FOREWORD

“Work of Genius…”

Simplicity is an understated value that fortunately, I learned early in my teaching and coaching career. It has served me well in all situations, ranging from serving as a club professional, to teaching in community programs, to teaching others to teach, and to teaching large groups of physical education classes and camps, all the way to working individually with world champions.

This approach is exemplified in “Remarkable Recreation Tennis” by coaches John Whitlinger and Tom Sarsfield. It is what makes this publication so valuable to all players, from novice to advanced, and importantly, to other coaches. It provides a simple and flexible, but complete, step-by step progression to the learning and teaching of the techniques of all strokes and also for strategy and tactics. The chapters are well-organized and mostly functional, always ending with a series of fun and engaging, but relevant drills to complement and solidify the skills being presented. I appreciated their refreshing presentation of the “Quarter System” of court delineations and zones as a way of thinking about court positions and target areas. This was a most helpful and effective reference for the description of the multitude of well-explained and diagramed drills.

But I should not be surprised by the quality of this work. It all started with John Whitlinger’s father, from whose philosophy I patterned much of my own teaching, and also which led to John’s great success as a junior and Orange Bowl champion. John continued on to become the first “triple crown” champion in NCAA history (singles, doubles and team) to a top 100 pro ranking, a successful club teaching professional and then as my long-time and valued associate head coach at Stanford University, before serving as Stanford’s head coach for ten years. It was a perfect culmination of forces when John teamed with Tom Sarsfield to provide communities in the San Francisco Bay Area with low cost but high quality tennis teaching programs. Much of the basis for this book was formulated by the success Tom has had as the lead physical education class tennis teacher at Stanford University.

In summary, the result of this partnership is a fantastic and easy-to-follow breakdown of various types of play (baseline, net, all court, etc.) as presented in “Remarkable Recreation Tennis” – a great drill and reference book! This is a book to be used – not to read and let sit on a shelf. It is a complete guide, which encompasses a simplicity that is truly a “work of genius”. Enjoy!

Dick Gould
Emeritus, Stanford University
Men’s Tennis Coach; Director of Tennis