."
As it turned out, that conversation lasted a good two months, most of it transpiring during the clay-court season. And, as Stefanki said, "Fernando was saying all the right things. I wasn't interested in going back on the tour just to be there, but he convinced me. I thought, this is a good kid who wants to do all the right things." They began working together in May of last year, aided by Gonzo's fitness trainer, Carlos Burgos.
"One of the things I discovered," Stefanki said, "is that Fernando is a really smart guy. Everyone thinks he's a real wild man, but he's not really like that. He goes home and thinks about things. And that thoughtfulness is showing up in his game now."
Stefanki knew better than to screw around with Gonazlez's forehand. "He's got the gun," Stefanki said. "That's a given." But the backhand was another story. "He looked at a lot of tape, and how he hit the backhand. I'm very into body control and balance, and limiting upper body movement. You know how his forehand spins, and he's got so much release on it? You can't do that with the backhand. It's impossible. He had a great attitude about changing it. He said, 'Larry, i want to do it, just tell me how to do it.'"
Gonzalez also worked on using his serve more effectively if less forcefully, and he honed his volleying skills. He also embraced a more rigorous fitness regimen. When Stefanki went to Chile to work out with Gonzalez over the Christmas break, he introduced Gonzo to the mysteries of two-on-one workouts. Gonzalez shed 12 pounds.
The chief mission, though, was to modulate the Gonzo game, if not the Gonzo spirit - impress upon him the importance of playing solid defense and waiting for the inevitable short ball, even on the forehand side. "In the past, Fernando would get very excited on the court, and I told him not to get like that unless the moment really calls for it. Like after a set. But he doesn't need to do that after every point, or go "vamos!" every time he hits a big forehand. You kind of lose your plan that way. He's a lot calmer on the court now, and it helps."
Gonzo has a reputation for blowing hot and cold; typically, he would win a big match (like his battle last night with Jet Boy), and then perform indifferently in the next round. "We talked about that," Stefanki said. "I told him, 'It''s not a one-day wonder deal.'"
Gonzalez took the advice to heart, and by the end of the year he was crowing about having made three consecutive finals. "Before," he told his coach, "I would maybe win a tournament and then lose in the first round for a few weeks. It's different now."
Stefanki is especially proud of the way Gonzalez has learned to dig himself out of any holes into which his still explosive and occasionally unreliable game dumps him. In his third-round match with Juan Martin Del Portro, Gonzo had 41 unforced errors. At which point, Stefanki was thinking: "Oh my God, we're back in May!" But Gonzalez hung in there, and satisfied his coach in one critical aspect of the game: "He didn't start beating himself up over his poor play.
He elaborated, with a vintage Stefanki mission statement : "I see guys out here, they're up a set and a break, and they start beating themselves up, verbally. I don't like that. I'm a positive guy. So that's always like old news to me."
So Gonzo rolls along, beating up other guys, rather than himself. And it explains Gonzalez's 100-plus winner-to-error ratio. That's a number of glaring and obvious significance. As Chip Le Grand wrote the other day in The Australian: "To his own credit and tennis's grievous loss, Fernando Gonzalez is not the player he once was."