Anastasiia Pavlyukova
Introduction to Writing Process
Dr. H
October 8, 2015
Since I was a little child, tennis has been a huge part of my life. First, my father is a
professional tennis coach, which is why my family has always been involved in tennis. Second, I
love tennis, because it is a very interesting and intellegent game, that can keep your body strong
and fit. I grew up in an athletic family with my mom, a professional gymnast, and my dad, a
professional tennis coach. This is what gave me a passion to want to become a tennis player. As
a child, having both working parents, my dad would pick me up from school every day and take
me with him to the tennis courts. Watching him working day-by-day with professional athletes,
and helping them to improve their skills to become the champions, made me gain a strong
interest in wanting to become a tennis player and play tennis as well as his professional athletes.
All that being said, I chose to interview the one man that gave me inspiration throughout my life
and helped me choose the right path and set the right goals. Professional tennis coach, Michael
Pavlyukov had the pleasure of being interviewed by his daughter and answering questions that
were related to what he goes through everyday as a tennis coach. In this interview, I focused on
the importance of communication in tennis, especially oral communication, body language,
communication with different individuals, communication with technology, and the role of
relationships in communication. This paper will show that communication is a great way to build
strong understanding between coaches and their athletes.
My father has been a part of tennis discourse community for twenty-nine years. First, he
became a very talented tennis player. At the age of sixteen, he tried to play tennis for the first
time, and by age eighteen, he already won a Soviet Union Championship. A few years later, he
became a tennis coach, because that is what he really enjoyed. He always tells me, “Before
considering any career, you have to have an interest and know why you want to possibly go into
that field”.
Communication is a very important thing in all discourse communities, tennis is not an
exclusion. Working well with others by communication is a very important aspect in tennis for
the tennis coach and tennis player. You have to be able to know how to talk to people in the right
way in order to help them. “As a tennis coach, I have to explain to people very clearly and
understandably what they should do to improve their skills, and to solve their problems in
technique and make everything work perfectly. Becase tennis is a very technical sport, so even a
small mistake can cause a big damage in your game. That's why you have to do everything
perfect to succeed” (Michael Pavlyukov, 2015). As a tennis player, I can prove that
communication is very important in tennis. Our coach always watches our matches and he
always says us what we should do and how to play with our oponents to make them loose. We
always discuss our strategies with people who play different types of tennis,because if we play
the same with everybody, we are not going to succeed. According to Michael Pavlyukov, “The
most rewarding part about my job as a tennis coach is that I can set goals to better educate my
athletes about the game of tennis and help them get better and succeed in their lifework.”
Although oral communication is essential, body language is equally important. “In my
practice, I use different types of communication skills every single day with every single person,
with professional athletes, with amateurs, and with kids. The most frequent are oral
communication and body language. In tennis, it is not enough to just explain to your customers
how to perform a particular hit, you also have to show it to them, to make them understand what
do they have to do” (Michael Pavlyukov, 2015). Every tennis coach always uses body language
to show his athletes how to perform particular hit right. When your coach explains you some
technique stuff just oral, you are not going to understand what does he want from you. But when
he shows, then you can get it. Using the right words and language is very important in the oral
communication process. A tennis coach is not able to share with someone his knowledge without
explaining the proper way of taking it. The right language and words have to be used in order for
the customers to make them understand what are they doing wrong and how to make it work.
My father works not only with professional tennis players, but also with amateurs and
children, and everyone needs an individual approach. You cannot communicate with the ten-year
old child the same way as with the twenty-year old professional tennis player, because the poor
kid is not going to understand what do you want from him. According to Michael Pavlyukov, “I
communicate completely different with professional tennis players than you do with amateurs. I
cannot be too technical with amateurs, because they are going to be lost. With them, I have to
avoid a lot of tennis terms, which they do not know, and explain everything using more simple
language. With professional tennis players, I safely use a lot of tennis terms and vocabulary; we
call it tennis language. If I am too technical, they will still understand me perfectly.” Coaches
normally have special vocabulary and word codes to communicate with their athletes loudly
without the opponents figuring out their strategies.
In the tennis discourse community coaches and athletes also use electronic devices and
social networks to communicate from a distance. All the athletes occasionally travel to
competitions, championships and tournaments. Professional tennis is not a team sport. There are
a lot of different tournaments, which sometimes are at the same time. Sometimes some athletes
of one tennis coach can travel to the different competitions at the same time. Tennis coaches
cannot be at several places at the same time. In this case, a coach has to use certain electronic
devices to communicate with all his athletes to ask them about their results,discuss their ways of
playing, give them some advices, and simply support them. My father says:
My athletes are my kids, I always worry about them when they are playing. I
physically cannot be at every single game of every single athlet. But every time
when my athletes are traveling without me, I still communicate with them to support
them and to help with everything I can. And in such situations I use several
electronic devices and social networks. Among electronic devices I prefer my
iPhone, because it is always with me, it is small and convenient, and it has all the
necessary for me applications. Among social networks I usually use Viber, WatsUp,
Skype to communicate with my athletes, or just regular messages and phone calls
(Michael Pavlyukov, 2015).
In tennis good relationships between coaches and their athletes are helpful for good
communication. “I am really close with all my athletes who I am coaching, I make each and
everyone of them feel like family because it helps us to communicate and understand each other
better” (Michael Pavlyukov, 2015). Most coaches are very close to their athletes; they all are like
a big family, in how they always help and support each other.
In this interview, I focused on the importance of communication in tennis and on how a
coach communicates with his athletes. My father gave me a great interview, in which he
explained things very clearly and understandably and answered all my questions. My father is a
person who helped me understand who am I and what do I want to do in this life. He involved
me in tennis and showed me the game of tennis from the very positive side. He made me love
tennis, and I always will be thankful to him for that. The discourse community of tennis differs
between when you are a tennis player and when you are a tennis coach. As a tennis player, you
may just be learning, practicing and getting experience and knowledge on court. When you are a
tennis coach, you have more responsibilities, and you have to share your knowledge and
experience with your athletes. Nothing is as important as communication. Athletes have to trust
their coaches, and be very close with them, because that is the only way to understand each other
and make you succeed.