Stine guiding Tommy to the top

The California native’s coaching has yielded major success, for example, taking Jim Courier to the top of the rankings and four Grand Slam titles in the 90s.

Stine has two “non-negotiables” for anyone he works with – attitude and effort.

For someone approaching 40 years' experience, he’s the perfect person to ask: What makes a good coach?

“That’s a tough one. It’s hard to put a finger on that. I think everyone at this level is a bit of an artist, otherwise they wouldn’t be this successful,” Stine told rolandgarros.com.

“When you take a palette, which is your player, and you start putting paint on it, you’re looking into how to manipulate and manoeuvre him into the player you hope you can create.

“On a day-to-day basis, you’ve gotta change brush strokes sometimes, you add something different, depending on circumstances on any given day or week. That’s part of being the artist – recognising that, being able to adjust to that – no two paintings are exactly the same and that applies to players.”

Stine chuckles, “I was too dumb to do anything else,” as he embarked on a coaching career from just 26 years old at Fresno State University, California.

During the summers of his five college tennis campaigns, Stine was hired by the USTA to coach a golden generation in the nation's Junior Davis Cup squad. Courier, Michael Chang, Todd Martin... the list goes on during a period when Stine sharpened his coaching skills.

Due to a promotion at Fresno, the Californian passed up the chance to coach a young Pete Sampras. “I sat in my office for the next two years, watching Pete light it up,” recalled the 66-year-old. “I felt like that was the pinnacle, to work in the pros, so when Jim came along I jumped at that opportunity.”

Major glory with Courier was just the beginning as Stine boosted the careers of Mardy Fish, Taylor Dent and Sebastian Grosjean, with a multitude of milestone moments. By 2018, Stine was harnessing the power of towering South African Kevin Anderson, who featured in the Wimbledon final that season.

However, into 2019 and Anderson faced knee surgery and Stine reconnected with Paul.

“Tommy was playing US Open qualifying, he lost second round, and I saw his post on Instagram. I commented, ‘Bad luck, Tommy.’ He messaged back, he was very frustrated,” Stine said. “We got chatting from there… the first Futures tournament I took him to, I saw how completely and totally undisciplined he was at that time.”

Signing full time with the Roland-Garros 2015 boys’ singles champion, Stine conjured up an 11-point list for Paul. Sadly the list is lost, but these technical and tennis tweaks were immediately taken on board.

“I’ve found Tommy very coachable from day one. He’s still super open to listening to things,” mused Stine. “If he has questions we go on court and I try and show him why, [and] how, and he’s really good at absorbing and adjusting.”

At the end of 2019, Paul had cracked the top 100, but Stine had moderate expectations for his protégé.

“I wasn’t sure by any means that Tommy would get much higher than top 50. I said in my mind if I get him top 35, then we are crushing it.”

Well, they have crushed it for sure with constant, consistent progression.

At the beginning of this season, Paul broke into the Top 10 for the first time and has four career ATP titles to his name.

What has helped Paul's progress is the pack mentality fellow tour coach Brian Garber (who counts Stine as his mentor) described in another insightful chat with rolandgarros.com.

From Boca Raton, Florida, strength and fitness coach Franco Herrero hosts a collection of players at his gym. Paul, Ethan Quinn, Aleksandar Kovacevic and Jacob Fearnley all head into this training squad.

“It creates a really, really healthy atmosphere, where they compete against each other, but they’re all extremely supportive of each other. It’s a great environment for everyone.

“When I’m back home in California, it still works. We have a very strong knowledge group of people, who are very confident, but that entire group of guys have very small egos. Everyone is incorporated.”

The hard yards in the pack have paid off in Paris. Paul prevailed in back-to-back five-set marathons with Marton Fucsovics and Karen Khachanov, before sweeping aside Alexei Popyrin in straight sets on Sunday.

As a result, the No.12 seed is just the ninth American man in the Open era - and the only active player - to reach a Grand Slam quarter-final on all three surfaces. Take a look at the list, Paul joins Andre Agassi, Michael Chang, Jimmy Connors, Courier, Vitas Gerulaitis, Brian Gottfried, John McEnroe and Sampras.

“To be on that list is pretty impressive, we both were ‘wow.’ I take pride in that because that’s the goal with anybody I work with, I want to develop great all-court players. You want every tool in the tool box, to have nuance in your game,” stated Stine.

“Sure, can Tommy bludgeon the ball, yes. But I want to create players who also play the game.

“For example, we spent a year [in 2021] developing his volleys for Tommy 3.0 during our third year together.  It was a slow progression, then I started asking him to come in.  

“I think Tommy, Grigor [Dimitrov] and I’ll throw Carlos Alcaraz in there as well as the top attacking players in men’s tennis. They volley well, they volley correctly, know where to position themselves in the court when coming forward.

“There’s an element of fear. Tommy doesn’t come in as often as he should, because the baseline feels safer.

“I’m trying to get him to recognise that men’s tennis is based on taking risks in the bigger moments of the match.”

Like with any elite talent, the target is to put numerous trophies in the cabinet. Paul has been within touching distance of major glory, most notably in the semi-finals of Australian Open 2023. In rallies, in sets, the world No.12 can do it all.

“When he was younger he used to struggle with maintaining his concentration levels, his focus over a long period of time. Where’s he gone? He’d get lost in large periods of matches,” continued Stine.

“My goal for him is to show up for practice every single day, and be able to sustain his focus and level of training for longer and longer and longer periods of time. If he can, that’s going to translate to being able to in the matches too.”

That leads into his last eight showdown with Alcaraz on Tuesday night on Court Phlippe-Chatrier. So far in their simmering head-to-head, the defending champion owns a 4-2 record. Their battles have always been tight contests, it’s come down to endurance.

“I sent him a text this morning, challenging him to think about a few things,” revealed the Californian.

“One of the things I asked him, [was something] we talked about after their match at Wimbledon last summer [Alcaraz won 5-7, 6-4, 6-2, 6-2], we talked about it after the match at the US Open where he lost to [Jannik] Sinner. We talked about it after his loss to Jannik in Rome a couple weeks back.

“Those two guys, why have you not been able to sustain the level of play that wins you the first set against Carlos at Wimbledon? Go back and watch it, the first set was off the charts, it was insane.

“In Rome, Tommy’s ball speed on the backhand side dropped off seven miles an hour in the second set. Sinner was able to change direction and dominate because of that drop off. His game can compete with those guys, he has to sustain it for the volume and duration that he needs to to win those matches. That’s why they are the best. He needs to be relentless."