1-on-1 with DP – 93.7 The Ticket KNTK - Husker Men's Tennis HC Peter Kobelt - July 16th, 2025

Episode Date: July 17, 2025

Husker Men's Tennis HC Peter Kobelt - July 16th, 2025Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

It's time to go one-on-one with D.P. Coming at you live from the heart of Lincoln America, a 93-7-the-ticket and the ticketfm.com. Here is your host, Derek Pearson, brought you by Canopy Street Market. In your... It's Wednesday. Wednesday night conversation and another good one, Smoker. This will be a doozy, so post up, we can get some advice for you. Go straight to the source.

And we had a lot of questions about things that parents need to know, want to know. And you go to a source, somebody that can tell them, you know what, for aspiring athletes, for parents that want to know what's going on, we go straight to the source. So you can text in, be a part of what we're doing. 402, 464, 5685, Sarder-Haman text line. And that's a conversation where I need to get our guests hooked up with Sartar Haman. That needs to be a thing. to take care of the fellows.

You can follow on all the live video streams, Facebook, YouTube X, Allo Channel 961. And if you have not downloaded the ticket app, do so, do it. Do it. Do it. Oh, did he leave his headset in here? No, they're not mine. He left his headstead.

There we go, brother. There we go. Special guests this evening once again, Wednesdays have become a favorite night to be able to have these conversations. He is the head coach. Pusker tennis, Peter Cobelt. Coach, first of all,

thank you, kind, sir. Yeah, no problem. You showed up and showed out today. Yeah, I got to take care of you, man. You're taking care of me in the tennis program. I'll take care of you as best I can. That is so good. Harrison, you failed in giving him your shoeset.

True. Yeah. Is it swinging the miss, bro. Swinging the miss. I keep trying to explain to you. Take advantage of opportunity. See, because, because, there may be a time when Cobalt has his own weekly show with you.

And that is a relationship that you need to make sure that works. 11. All right. There you go. It's the stuff that's there. And let me tell you. You didn't open the box for me. Do you be?

I've walked back to your office. I didn't get a peek. Too nice, bro. I will, you know how I give. Well, see, you never hear during the day when I give my shoe fashion show. No.

I got two new ones this week, Thursday and Friday, baby. I'm walking the walk. Coach Covel came through. He came through. Great, I mean, Husker colors, Adidas. Yeah, it's the hookup. Coach, there have been, it's, you know, it's funny. Whenever you come on, it's usually Friday that I started to get questions about that week's show.

Interesting. And the question I was asked, and I said, you know what? It goes straight to the source. And they had parents who asked the question, what is? They had a series of questions. I want to, I need to pull up the email because in them asking, so there's one young lady and she's apparently pretty good. She's 13 years old, just outside of Lincoln, multi-sport athlete.

Right. And then the question becomes, how difficult is it for somebody to, so an athlete, let's say he's a male athlete, 13 years old, multiple, multiple sports, plays basketball, play softball, plays tennis. And the question was, at what point would you as a Division I coach, program lead, identify or tell parents to identify when the child needs to choose what they're going to specialize in? I'm definitely not a parent yet. So, I mean, what I'll go off of is what my,

parents did. So I was, I felt like my parents let me kind of do what my heart desired when I was a kid. My dad's a tennis coach. So he always, I was always going to work with dad in the summer and stuff like that. So I was always around tennis, but I played high school basketball all the way through my senior year. I started my last two years of my high school team. Some of the best memories I ever had in sport was, were those two years of basketball. And then I also played baseball. I played some golf. You know, I tried, I tried a little bit of everything. My parents wouldn't let me play football just for a safety standpoint. But, but, you know, I think it just, what I would say is once you can kind of tell, like, which way your child wants to go with sport. And once they

kind of make a decision, or you can see how happy they are playing a sport, you might, you know, you might have a conversation on the day, hey, looks like you really enjoy tennis, something you want to, is this something you want to take more seriously? If so, now is the time for us to do that. So I think maybe let the child kind of decide, and if they can't decide, maybe help them. But I wouldn't just say, hey, like, if you want to be a professional tennis player,

you've got to quit everything else right now. Probably that's the best route. You see all these kids now that are 18, 19 years old that are having parents that are strict and tough like that, but I think I don't know if that adds up to having a great childhood and experience with sport. I do not disagree. The next question was pretty interesting as well.

Multiple sport athlete. Does it help in the recruiting to have somebody that has had some success in other sports as well? Do you find that tennis players who have played other sports make better tennis players? It doesn't really affect. Does it cross over at all? Yeah, I think it crosses over for sure. I think every sport requires different coordination, different movements. some of them are similar.

I think for me, basketball was great cross-training. Basketball is very explosive. You have to be in great shape. You have to learn how to move, dribble, you know, move with your legs, dribble with your hands. That's a coordination. Tennis is very much the same. You're moving with your legs and swinging a racket with your hands.

So for me, I felt like I came into college as a better athlete than most for a guy that's six, seven, because I played basketball. But I was obviously behind in the tennis world just because. I needed to learn how to win and develop some of these very small nuances in tennis to compete at the highest level of college tennis and then to go on to the pro tour. But I think it's getting harder and harder to, if you're not going to specialize in a sport, I think it's getting harder and harder to make it to the very top unless you're a superior athlete. But I think it just kind of depends on your goals.

If you want to be number one in the world at tennis, then probably should stop playing some of these other sports. and play college tennis at some level you can maybe wait a little bit longer it kind of just depends on what the goals are for your child and your family at the end of the day uh barney says this great answer coach i have three sport athlete i'm letting him choose his own path amazing a big part of it of that and of course uh parents i think parents are more aware uh of of their their young person's talent level sure maybe a little bit more honest uh and in some cases, the past would have been that people were just delusional. Everybody thought every one of their sons and daughters were division one athlete.

Sounds like my parents. And it, well, I mean, but look, six, seven, you have a shot. Sure. Like, you had a shot. One of the difference makers, and I was asked this in the question, is can you, is there a way to improve a high school tennis players footwork to make them quicker, more confident in how they move? Yeah, 100%.

There's a just like every other sport, there's a technical standpoint to movement. You know, in tennis, you want to be very efficient with your movement. You don't want to take too many steps because you waste energy and you ruins your timing, getting to the, getting to the ball. And you also don't want to not take enough steps. So you don't get to the ball or, you know, it works both ways. And then there's obviously, you know, getting from point A to point B as quickly as you can. So there's, you know, there's a whole host of things.

things. So there's a technical standpoint, which tennis is very technical with the footwork, and then there's an explosive and a balance, and it's start and stopping, you know, complex to it as well. But yeah, you can absolutely train footwork and get better. At the very least, if you don't understand the technical side of the footwork, you can absolutely get faster and quicker and stronger, without a doubt, just by getting into the gym and doing the basic stuff, well, squatting and lunges and some pliometrics. Pliometrics are huge in tennis. Medicine ball throws and jump jumping lunges and sprints, short sprints.

So try and make it as realistic to tennis as you can. You don't, you know, Gil Reyes, he was the strength coach for Andre Agassie for his entire pro career. He met with, I forget his name. He was the fastest runner in the world at the time. and he was having an agassi run a bunch of long distance long distance runs to get in shape and the track guy came up to him was like you know what do you get with all due respect what are you doing with

andre he's like well we got to get him fit he's like well how many times is Andre start and stop on a tennis court each time he plays he's like well probably in every point he probably started stopped eight to ten times and he's like so when he's when you're running a sprint like that he's he's starting once and he's stopping once so you're not training them the right way. And he's like, it was like a eureka moment for him. So he switched up his training right away. So make it as close to the sport that you're playing as possible, I would say.

Isn't that, I mean, wouldn't that fall in line? And I'm a believer in that. And I try to explain that to parents who most parents are a generation behind the training. They can be. Right? That, that, if there was a, if dad was a college athlete. A generation ago, weight training was different.

No matter what sport it was, it's a little different. Nutrition is different. The amount of time spent in the sport. And then the question I was asked was how much time compared to games played? So if somebody's playing 90 minutes per match, two hours per match. What's the training to get you in cardio shape for playing that two hours? Right. What do you, how do you process that for your team?

is that hours of like if you're you're going to play a five set match or a three set match how much practice time should they be working for yeah so i you got to prepare for the tennis is unique where there's no clock and you you have to win the last point to to win the match and sometimes it takes an hour sometimes it takes four you don't know but you have to be prepared to play four hours and you have to be prepared to play four hours you know for a week to win a tournament. So we always, for me, when I was playing and how we train the guys now, you know, that's one of the things that we can control is how fit our athletes are. So when we come to practice, the practice are extremely intense. And sometimes they're, you know,

we try and do a little bit of periodization, but so that we don't get them injured and things like that. But when we work hard and we're going to, when we're out there to, to push their bodies, we basically, you know, you know, take them to the very end. end to their breaking point because that's you know i feel like sometimes too they think they've hit their breaking point or they can't go anymore and they really have another 20 or 30 percent left in them and they just don't know that yet mentally so you teach them from a mental side too that there's always more in the tank because there usually is but um but you know for me go if i'm going on the court and i know i'm not fit enough or our guys aren't fit enough it just you're just kind of

looking at that invisible clock on your hand and you're like, please, we got to win now. We're not in good spots. I think if you're going to go and play tournaments, if you're going to travel and spend all the money, like the very least you can do is make sure that your kid is in good shape and that he can play a whole match and do some of these things. And, you know, there's a learning process to it all. And not every athlete is the same, but, you know, just do the basic stuff as well. Just if, you know, 13 years old is a little young to go and put a lot of weight on your back and squat, but there's some body, body weight stuff you can do. There's a medicine ball.

There's cones. There's, you know, different things that they can do to start the process of it. So, but, uh, but yeah, I hope I answered the question well enough there. Is there a difference between how high school, let's say preteen and high school girls practice, uh, in condition versus boys? Um, I'm not sure. I think it's just like with most of the time with most of the time with most of the, the sports. I think the, I think when they're, when they're that age, like, the level's still

relatively the same. The fitness levels are about the same. And then once they get into college, it's when they maybe start to separate a little bit. But, but, um, but no, I mean, a women's match can take just as long as a men's match when, when they're that age. So, you know, really at the end of the day, like if you're, if, if, if you're not too educated on the fitness side, you can just go out there and play a lot of tennis all day. And that's going to be probably good enough for if you're 13 or 14 years old once you know and then as you get older and as you start playing higher levels against bigger and stronger opponents than you know that's when you can maybe start looking into some of the weight room stuff potentially I would say but you know

you're always going to do your bands you got to stretch you got a foam roll you got to recover you got to ice all that stuff you guys should be doing right now so you know when they do get older their bodies can and continue to perform what's better and I know it's a sticky question because the difference between young players who play a lot of tournaments versus young players who practice a lot. And there's a difference between the local kid who practices a lot who plays high school tennis. They do well, they can finish first or second in the state versus the kid who spends a little bit more time traveling in the region and playing a different caliber of tennis and different style

of tennis. You and your recruiting, is there a preference for you? Is there a thing where you go, this is a, this is an experienced tournament player. I've got this huge different resume in watching who they are and how they play versus the high school player who plays in a more restricted regional and talent pool. Yeah, I would say it's kind of a case-by-case basis. In general, we're always going to lean towards the kid that's showing they're super committed to tennis and traveling and in playing a bunch of matches and and one of the hardest skills for a coach to teach is teaching uh the student athlete how to win that's one of the skills that's very hard to coach you're in my notes you're reading you're reading what they ask so there's no substitution

for going out and playing and and figuring out a way to win so many times you have these guys that hit hit great and they practice all the time they get out to the match and they find a way to lose I would much rather work with a kid that was like, hey, I don't really care how I practice. I'll find a way to win on match day. So the only way you do that is by going out and playing and learning from how you lose and then trying to do it better the next match

until you figure out how you can win. And then tennis is one of those games where you have to beat the person in front of you. So you might not play your best tennis and that might discourage you, but you still win. And you might play your best tennis and the guy in front of you or the girl in front of you is beat you and then you're like, well, I don't know how to feel because I just played well and I lost.

So don't get it confused. The goal in tennis, there's a winner and there's a loser. And your job is to try and be the winner as often as you can. So yeah, you got to practice. You got to develop. You have to continue to get better. But if you're not winning, like, you're not getting better. So there's, it's got to, it's, they kind of got to work together there. Where on your pyramid of recruiting is coachability? uh high high but at the same time um at the same time like if you see a recruit and you're like okay like i don't have to say too much to this guy we can you know he's going to figure it out you know those are also those are also players that we we like because you know they have they have the confidence within themselves to kind of figure it out when things are tough and that self-belief tennis is one of those sports where you have to be almost overconfident in your abilities where it rubs people the wrong way because it's just you and you have to it's almost you almost

got to fake yourself out with confidence it's like brainwashing yourself i'm the best in the world i'm the best in the world and people are like no you're not and you're like yes i am but that's that's the kind of confidence you need for for an individual sport like tennis where there's not a mask covering your face and you got everyone in the world staring at you and it's just you out there it's it's uh it can be done a racket at a ball there's not much room to hide no so But yeah, I mean, coachability is up there for sure, especially if you're getting a player that needs to be coached. So I think there's a, you know,

there's a lot of aspects to it, but in general, if you're very coachable, you know, coaches are always going to be drawn to that. Peter Cobalt, Husker, Tennis, and coach, it, so, and again, I'm getting, I get more information each show. And the people who, and it's funny too, because it's a lot of athletes. It's a lot of athletes who played a different sport and now their kids are playing it.

And you have football players whose daughter now plays tennis. And they chose for them to play tennis because it's more cerebral than physical because they've already won the genetic lottery. Sure. Right. You've got a 6'3, 240-pound dad who's an athlete. Mom was a volleyball player. Amazing. And the daughter has picked up tennis and said, okay.

what do we need to know? Like, what are the things to know? And they start to bite into it. And the curiosity then becomes from the parents and said, okay, in the recruiting aspect of it, academics matters. Like, absolutely, like, I was always taught that if I, everybody in college has the same amount of talent,

or at least relative talent, their success was based on whether they failed academically enough. That was the greater stress than trying to figure out how to win was how do I cope, how do I handle this thing that I may not be as good at for you? Let's say it's a three-star talent tennis, but academically you've got two athletes, both three-star. One is a three-nine student and one is a two-nine student. your investment is fully based on the academic side of it.

How do you deal with that at the University of Nebraska? Well, first of all, you were allowed to combine our academic and our athletic scholarships at Nebraska. So the student athlete has a 3.9 would be saving us money from an athletic scholarship standpoint. So that always is a green flag for us. It's, you know, it's just one of the things that goes into the recruiting process. There's a whole host of them that we've looked through.

We've spoken about them before, but I'm a big believer in how you do one thing is how you do everything. You know, it's the old cliche saying. So, you know, if, as a coach, you really see it with your guys. You know, you're like, okay, this guy wakes up and his hair is all over the place in the morning. It's like, you probably didn't go to sleep on time. He probably doesn't manage his time. Well, he probably doesn't eat well. he probably doesn't, you know.

So there's, you know, it's, it's just kind of the trickle-down effect with that. So if there's someone that's coming and taking care of his school, he's there early at practice, warming up and doing things the right way, you're going to trust them to play a little bit sooner maybe than the other, the other player, unless two nine students, just an absolute baller and no one knows about it yet. But trust is the word. Harrison, I have that conversation, that trust is. That's a big part of high-level coaching.

For sure. One, the financial investment of the university and the program, the coach's time management investment, right? It plays a part in it because, listen, I don't want to bring somebody into the program that I have to chase around. Yep. You have too many other oars in the water to have to play daycare with 20-year-olds. It just becomes too much.

And then the other side of it is, well, you don't want that person to represent. and lower your standard and your reputation. It's not even about my reputation. It's the University of Nebraska's reputation, you know, and bringing in the right student-athlete, they're not just, it's not just me dealing with them every day. It's the academic counselors.

It's the, you know, the people at the training table. It's our nutritionist. It's our sports psych. It's the weight, strength coach. It's all the professors on campus. So they find out that this, you know, student athletes on the tennis team, it's just not a great, great,

look, you know, if things aren't going the right way. So there's more than just like, yeah, it's be a part of the team. And obviously there's the locker room piece and the culture piece and all that as well. But I try and look at it from a holistic view from a whole standpoint. Like, is this going to be the right person to come to the University of Nebraska? So, I mean, yeah, there's a lot that goes into it. And you have a full head of hair and none of it's gray. And you'd like to keep it that way for as long as humanly possible. I'm trying. Because nothing. nothing wears on the hair like a student athlete that just doesn't get it well i think there's a there's a component and i think if they're willing to uh when they come sometimes they don't have it

when they come for whatever reason if they're willing to be open and and try try new things like you can coach it a little bit but it's tough to it's tough to change somebody so that that that has been the thing that again i i would always say this to to to new teams every year, and I didn't care where I was. I'm mom and dad, I'm about to introduce you to your child. I like that. Because we know secrets. We know things that we see parts of them that the parents don't see.

And it's been a constant thing. We'll go to break, we'll come back. The next segment, I was told to ask you about serve. Okay. And the variances and the evaluation of talent, if you're looking at a player, how important is the serve? And are they stuck with it? It's like a pitching.

It's like a pitcher's arm. If he throws 80, he's going to throw 80. Or can you change it through effectiveness and velocity? We'll ask coach about the service game. At 6 with 7, I'm pretty sure he had some. We'll ask about it when we come back to one-on-one. Back to one-on-one with DP. sponsored by Mary Ellen's Food for the Soul on 937 the Ticket and the Ticketfm.com.

Back one-on-one Peter Crowbell, Oscar Tennis. I mean, the discussion is going to be remarkably helpful. And it doesn't matter what your child's sport is, that he's giving you a playbook and some notes, just things to consider. For sure. because again, he's recruiting all over the world. And I know that tennis, because of the international makeup of a lot of the talent,

and that may be some of the facilities around the world or countries are set up, international play is set up to identify tennis talent differently outside of America. Is that a fair statement? Yeah. Every country does a different for sure. You go, it's amazing. You know, they share a border. like you go from the way they coach in France to how they coach in Spain's two totally different

systems and both are very successful but you can see a French tennis player from a Spanish tennis player from a mile away so it's it's honestly remarkable what does that look like how do you the the talent eye that you have what does that look like the the Spanish are very physical they they play more heavy top spin and they're behind the baseline they're swinging as hard as they can and they're very disciplined with their shot selection and they're very hard to beat in the French. They have lots of skill, very good hand-eye coordination, can play all the shots, the drop shots, the serves,

and they're a little less physical and disciplined with their mindset, but they can do everything on the court. But it's just, you know, each player is a little bit different, but just how they coach the game, the French coach it very well, and so did the Spanish. But yeah, I mean, every country's kind of the same. has its things. The United States has its things. What is the

American thing now? The Americans like numbers, statistics. You know, and all you just made my head hurt. No sport is safe from the analytics of the U.S. It's insane. Like we just, there's no feel. Like we punch

ghosts all the time in here. Just, oh, analytics has entered the chat. Oh, geez, that's going to change everything. Percentages and rotations of the ball. It's like, guys it's a it's a you got to have you make quick second decisions you're not calculating decimal points before you hit each ball it's it's a game of feeling it's a game of feeling and you can use

the stats to to you know maybe i isolate a few things in your game that you might need to work on but but uh but yeah i don't know i'm i'm not so much with the stats thing the for me the most important stat is in tennis is who wins the most second serve points because that's usually who's the better tennis player from the baseline who's winning the point once the point starts uh you know can can that get lost in the priority and focus on power serve power service that big servers can get away some sometimes with having other deficiencies that was me right yeah that was me 100% yeah i mean i made it to 300 in world without a backhand basically so i wasn't able to get much higher than that but i was able to able to get to there with just the serve and the forehand and being the relatively good athlete

for six, seven. So, but, uh, but yeah, I mean, I think in today's game, it's very, you have to be very well rounded. And I think it's like that with every sport, you know, everyone's, you know, before the internet, now you can get online and you can watch and get coached online a little bit more. There's all the YouTube coaches. Danger. Danger, you got to stay away from the YouTube coaches. But very rarely now do you see players in the top 100 or the top 10 or the top 50 with big holes in their game. Like, you know, Sampers was number one in the world, but his backhand wouldn't live up. He wouldn't be able to do what he does in today's game with that backhand.

And, you know, Jim Curry are also same weird technique on both sides. Like, very elite competitor, like as tough as they come. But you can't have those deficiencies in the game today. So it's just the game's evolving, just like every sport. You know, and I think you got to be more well-rounded more now than ever. Then let's stay there because that always fascinates me, is to take legendary play and see how it correlates to today. So I'll ask you that Yonnik Noah.

Amazing, yeah. Right? Would his game fit in today's game? So I think it, my belief with tennis is that those guys played that way in that era because that was the right way to play to win in that era. So I think if they were playing in this era, like Jim Courier would have figured out how to win in the era in this year's or this, you know, in the era that we're in now. That's, I think. I don't know if that's true, but, you know, if back in the day, most of the time you were. were serving and balling and that was what you needed to do to win.

Like, Boris Becker changed the way people were playing tennis. His serve was so big. It was so violently athletic and explosive that everybody else had to evolve around him. How would he do it today's game? Yeah. I mean, it's, it's tough to know.

They also use different equipment and rackets back then, too. And tennis is one of those sports where the equipment in the, like, that makes a huge difference. Like the equipment that the guys use now compared to then is, like, like, you know, an old school golf club compared to what they're using now. It's that big of a difference.

And tennis shoes. And tennis shoes, by the way. Thank you. Thank you once again for the tennis shoes. Yeah, yeah, of course. Actual tennis shoes. I just, yeah, I feel like the cool kid tomorrow. It's cool.

Yeah, I think the biggest problem I realize is I need to be, what are you, size 14? Yeah, you're going to have some extra 14. Yeah, that's for sure. That's for sure. So it's always that you mentioned Andreakese, and I thought that he, his game, would transcend because of how athletic he worked. Where would he fall in today's game? That's a good question.

He, I feel like he was kind of the, he kind of wasn't, I don't know if he was as impactful as Steph Curry was the basketball, but he kind of got out of the mold where you had to be a serving volley or, you know, the Sampras, and then you had some of the guys before him, you know, the Pat Rafters, the Tim Hennman's, those guys were all coming forward to the Nett and Agassiz. He was back there behind the baseline, you know, swinging at the ball,

ripping it from the baseline. So he kind of, that was once, I think he's the player that kind of switched the game back to where it is now where it's more of a baseline game as opposed to coming to the net. And I think, obviously, the strings and the equipment, you can hit the ball even harder with more spin now. And when the ball's dipping and diving like that, it's hard to hit bollies. So, but I think Agassi was the guy that kind of got everyone back on the baseline and said, okay, let's, you know, the game's played in one from back here.

It's not played in one so much at the net anymore. It's always fascinating with players, high-level players who become coaches, because the brain has to reprogram itself for your ability to teach people how to do what they're not inherently good at. Sure. And there is a button that each player has. None of it's the same. None of it reacts to the same thing, where you have to get 10 different athletes

to play in a way with the same mindset and different skills. Where do you meet these people? How are you identifying that this young man from Italy, this one from Germany, this one from Spain, could come to Lincoln, Nebraska, and be a husker. I'd fall into all the things around it and then listen to you enough

and communicate with you clearly to play Husker tennis, whatever version that is. That's the job. Anyone was wondering, that's the job. But no, you, I've been doing it, I haven't been doing this for a super long time,

but there's some countries that were very hesitant to recruit just on their mindset and how they're raised and grown up and like the way that we coached takes a certain type of player and with a certain type of background to handle like all the all the things that come with being a a nebraska men's tennis player here but um but i would say you know like it's it's just it's just tough so i yeah i mean like there's there's a handful countries like we just won't we won't take them just because we won't we know it's just not gonna that's not gonna

fit with us just you know and when you talk to them and you hear them on the phone somehow they answer questions and you're just like, yeah, this isn't going to be the right person. Different expectations, also different culture. Yeah, for sure. You know, and I feel like in today's world, there's a lot of different things pulling you to be a college student athlete, a collegiate student athlete, even in tennis. You know, money is becoming a huge deal. And while the goal is still to win and to win as a team, so trying to find people that want

be part of the tennis program for the right reasons is a big is a big deal for us and we understand there's a money a component to tennis and to all this and that's something that we're trying to actively work towards and do but but at the same time like this is a team and we're trying to do really amazing things here and they got to buy into the big picture of things here too so well Steve's just made made the news right in football in Texas and said we want people to want to come here to play football for Texas not for the money now mind you saying that while offering somebody $1.5 million the day before. I think I saw like a video of a bunch of Lambos or something.

Yeah, yeah, like it's interesting to say. Sure. But the reality is Lincoln, Nebraska is different. Austin's still kind of a Renaissance city. The Renaissance town, it has lots of cultural things that people can buy into. Lincoln,

Nebraska is not that. And it's a little different to try to identify. Who's going to come here, handle the cultural differences, handle being away from, from home, which is a big part of it, how often do your student athletes get to go home? Because home, this is the first time they've been in Lincoln,

Nebraska. If you're coming from Italy to Lincoln, there's some culture shock and some homesickness. Yeah, how do you deal with it? The Malti Coast, we don't go recruit there, that's for sure. It's a little bit too different for Lincoln, Nebraska, and that coastline in Italy. But when we, when we, look, you know, we recruit the

northern countries in Europe, obviously the Scandinavian countries where it's cold and it snows, and so it's, you know, there's not this big cultural or this, you know, the geographic or the weather, the climate, you know, where it's similar at least. It's tough to get players from super warm

countries that want to come here just because it does get cold and we play indoor tennis here. So that's one thing, but but yeah, I mean, they got to understand like when they come and play college tennis, it's not all about them. And sometimes that's not easy to do. Some programs will make it all about them, and that's fine.

But that's not the way we're going to try and do it here for the time being. I think maybe that might change a little bit in the future potentially, but for now, we've got to do some of the basic things really well, and we've got to find the right guys that want to come in and do the right things. So we're very clear and up front in the process, and we tell the recruits right away, like, if you're looking for this, like, that's not us here. Like you should let's just cut our ties now.

So we're not wasting anyone's time. So I don't know if that's the right way to recruit or the wrong way to recruit, but that's just the way we're doing it. It makes sense because everybody comes with luggage, especially from other countries because different coaches, different systems being identified on national levels and the level, play and competition, all those things. So it's always interesting.

We will go to break. We'll come back. I do want to ask them about service and the importance of it. and at 6-7 and being someone with serve, that he has an advantage because he knows how return of servers work, how they think. And it also helps you coach the other side of the net. So we'll talk with coach about, you know, service and how to get better at it.

Also, I do want to ask him before he goes, who's the best he ever played against? Yeah, who's the best, who's the best player you ever played against? We'll get those answers when we come back to one. You're listening to One-on-One with DP, sponsored by Mary Ellen's Food for the Soul, on 93-7 the Ticket and the Ticketfm.com. It's always a great hour with Peter Coble. Oscar tennis head coach, and yeah, we're working. This, for as long as you can do this, this is your time slot.

This is just so it. Like, we're quickly evolving into the Peter Cobleau show. I don't know about that. No, no. that's no no look i got a plan for this uh and it's funny thing was i get an email from hermon today he's like hey you have time for you boy i'm like come on like i've been telling you to come on man exactly like to do this i said listen yeah peter does wednesdays you can do tuesday or thursday let me know we'll i love having you guys on 100% yeah it makes it easier push the program

and get here before the other coaches get here because they're coming right they're coming that's for sure So in the space, we always say that whatever your talent is, it's easier to coach that. And then whatever the reciprocal thing for that talent is. So if I'm a fastball hitter, I tend to know how fastball pitchers think. You, with service as a high-level skill for you, you play the game on how people are going to receive you and how are you going to use your skill. How do you coach that? For somebody that comes in and says, you know what, I need to be better at serve receipt. What's the mentality behind that?

Because overthinking on receipt is the easiest way to be bad at it. Sure. How do you coach that and how important is it? Well, serve and return are arguably the two most important shots in tennis because that's how you start the point. You know, and if you're going to be a great player, you've got to be able to start the point as more oftentimes, more times than your. opponent. So for for me, the the return is the most important shot. The forehand is the second most important shot. And then the serve is the third more most important shot. And I think that's evolved from over the years. I think the serve might have been number one or number two. But

I think the return is probably the most important now aspects of the game now. Just because the courts are slower and you got to be able to start the point extremely well these days so um uh the serve's also not quite not quite as impactful because ever the conditions are slower so you're not getting as many free points as you once did 10 or 20 years ago slow court more movement slow court slice on the serve less less the ball goes through the court less okay so you get it sits up a little bit more there's more spin but you're not you're not getting like the the quick free point from the serve anymore or a clean look at not as much right that the late movement on service kind of creates a problem sure so i so i

would say i would say i'm you know the serve and the return are still extremely important but i think in today's game you can get away a little bit more with having a weaker serve as opposed to a weaker return i think but the game's constantly evolving and you know the court surfaces change and tennis is a sport where you play on three different surfaces, you know, four if you want to count indoor hard, but you have hard court, grass court, clay court, and everyone's skill set kind of matches up differently for each surface. But yeah, I mean, the serve was my thing.

That was what I did well, and that was my identity. And I knew it and my opponents knew it. And when you scout and you're playing other opponents, you kind of try and do your best to figure out what you need to do against the guy before the match, but it's tough because your game is going to be different than the guy that just played them. You know, how many guys are six, seven that have a big serve that play like me, like not many. So my playbook was a little more simple, I think, because my game was more straightforward.

It's like, hey, I got to take care of my service game and I got to dig into some of these return games. So for me, that was how I played. It was pretty simple. It kind of was more on me and less on some of the other things. but as a coach now with the players that were recruiting, I found that you have to do a very good job of figuring out how they are going to be successful holding serve and how they are going to be successful returning serve.

I coach and I say, hey, this is what I used to do when I played. I don't know what's comfortable for you, but this is what I did and what I would recommend you try first. And if it doesn't work, then we can at least cross that off and then move on to something else. Is toughness recruitable? Can you see it? Can you identify? Oh, yeah. That's something that we look for for sure, you know.

Number one and number two on the recruiting board. The two most important things are number one is you have to be extremely competitive. Number two, you have to have relentless energy. So when friction happens, have a plan. Yeah. So it's hard to beat a guy that's refusing to lose. You know, I mean, it's just, especially in tennis when you have to win the last point, there's not a clock that's going to just run out.

You know, you got to actually go and win that last point. Like, if I don't want to lose that last point, I'm going to be hard to beat all the entire match. So that's huge in tennis. Huge. Coach, who's the best you ever played against? Best player I ever played against. Wow.

I've played against a lot of really good players. I don't have like a Roger Federer or Jokovic or an adult. Karen catching off. I played against him in a tournament in Israel. He quarterfinaled Wimbledon, and he's quarterfinald Wimbledon in Roland Garrell's twice now. I lost to him. I knew he was going to be really good when I played him, though.

But I've played probably 10 or 20 guys that have been top 100 in the world, and I probably won half of them. So I wasn't as good as them, but my level was able to go up to their level when I was playing my best. But my bottom level was just was a little too low to be consistent enough to like make the jump into the top 100 where they are so see harrison get yourself

a backhand coach yeah get yourself a back here two hand of back hands the one hand the backhand days are done coach thank you once again man good stuff always you're the man appreciate you giving it up and sharing uh intelligence and knowledge about this stuff making the tennis community better one show at a time harrison what do you got next brother we got an hour solo here and then as always best of the ticket And I believe today we got the captain for another hour for you guys, two hours. There we go. Good stuff. I'll do it again tomorrow.

Don't go anywhere. Harrison will take the two ticket weeknights and be kind to each other. Bigouts.