Wayne Ferreira

... troughs.

Maybe that's naive of me, but I kind of thought he'd had such a taste for it, and he got Wayne Ferreira, who's such a, you know, a taskmaster and, and I really thought this would be a steadier climb, and actually it's, it's ended up being a rollercoaster.

Mm.

So yeah, I, I think I would've had more confidence back then than I do right now for him.

His fitness guys, an old buddy of mine that worked with me at the USDA, Rodney Marshall, has done a great job with him.

Wayne Ferreira, his head coach now.

He's worked his butt off.

I mean, he's in great shape now, and that's the difference for him.

And, and so, so I was gonna say that w- we've also heard, to, to, to some extent we've heard it with, with Frances himself, right? He, he, he's had certain periods in, in his career when, when he said, you know, "I'm really fully throwing myself in here," and, and there've been times when, yeah, it- it's happened for, you know, a little while, but then maybe he's kind of regressed back to old ways.

And you think of like when he first started with Wayne Ferreira.

Yeah.

And, and, and that really went well for a while, and then it, it kind of fizzled out.

He- even when he's winning or losing, he's like one of those guys, you'd be a little bit worried playing against him at the poker table 'cause B-Nak is, you know, keeping the cards close to the vest.

But that's one where maybe the coach, he's now been with him for about three months, Wayne Ferreira, it's like, okay, you can talk to your player.

You know, like, "Okay, we gotta up our energy, up your intensity," a little bit of a fist pump, a little yell, "Come on." I'll go back to poker.

You gotta bluff sometimes.

No, I'm kidding.

He's also from San Diego and Wayne Ferreira as his coach right now.

That's right.

He's got some great vibes and great insight.

... including Hodar, he has more points over the hard court season.

And you know, you wanna know why Nakashima's playing such great tennis, in my opinion? Wayne Ferreira.

Great coach, Wayne Ferreira.

We had a great conversation with Wayne in Washington, it was one of our coach's pieces, and that Wayne Ferreira took Tiafoe into the top 10, 2024 at Queens, and then Tiafoe said he'd s- he felt like he just didn't, didn't get any better, and that's why they parted.

And now Ferreira jumped on, was it with, um, Popyrin for a little bit, or Sonigo? Can't remember.

I always get those two mixed up.

His technique, whoever taught Na- Brandon Nakashima to play tennis in the early days is an absolute genius.

That's my opinion again, but so good.

We're talking Wayne.

Yeah, Wayne Ferreira.

Um, yeah, obviously he's had a amazing career, amazing coaching career as well.

So, uh, he, he's been, uh, very valuable to the team, uh, the last few months.

Really, uh, has helped me with the mental game, I think, the most.

Um, just being able to, to trust my shots out there and, uh, give me the confidence to, to play well in these matches.

Was it something you were pursuing when looking for a coach? Wayne Ferreira was six in the world.

There aren't a lot of coaches walking around this venue that's can say, "I had a winning record against Sampras."

We haven't been talking about that guy.

Back-to-back weeks working with Wayne Ferreira, semis of Master Series, top 20 in the world now.

The guy has got game, and he's under the radar because there's the Sheltons, the Fritz, there's the Pauls, but he's starting to make hay and, and becoming a name.

So, uh, don't discount Nakashima in that section as well.

So can he do well at the US Open? You have to be a seriously good player to beat Brandon Nakashima, especially in five sets.

Uh, I love that Wayne Ferreira is now working with him 'cause Wayne is a great coach and he helped Frances Tiafoe tremendously when they worked together.

So I think Brandon, he's...

He, I think it's, it's more, it's opened up to him that, hold on a second, I work as hard as these guys, or most probably harder, and I can compete with them, and I think that's the only...

I think human beings, obviously, they, they could, there are scientists that could tell us a lot of things about how cell phones and technology have affected so much.

I, I, I-- When you were talking about that, I immediately thought of Wayne Ferreira, who, you know, has done a great job, uh, coaching and seems to be making great progress with Brandon Nakashima, and I know nothing about it.

But I do know the story about when he began working with TFO and he eliminated the cell phone when certain parts of their training were happening because he wanted them to learn to focus.

I, I think that, you know, when people-- It's funny because I feel like, you know, if somebody were to watch Steve, Coach Steve in action and to see how he can go from A to B to C to D to E, and then just go down, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, and how rapidly he can switch from one logical progression to another, and there's no time to be bored.

So he's a young guy, South African, spends nearly five years training with his base at our place.

First six months did- didn't play.

And during that time, you know, Wayne Ferreira was big time.

You know, he'd won ten million dollars back in the day and he just-- People don't realize this.