CAREER
PROFILE
DAVID RAMOS
Manager, Coaching Education & Performance
USTA Player Development
National Training Center Headquarters, Boca Raton, FL
How did you choose this career path?
I started out going to school in New York City
for illustration at F.I.T. (Fashion Institute of
Technology), and I was an assistant coach on
the side when I decided to get into tennis
full-time. I really liked being outside, and I
thought that even though I was decent at
illustration, I wasn’t sure if I could make a living
in that field, and I didn’t exactly want to be
a “starving artist.” In the Professional Tennis
Management program, you could get a degree
and get certified at the same time, so that
seemed like a pretty good choice.
How did you get interested in tennis?
I started playing tennis in high school. Basically,
I was a basketball player and got cut. So, I
started playing tennis, but only from the 10th
grade on. Then, when I was in the Air Force
prior to going to illustration school, I played
Junior College tennis for a year when I was 19,
and did really well. I think that was the “hook”
that got me thinking about doing something
in tennis.
What exactly does a Coaching Education
and Performance Manager do?
There’s a pretty wide range of “typical” days.
Some days, I meet with players and their
coaches to show them the video resources
we have online. I explain how to go through
the matches of their players, download them
to their computers, and search for things like
winners and errors, or highlights or lowlights
of their play. Then, when players are actually
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playing matches, I record video so that we
can turn that into a video production piece.
Other days, I take photos of all the American
players at a tournament. So, photography,
video production, coaching education, match
tagging, video analysis – those things all happen
on a pretty regular basis. The job is kind of like
an art director for tennis.
But then, I also actually play and coach, so it’s
taking all of those different areas and putting
them together. I might be in the office creating
Power Points and handouts for Coaching
Education events, or outside taking video
and working with coaches to help them
understand their players’ game, so it’s pretty
varied, day-to-day.
How did you get to where you are today?
At 22, once I’d made the decision to do tennis
full-time, I moved to Big Rapids, Michigan, for
the Professional Tennis Program at Ferris State
University, which had about a hundred students
at the time. It was very diverse – there were
people from all parts of the world there. I
stayed for three years, and then got offered
a really cool opportunity to go back to New
York City and teach tennis, which I couldn’t
refuse. I taught in NYC for three years. Then,
at 28, I realized that I needed to go back and
finish my degree. So I went back to Ferris,
where I worked as the assistant coach. I finished
my undergraduate work in International
Business, which is not typically one of the
majors you combine with Professional Tennis
Management (P.T.M.), so that’s a bit different.
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CAREER PROFILE
DAVID RAMOS
Then, I took a job with a company called Tennis
Europe, where I traveled all over the world
teaching juniors to play in international tournaments. Also, I recruited players here in the U.S.
In 2000, I returned to Ferris as the Head
Women’s Coach, a position I held for five
years. Then, in 2005, I started coaching both
the men and the women. In 2006, I coached
just the men. Right when I first got to Ferris,
I started using video to help players work on
technique. They had software available there
called Dartfish that I had started using to
analyze technique, and I taught myself how
to do match tagging, which is breaking
matches up into individual points.
I left Ferris in 2006 to get a Master’s degree
in Sports Management at Western Michigan
University. I needed to do a capstone course
in order to complete the Master’s degree, so
since I’d gone through the High Performance
Coaching Program from the USTA when I was
a coach at Ferris State, I thought that would
be a great place to do an internship. After the
internship, they offered me a full-time position
as a coordinator. So, I started working here in
Coaching Education, using some of the same
ideas and working with coaches to help them
improve their methods. I’ve created all sorts
of different resources like research study
grants, and lots of technique analysis tools,
like the photo sequences and video analysis
of strokes. In 2012, I started doing match
tagging to deliver scouting reports on players’
opponents, and was promoted at that point
to Specialist.
they want. So, in addition to working directly
with players, we’re trying to put together
input from coaches who are watching
matches to create an American Scouting
Database by the end of 2016.
What skills or interests are important
in your career?
I think a Professional Tennis Management
program really opens up a door that wouldn’t
otherwise be there. I heard about the program
from an ad in the back of Tennis magazine.
Everyone who went to the PTM program at that
time had seen it. I really wanted to get a degree.
When I saw this program in Professional
Tennis Management, I thought that would
be better than just getting certification and
being in an organization without having an
actual degree.
What’s the best part of the job?
My favorite aspect is being part of Team
USA and helping American juniors and pros
maximize their potential. I really enjoy working
with National coaches and external coaches
and sharing video footage, because the
coaches cannot access this on their own, and
it gives them so much objective information.
Most players really enjoy seeing themselves
and it helps them to understand their games
better. One of the most satisfying parts of the
job is traveling to tournaments to meet with
coaches and provide them with scouting
information to help them beat their opponents.
After that, I was promoted to Manager, so
that I had a person working as a coordinator
under my supervision to use tagged video to
help our players. Now, I’m part of the Player
Development program, which works to supply
as much support to players in the top 100 as
What are some of the recent innovations
you’ve seen in your field?
I’d say for a performance analyst, like me,
using video and Dartfish has really changed
coaching methods. For instance, a coach
might want to look just at a player’s serve,
and could ask for a video of their player going
through those motions. I capture and import
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CAREER PROFILE
DAVID RAMOS
the video into my computer and prepare a
presentation for the coach that shows what
I saw from the strokes. Usually it involves a
couple of comparisons, looking at video from
a couple of different angles, zooming into it,
and using various tools to draw attention to
whatever it is that I see that needs to be
addressed.
The coach looks at it first, without the player.
Then we might have another coach or two
come in and look at it so we can get a general
consensus. Together, we’ll make a list of the
one or two things that we think this player
needs to do to improve. Then, we sit down
with the player and the coach goes over
whatever it is that we’ve agreed upon. We
post that video to a private collection that’s
just for that particular player, so as soon as
we’re done talking it over it goes into their
history. It also goes to our Athlete Management
system to keep track of everything we do in
terms of working with a player. Let’s say we’re
not the primary coach of that particular
player. We can also send that video by email
and say we did a consultant session with your
player today, and here’s the video of their
forehand, for example. So that’s pretty much
how we use Dartfish to analyze a player’s
technique.
In matches, it can be very different. It depends
on the situation. So, let’s say a coach has a
player who they haven’t seen play in a while.
That coach will ask me to tag the match.
Match tagging basically means that somebody
sits and watches the video of the matches
and taps on buttons to enter values as every-
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thing happens. So, if the player makes the
first serve, the tagger hits the “first serve”
button. If the player hits a winner, the tagger
hits “winner.” Then you’re able to search
through the match very quickly and summarize
to the player what their performance was like
and play about five minutes worth of video,
instead of having them sit and watch a 2 – 3
hour match. Sports-specific video editing
is what “tagging” is.
Can you share any advice for high school
students?
Don’t lock yourself into just one thing. For
example, don’t think “I’m just going to be
a coach.” Or, “I’m just going to be a player.”
You can evolve. During the very first course of
my college career, we did some brainstorming
to figure out our strengths and what we love
to do. You might like to play tennis, but also
be really into math. Or maybe you really love
statistics, or, in my case, photography and
taking video. So, it’s not just tennis, but what
are some of the other things that you really
love to do, and how can those things come
together to become a tennis-related job?
Don’t limit yourself. You might start out
coaching and realize that you like research
and development, or working with the pro’s
to develop customized racquets and making
that kind of thing possible. You need to have
some sort of vision. Really ask yourself, “What
is it that I’d ultimately like to do that will
combine all of my skills into something unique?”