The Playbook (2020): Season 1, Episode 4 - Patrick Mouratoglou: A Coach's Rules for Life - full transcript
Tennis coach Patrick Mouratoglou reflects on his success with Serena Williams and reveals his strategy for players who tank.
[birds chirping]
[clicking]
[piano playing classical music]
[Patrick] I'm from France.
My father came to France
when he was 13 years old,
and this city where I was living in
was like a little village.
If you watch an American movie,
it's the perfect start of a story
who's gonna become bad afterwards,
but the start is everything's beautiful.
One of the main things that I remember
from being young was a piano
in the middle of the living room,
because my father was playing piano.
A lot, a lot.
He was playing classical music.
One piece of classical music,
it's like sentences.
It's like you're reading...
It's like a poem.
You have the first sentence,
the second, the third, etc.
And when you want to repeat it
to make it perfect,
you take one sentence
and repeat it a million times
until it's just a perfection.
It's the same with tennis.
Exactly the same.
Practice a million times,
until it's perfect.
[commentator 1] Your US Open
Women's champion, Serena Williams!
[crowd cheering]
[Patrick] But more than perfect,
it's automatic.
- [commentator 2] He's done it.
- [cheering]
[commentator 3] One of the greatest
competitors in any sport at any time.
[music speeds up]
[grunts] Come on!
Patrick Mouratoglou,
nice enough to join us.
- Patrick Mouratoglou.
- Merci, Patrick Mouratoglou.
[commentator 4]
Serena Williams' coach,
and the coach of so many other players.
[Patrick] Piano can be beautiful
if you listen to a piece of piano
from the start to the end, but the same
thing repeating all the time...
Oh!
...it drives people crazy. [chuckles]
Of course it's tough,
that's why not many
can be number one.
[commentator 5]
A simply sensational Serena.
[metronome clicking quickly]
[interviewer] Thank you, Patrick.
[Patrick] You're welcome.
[gentle piano music playing]
[Patrick] When I was a kid, I was shy
to a level
that I've never met someone ever.
And I had no self-confidence at all.
I mean, zero.
When there was a silence,
I was completely panicking.
I was feeling like,
I need to say something
and I didn't know what to say.
So, this was bringing panic to me.
So, I was trying to avoid
any contact with people,
because it was so scary for me.
To tell you how bad it was,
I went to see my psychologist
every week, for one year,
without being able to say one word.
It took me one year to tell him one word.
One year.
But a big weakness
can create a big strength.
[school bell ringing]
When I was a kid, I was at school,
not talking to anybody,
like this, shy,
hoping nobody was going to talk to me.
But I was looking at people,
and I was looking at their interactions.
You know? The movement of their face,
to try to know what they were feeling.
Paying attention at every detail.
Because of that unbelievable weakness,
this inability to connect with people,
I created an incredible strength,
this ability to read people.
[crowd cheering]
[reporter 1] Serena, another match.
How much confidence did you get from
the previous, how do you prepare for this?
I got a lot of confidence
but this is a new match,
and, uh, a new opponent.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Patrick] When I look at a player,
you have to read their body language.
That tells you a lot.
[Serena grunts]
They give you so much information,
and they don't even know it.
I see a lot of things.
Could be, they have doubts,
they are nervous.
Maybe 'cause they're scared.
Because my eyes are wide open,
my ears are wide open.
All the information comes from everywhere.
My eyes, my ears, everywhere.
It comes, it comes, it comes all day long.
And then, when I have
all this information, all the puzzle,
I start to make a plan.
It's not what you do,
what you do is great.
But what you want is to be aggressive.
You always go forward.
To know how to speak to my player,
build the confidence
and feed the player's motivation.
Yes! Okay, perfect.
Oh, you do it perfectly.
Again, again. Yes!
Okay, so, it sticks in your head.
It becomes automatic to move forward
every time the ball comes.
We live in a world where people are faking
all day long.
And, as a coach, you need to know
what people really think.
Voilà! Okay, go for the winner.
Parfait. Thank you.
I didn't know that I was
learning my job when I was a kid.
[chuckling] I didn't know,
didn't do it on purpose.
I did it to survive,
but this ability to read people
became my biggest strength.
So, it's all about what you do
with what happens to you.
All about it.
[crowd cheering]
I have to thank my coach, Patrick,
for getting me through this.
There are moments
when I didn't believe in me, you did,
and I'm so grateful to have you
in my life and on my team.
Thank you so much.
[crowd cheering]
[soothing music playing]
So, these are some of my notebooks
during the tournaments,
or during the practice,
or every day I write down a lot of things.
My... I mean, I have a lot,
because I think it's incredibly important.
It helps you clear your ideas.
We think we're not going to forget,
but we forget everything.
I want to remember the story of the match.
This notebook is, uh...
I think the first one with Serena.
"I accept to make mistakes
because I take risks,
and because I am not scared."
This is also key.
A good coach
can never be afraid to get fired.
Sometimes you have to take risks.
You have to feel free
to do what you should do.
If you're scared, you're not strong.
Player would feel it.
[commentator 6]
Game, Serena Williams.
She is the new number one in the world,
again, Serena Williams!
[crowd cheering]
[Patrick]
If you would have asked me 10 years ago
who'd be the ideal player to work with,
it would be Serena Williams.
But she never had a coach,
except her father.
My career as a tennis coach
was going better and better.
[announcer] Game.
[commentator 7]
Four straight games for Aravane Rezaï,
and she claims the first set
that Serena has lost this year.
And her coach, Patrick Mouratoglou,
has got to be pretty pleased
with those results.
[Patrick] Tennis is a small world,
and you have a short list
of guys you want to be coached by.
And I thought, I'm gonna coach Serena.
This is gonna happen, for sure.
Never spoke to her, never went to her.
Not once.
So, one day, in 2012, she's injured.
- [Serena yelps]
- [crowd gasps]
[reporter]
Superstar Serena Williams
has been sidelined after suffering
a foot injury and undergoing surgery.
She's more than injured, almost dying.
Undergoing emergency treatment,
related to a blood clot in her lung.
Spends months at the hospital,
nearly dies,
then comes back on tour.
And for the first time in her career,
she loses in the first round
of Roland-Garros.
That's a shock for her, big shock.
Something was wrong, clearly.
- [Serena grunts]
- [crowd applauds]
Watched the match, that's it.
- [ball thuds]
- [crowd groans]
She was struggling to go back
to winning a Grand Slam,
and it was affecting her.
Even the way she was thinking...
she was not thinking like Serena.
The day after, I received a text message
from her, saying,
"I want to get ready for Wimbledon.
Can I practice at your place?"
I said, "Of course. See you tomorrow."
She came.
She said, "I want to come back
to number one.
What do you think about my game?
What I should do?"
It was a big question.
I thought... I have one shot.
I have one chance in life
to work with the greatest of all time.
If I don't shoot
exactly in the right place, I'm done.
I have to be perfect. Basically, I said,
"First,
I think you're an underachiever..."
- [woman] Serena Williams!
- [cheering]
[Patrick] "You won 13 Grand Slams,
which is fantastic.
But maybe you could have won 26.
And I think you're an underachiever
because I've seen you go to tournaments
unprepared many times.
I feel like you don't have any plan B
when things go wrong."
I told her, "I think you lose
much too many matches."
And the thing is,
I've never seen someone direct with her.
But I was not nervous,
because I thought that was the right way.
If you're afraid to be fired,
you're gonna tell the player
what she wants to hear.
It reminds me of the first practice
in Wimbledon.
Serena loves to test people.
And I think she was testing me.
I was waiting for her with the team,
and then suddenly she arrives, late.
I look at her when she arrives and say,
"Good morning."
She doesn't look at me.
She passes, doesn't answer.
We start practice. I tell her something,
she doesn't answer,
doesn't look at me.
I think, "This is wrong."
And I feel,
this is not gonna work like that.
I can't let her disrespect me.
Less at the start of the relationship.
And after 45 minutes,
she sits down to drink.
I wanted to have her attention,
she doesn't give me attention.
So, I come to her
and I slap her on the cap.
So, she's super surprised,
nobody does this to her.
- [bell tolling]
- [thunder rumbling]
She looked at me like this and I said,
"Listen, Serena,
there are three rules." Three.
"Rule number one,
when you come to my court,
you look at me and you say good morning.
Rule number two, when I talk to you,
you listen to me,
you look at me, and you answer me."
And I said, "Is it clear?"
You know what she answered?
"What's rule number three?" [laughs]
From that day, I get all her respect,
because I was not scared of her,
I was not scared to lose my job.
For me, she was unbelievable.
She had more aces than any women...
and any men in the tournament.
[grunts]
[announcer] Game, Miss Williams.
- [commentator chuckles]
- [Serena exclaims]
[commentator 9] Serena Williams,
champion of Wimbledon again.
Sweeter for the passage of time,
and all the struggles survived.
[interviewer] What has been one
of the most challenging,
or the most challenging moment
that you've had to endure,
and how did you just get through it?
There is one. I cannot talk about it,
so I'm not gonna talk about it.
[news anchor] Back home
to major fallout at the US Open,
and the moment witnessed by millions.
Serena Williams fined $17,000 today
for her outburst
during Saturday's match.
[reporter 3] It started when the ump
issued a warning
when Serena's coach
made this illegal hand signal.
The tennis superstar seething.
I don't cheat to win, I'd rather lose.
[reporter 4] The match
may be remembered for Williams
- clashing with the umpire,
- I don't cheat!
Calling him a thief
and smashing her racket.
[reporter 5] Mouratoglou admitted
that he was coaching Serena,
which is against the rules.
I mean, I'm honest. I was coaching.
I don't think she looked at me,
that's why she didn't think I was.
She's in her match,
she shouldn't have to think about that
and she should be able
to express her emotions. She's human.
In tennis, people want people
to be perfect,
and especially for the champions,
because the champions
have no right to make a mistake.
They're immediately pointed out, judged.
It's painful.
But sometimes you have to accept
to go through really painful moments,
because you know there's no other choice.
Failure and frustration
are two of the best things
that can happen,
if you handle them the right way.
And then you're gonna learn.
We welcome you
to the trophy celebration
- of the United States Open.
- [crowd booing loudly]
Serena, not the result
that you wanted tonight.
How do you put into perspective
what this match contained?
Um, well, I don't want to be rude,
but I don't want to interrupt...
I don't want to do questions,
I want to tell you,
she played well
and this is her first Grand Slam.
[crowd cheering loudly]
Let's not boo anymore. We just...
We're gonna get through this, be positive.
So, congratulations, Naomi.
[cheering]
[Patrick] We learn making mistakes.
Of course, it's very difficult,
but that's not what defines you.
I want to start with our mission.
So, what is our mission?
I tell you the way I see our mission.
It consists of helping people
achieve their dreams.
Coaching is finding the right channel.
Coaching is understanding
the other person's feelings,
and dealing with them to bring
the person to do the right thing.
You want to connect with your player,
in any situation of life.
But it's not easy,
and you have to accept
you are going to make mistakes.
Because we all have a lot of emotions,
and we have even more emotions
when we are passionate.
The problem with emotion,
and you can say the same for life,
the emotion is the worst advisor.
In '98, I was not famous.
I have only 20 players at my academy.
I know all of them very well.
I started with Marcos
when he was 13-and-a-half years old.
I saw him in a tournament
and I loved his game.
[applause]
I was his coach,
but I was more than his coach.
I think I was the most important
for him at that time.
For me, he was like my son.
I spent so much time with him,
and I knew him since he was a kid so well,
so we had a father-son relationship.
He was, like, 300 in the world.
Since we were working together,
he went incredibly fast up
in the rankings.
[reporter] Baghdatis took
the tennis world by surprise,
as he swept his way into the finals
of the Australian Open
as an unseeded outsider.
[Patrick] Two years later, he was
in the final of the Australian Open.
[commentator 10] He's done it!
Disbelief from this 20-year-old.
[crowd cheering]
Thank you very much, Patrick,
for everything.
Six months after,
in the semi-final of Wimbledon.
And top ten in the world.
[reporter 7] The results made Baghdatis
welcomed at home
as one of the greatest athletes
Cyprus has ever produced.
[shutters clicking]
But after that...
I heard something I didn't expect
from Marcos. He told me,
"Now I know how to be
at the top of the game."
Great. But the thing was,
he was saying,
"I know what you don't know."
Like he knew better than me because
he did it and I didn't do it. Okay.
He was prepared to slow down,
practice less for better results.
I said,
"You know, Marcos, you and me,
we both know how you get to where you are.
You worked so hard... so hard.
And you're basically telling me now
that you're gonna do much less
and it's gonna be much better.
Sorry, I don't believe it."
[commentator 11]
Uh-oh, Baghdatis went down.
Yeah, he's cramping. He's got a cramp
in that left... in the calf.
[commentator 12]
Well, Patrick Mouratoglou,
who first spotted
the talent of this young man
and brought him with a scholarship at 13,
I asked him, "What didn't you like?"
And he said,
"He wasn't real eager to train hard."
I'm angry at him
because he makes me look bad,
he doesn't respect me.
And I feel this emotion, like,
really, really strong.
He needs to be punched,
and I told him,
"It's unacceptable.
Your parents gave everything for you.
We at the academy
gave everything for you."
Does he know how much effort I make?
How much sacrifice I make?
How motivated I am?
And he doesn't even try?
"This is completely disrespectful,
unacceptable.
And you have to realize that."
From that day, it broke our relationship.
I was not a good coach at the time.
I acted like, "I have emotion, I'm angry,
I'm gonna punch him."
Yeah, this is not coaching.
When you're a good coach,
you don't break the relationship.
Zero reason to break it.
To have emotions is not a problem.
To let them make the decisions for you,
this is wrong.
So, Marcos left.
Not something I'm happy with.
Until the last day of my life,
I will still feel
that he's like a son to me.
You have to pay
for what you do in life,
so you pay the hard price, but...
at least I learned something.
Always put the emotion apart,
make sure when you take a decision,
that it's not a decision that...
is taken because of the emotion you feel.
[in French] My dream is
to become #1 in the world,
but I don't know exactly
how that'll happen.
There's a long road ahead.
You're already number one in France
for your age.
Oui.
That's good, right?
It's okay.
[in English] When I consider a player,
the first qualities I would look at
are her ambition,
but I don't listen to what she says.
I hear what she thinks because
all say they want to be number one.
But most of them don't believe it.
I'm looking for people
who deeply believe in themselves,
and would not give up.
I want people who think
they're gonna be better than anybody else.
But players have to feel...
you are a team with them.
The relationship is everything.
[inaudible]
[Patrick]
Irena was a fantastic player.
[grunts]
But she had lost a lot of confidence
by losing too many matches.
[Patrick in French]
There are some parts of her game
that are preventing her
from being a champion.
[in English] When the matches
were going wrong,
I know it sounds crazy
for not-tennis people,
but she was tanking the match.
Which means she was not trying.
[Irena groans]
[umpire] Out!
[Patrick]
She was almost purposely missing.
Getting rid of the match.
- [umpire] Fault!
- [announcer] Jeu, set, match.
[Patrick] More than giving up.
Like, missing on purpose.
Basically telling to everyone,
"I'm not interested in the match,
not trying.
I am not trying."
Of course, what I want to say,
you know,
"I'm working really hard
to make you become a better player,
and you don't even try.
This is unacceptable."
That's what I want to tell her.
What I feel.
And so, I asked myself,
"Why do players tank?"
That's a good question.
[reporter 8] Aussie star,
Nick Kyrgios,
is in more hot water this morning.
He's denying deliberately tanking points.
[announcer] Forty-love.
Because from outside, it looks unreal.
I mean, these guys are working
every day to play better.
When the match comes,
they don't even try. Doesn't make sense.
Logically, it doesn't make sense.
[commentator 13] Oh, ridiculous.
You gotta feel he's gonna be pulling out?
So, I try to understand.
Most of the players who are tanking
are talented players.
Players who have easy power,
a lot of touch,
a lot of talent.
Most players are not confident
in themselves.
They don't know if they can,
they have doubts.
[commentator 14] Wild hit.
That had the feeling of capitulation,
right there.
[Patrick] There is one thing
they are sure about.
They have talent.
And this is, wow, so good.
It's like if people tell you all day long,
"You look good, handsome."
"Oh, wow, thank you." I like it.
I like to hear that, right?
So, there is one thing
that they don't want to lose...
is that.
So now, what happens
when you're a very talented player
and you play a player who is not talented,
and you start to lose.
Maybe that means
you're not that talented.
You're not gonna take that risk.
[crowd jeering]
[Patrick] You prefer to give up,
and you can always say,
"I tanked, I didn't try."
And that's what they do.
I want to have an answer,
I need to have it.
My player is tanking, I need to know why.
It's the fear of losing the only thing
that counts for you, your talent.
Then I asked myself a second question.
"What is the best thing you can do
to make her stop tanking?"
Hmm.
I have an idea.
We sat down and I said, "Explain
to me what happened during the match."
[in French] Before the match,
I was prepared.
But I was already melting down,
I was a bit of a mess.
- Oui?
- Oui.
[in English] She started to tell me,
"Well, I was missing everything,
everything went wrong."
Denial.
I said, "Okay," and then I said to her,
"It's 100 percent my fault, I'm sorry."
And then she opened her eyes,
like, this big, and she said to me,
"It's crazy, I thought you would kill me,"
she said.
She couldn't believe
what she was hearing.
She was very sensitive, very emotional,
so I knew that the right way
was to be very human with her.
Show her love, respect,
and show her that I wanted to help her.
We were together,
and because we were a team,
the last thing I would do is blame her.
When I said this to her...
she thought,
"Wow, he wants me to do better.
He's 100 percent with me.
I can't disappoint this guy. I can't."
She never, ever tanked a match after that.
Never.
[applause]
[Patrick]
Early preparation, Serena, early. Good.
Great.
Everyone has limits,
and the limits of everyone
- are not technical, tactical, physical.
- Good.
They're mental.
Why this is important?
Because even the player
who is the most ambitious on the planet,
when the doubt comes,
it can affect the way she thinks.
And when you don't think like a champion,
don't act like a champion
and don't win like a champion.
So, it's very important...
Great job.
...to make sure the mind works right.
That's my job.
I don't remember the year,
maybe 2015, or something like that.
She plays Wimbledon
and lost the year before,
so she was struggling with her confidence.
She was not thinking like Serena.
I didn't have a lot of time.
Two weeks to make her win Wimbledon.
And, at that time,
she's terrible at the net.
She's nervous, start of the tournament,
comes to the net and misses everything.
[umpire] Out!
Her stats at the net are terrible.
It's a big deal,
because when you are someone like Serena
and you're so aggressive,
you create short balls.
And when the balls come...
[applause]
...you have to be willing
to move up to the ball to attack.
The problem is,
when you're scared to go to the net
you're missing everything,
instinctively when the short ball comes,
you're not moving to get the ball early
and it hurts all your game.
That was happening at that start
of Wimbledon.
And I think,
"Okay, I have to come up with something."
I come to her.
What I'm going to tell her
can be true or not true.
What does it change? Nothing.
I said, "I have good news for you.
Every time you play a match
and you create a short ball,
I'm super relaxed.
I know you're going to win 80% of points."
"Why do you say that?"
"It's stats, it's not me, it's stats.
When there is a short ball,
you're gonna move up,
end up at the net..."
She was not doing it.
"...end up at the net and win 80%
of the points, best news."
"Incredible,
I thought I sucked at the net."
I said, "Maybe you feel that way,
but the stats
explain exactly the opposite."
I hate to lie, but as a coach,
you have to say the right thing
to bring confidence.
I lied to Serena about her stats.
I knew that if she thought
her stats were good,
the day after, she would play better.
[cheering]
Was that true or not, what I said?
Does it matter? Doesn't matter.
What matters is, if what you tell
your player brings the right result,
that's what everybody wants.
What does the truth have to do
with that? This is not the point.
No, it's true!
So, this was a lie. But from that day,
she was winning 80% of points at net.
I had to remind her who she is.
Nothing could stop her,
and no one could stop her.
[crowd cheering]
And she won the tournament.
So, the lie became a reality.
[clicking]
[playing "Clair de Lune"]
When I was young, I loved tennis.
I was obsessed with tennis,
and obsessed with tennis players.
That's what I wanted to become
and I could not.
But if there was one lesson
I learned in life,
I think it would be...
everything depends on you.
I realized I wanted to be
a professional tennis player.
I won't be,
but I can do something big in tennis.
And this stayed in me.
Everything depends on you.
And knowing that became so useful
for my life in the future.
And that helped me become
the coach that I become.
[cheering]
[song continues]
[Patrick]
You can have an impact on anything,
and at the end of the day,
if you think about it,
you can change everything that is around
you in order to get what you want.
So, everything depends on you.
And if you think like that,
whatever you start to do in life...
it's magic.
[song ends]
[fast-paced orchestral music plays]
[clicking]
[piano playing classical music]
[Patrick] I'm from France.
My father came to France
when he was 13 years old,
and this city where I was living in
was like a little village.
If you watch an American movie,
it's the perfect start of a story
who's gonna become bad afterwards,
but the start is everything's beautiful.
One of the main things that I remember
from being young was a piano
in the middle of the living room,
because my father was playing piano.
A lot, a lot.
He was playing classical music.
One piece of classical music,
it's like sentences.
It's like you're reading...
It's like a poem.
You have the first sentence,
the second, the third, etc.
And when you want to repeat it
to make it perfect,
you take one sentence
and repeat it a million times
until it's just a perfection.
It's the same with tennis.
Exactly the same.
Practice a million times,
until it's perfect.
[commentator 1] Your US Open
Women's champion, Serena Williams!
[crowd cheering]
[Patrick] But more than perfect,
it's automatic.
- [commentator 2] He's done it.
- [cheering]
[commentator 3] One of the greatest
competitors in any sport at any time.
[music speeds up]
[grunts] Come on!
Patrick Mouratoglou,
nice enough to join us.
- Patrick Mouratoglou.
- Merci, Patrick Mouratoglou.
[commentator 4]
Serena Williams' coach,
and the coach of so many other players.
[Patrick] Piano can be beautiful
if you listen to a piece of piano
from the start to the end, but the same
thing repeating all the time...
Oh!
...it drives people crazy. [chuckles]
Of course it's tough,
that's why not many
can be number one.
[commentator 5]
A simply sensational Serena.
[metronome clicking quickly]
[interviewer] Thank you, Patrick.
[Patrick] You're welcome.
[gentle piano music playing]
[Patrick] When I was a kid, I was shy
to a level
that I've never met someone ever.
And I had no self-confidence at all.
I mean, zero.
When there was a silence,
I was completely panicking.
I was feeling like,
I need to say something
and I didn't know what to say.
So, this was bringing panic to me.
So, I was trying to avoid
any contact with people,
because it was so scary for me.
To tell you how bad it was,
I went to see my psychologist
every week, for one year,
without being able to say one word.
It took me one year to tell him one word.
One year.
But a big weakness
can create a big strength.
[school bell ringing]
When I was a kid, I was at school,
not talking to anybody,
like this, shy,
hoping nobody was going to talk to me.
But I was looking at people,
and I was looking at their interactions.
You know? The movement of their face,
to try to know what they were feeling.
Paying attention at every detail.
Because of that unbelievable weakness,
this inability to connect with people,
I created an incredible strength,
this ability to read people.
[crowd cheering]
[reporter 1] Serena, another match.
How much confidence did you get from
the previous, how do you prepare for this?
I got a lot of confidence
but this is a new match,
and, uh, a new opponent.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Patrick] When I look at a player,
you have to read their body language.
That tells you a lot.
[Serena grunts]
They give you so much information,
and they don't even know it.
I see a lot of things.
Could be, they have doubts,
they are nervous.
Maybe 'cause they're scared.
Because my eyes are wide open,
my ears are wide open.
All the information comes from everywhere.
My eyes, my ears, everywhere.
It comes, it comes, it comes all day long.
And then, when I have
all this information, all the puzzle,
I start to make a plan.
It's not what you do,
what you do is great.
But what you want is to be aggressive.
You always go forward.
To know how to speak to my player,
build the confidence
and feed the player's motivation.
Yes! Okay, perfect.
Oh, you do it perfectly.
Again, again. Yes!
Okay, so, it sticks in your head.
It becomes automatic to move forward
every time the ball comes.
We live in a world where people are faking
all day long.
And, as a coach, you need to know
what people really think.
Voilà! Okay, go for the winner.
Parfait. Thank you.
I didn't know that I was
learning my job when I was a kid.
[chuckling] I didn't know,
didn't do it on purpose.
I did it to survive,
but this ability to read people
became my biggest strength.
So, it's all about what you do
with what happens to you.
All about it.
[crowd cheering]
I have to thank my coach, Patrick,
for getting me through this.
There are moments
when I didn't believe in me, you did,
and I'm so grateful to have you
in my life and on my team.
Thank you so much.
[crowd cheering]
[soothing music playing]
So, these are some of my notebooks
during the tournaments,
or during the practice,
or every day I write down a lot of things.
My... I mean, I have a lot,
because I think it's incredibly important.
It helps you clear your ideas.
We think we're not going to forget,
but we forget everything.
I want to remember the story of the match.
This notebook is, uh...
I think the first one with Serena.
"I accept to make mistakes
because I take risks,
and because I am not scared."
This is also key.
A good coach
can never be afraid to get fired.
Sometimes you have to take risks.
You have to feel free
to do what you should do.
If you're scared, you're not strong.
Player would feel it.
[commentator 6]
Game, Serena Williams.
She is the new number one in the world,
again, Serena Williams!
[crowd cheering]
[Patrick]
If you would have asked me 10 years ago
who'd be the ideal player to work with,
it would be Serena Williams.
But she never had a coach,
except her father.
My career as a tennis coach
was going better and better.
[announcer] Game.
[commentator 7]
Four straight games for Aravane Rezaï,
and she claims the first set
that Serena has lost this year.
And her coach, Patrick Mouratoglou,
has got to be pretty pleased
with those results.
[Patrick] Tennis is a small world,
and you have a short list
of guys you want to be coached by.
And I thought, I'm gonna coach Serena.
This is gonna happen, for sure.
Never spoke to her, never went to her.
Not once.
So, one day, in 2012, she's injured.
- [Serena yelps]
- [crowd gasps]
[reporter]
Superstar Serena Williams
has been sidelined after suffering
a foot injury and undergoing surgery.
She's more than injured, almost dying.
Undergoing emergency treatment,
related to a blood clot in her lung.
Spends months at the hospital,
nearly dies,
then comes back on tour.
And for the first time in her career,
she loses in the first round
of Roland-Garros.
That's a shock for her, big shock.
Something was wrong, clearly.
- [Serena grunts]
- [crowd applauds]
Watched the match, that's it.
- [ball thuds]
- [crowd groans]
She was struggling to go back
to winning a Grand Slam,
and it was affecting her.
Even the way she was thinking...
she was not thinking like Serena.
The day after, I received a text message
from her, saying,
"I want to get ready for Wimbledon.
Can I practice at your place?"
I said, "Of course. See you tomorrow."
She came.
She said, "I want to come back
to number one.
What do you think about my game?
What I should do?"
It was a big question.
I thought... I have one shot.
I have one chance in life
to work with the greatest of all time.
If I don't shoot
exactly in the right place, I'm done.
I have to be perfect. Basically, I said,
"First,
I think you're an underachiever..."
- [woman] Serena Williams!
- [cheering]
[Patrick] "You won 13 Grand Slams,
which is fantastic.
But maybe you could have won 26.
And I think you're an underachiever
because I've seen you go to tournaments
unprepared many times.
I feel like you don't have any plan B
when things go wrong."
I told her, "I think you lose
much too many matches."
And the thing is,
I've never seen someone direct with her.
But I was not nervous,
because I thought that was the right way.
If you're afraid to be fired,
you're gonna tell the player
what she wants to hear.
It reminds me of the first practice
in Wimbledon.
Serena loves to test people.
And I think she was testing me.
I was waiting for her with the team,
and then suddenly she arrives, late.
I look at her when she arrives and say,
"Good morning."
She doesn't look at me.
She passes, doesn't answer.
We start practice. I tell her something,
she doesn't answer,
doesn't look at me.
I think, "This is wrong."
And I feel,
this is not gonna work like that.
I can't let her disrespect me.
Less at the start of the relationship.
And after 45 minutes,
she sits down to drink.
I wanted to have her attention,
she doesn't give me attention.
So, I come to her
and I slap her on the cap.
So, she's super surprised,
nobody does this to her.
- [bell tolling]
- [thunder rumbling]
She looked at me like this and I said,
"Listen, Serena,
there are three rules." Three.
"Rule number one,
when you come to my court,
you look at me and you say good morning.
Rule number two, when I talk to you,
you listen to me,
you look at me, and you answer me."
And I said, "Is it clear?"
You know what she answered?
"What's rule number three?" [laughs]
From that day, I get all her respect,
because I was not scared of her,
I was not scared to lose my job.
For me, she was unbelievable.
She had more aces than any women...
and any men in the tournament.
[grunts]
[announcer] Game, Miss Williams.
- [commentator chuckles]
- [Serena exclaims]
[commentator 9] Serena Williams,
champion of Wimbledon again.
Sweeter for the passage of time,
and all the struggles survived.
[interviewer] What has been one
of the most challenging,
or the most challenging moment
that you've had to endure,
and how did you just get through it?
There is one. I cannot talk about it,
so I'm not gonna talk about it.
[news anchor] Back home
to major fallout at the US Open,
and the moment witnessed by millions.
Serena Williams fined $17,000 today
for her outburst
during Saturday's match.
[reporter 3] It started when the ump
issued a warning
when Serena's coach
made this illegal hand signal.
The tennis superstar seething.
I don't cheat to win, I'd rather lose.
[reporter 4] The match
may be remembered for Williams
- clashing with the umpire,
- I don't cheat!
Calling him a thief
and smashing her racket.
[reporter 5] Mouratoglou admitted
that he was coaching Serena,
which is against the rules.
I mean, I'm honest. I was coaching.
I don't think she looked at me,
that's why she didn't think I was.
She's in her match,
she shouldn't have to think about that
and she should be able
to express her emotions. She's human.
In tennis, people want people
to be perfect,
and especially for the champions,
because the champions
have no right to make a mistake.
They're immediately pointed out, judged.
It's painful.
But sometimes you have to accept
to go through really painful moments,
because you know there's no other choice.
Failure and frustration
are two of the best things
that can happen,
if you handle them the right way.
And then you're gonna learn.
We welcome you
to the trophy celebration
- of the United States Open.
- [crowd booing loudly]
Serena, not the result
that you wanted tonight.
How do you put into perspective
what this match contained?
Um, well, I don't want to be rude,
but I don't want to interrupt...
I don't want to do questions,
I want to tell you,
she played well
and this is her first Grand Slam.
[crowd cheering loudly]
Let's not boo anymore. We just...
We're gonna get through this, be positive.
So, congratulations, Naomi.
[cheering]
[Patrick] We learn making mistakes.
Of course, it's very difficult,
but that's not what defines you.
I want to start with our mission.
So, what is our mission?
I tell you the way I see our mission.
It consists of helping people
achieve their dreams.
Coaching is finding the right channel.
Coaching is understanding
the other person's feelings,
and dealing with them to bring
the person to do the right thing.
You want to connect with your player,
in any situation of life.
But it's not easy,
and you have to accept
you are going to make mistakes.
Because we all have a lot of emotions,
and we have even more emotions
when we are passionate.
The problem with emotion,
and you can say the same for life,
the emotion is the worst advisor.
In '98, I was not famous.
I have only 20 players at my academy.
I know all of them very well.
I started with Marcos
when he was 13-and-a-half years old.
I saw him in a tournament
and I loved his game.
[applause]
I was his coach,
but I was more than his coach.
I think I was the most important
for him at that time.
For me, he was like my son.
I spent so much time with him,
and I knew him since he was a kid so well,
so we had a father-son relationship.
He was, like, 300 in the world.
Since we were working together,
he went incredibly fast up
in the rankings.
[reporter] Baghdatis took
the tennis world by surprise,
as he swept his way into the finals
of the Australian Open
as an unseeded outsider.
[Patrick] Two years later, he was
in the final of the Australian Open.
[commentator 10] He's done it!
Disbelief from this 20-year-old.
[crowd cheering]
Thank you very much, Patrick,
for everything.
Six months after,
in the semi-final of Wimbledon.
And top ten in the world.
[reporter 7] The results made Baghdatis
welcomed at home
as one of the greatest athletes
Cyprus has ever produced.
[shutters clicking]
But after that...
I heard something I didn't expect
from Marcos. He told me,
"Now I know how to be
at the top of the game."
Great. But the thing was,
he was saying,
"I know what you don't know."
Like he knew better than me because
he did it and I didn't do it. Okay.
He was prepared to slow down,
practice less for better results.
I said,
"You know, Marcos, you and me,
we both know how you get to where you are.
You worked so hard... so hard.
And you're basically telling me now
that you're gonna do much less
and it's gonna be much better.
Sorry, I don't believe it."
[commentator 11]
Uh-oh, Baghdatis went down.
Yeah, he's cramping. He's got a cramp
in that left... in the calf.
[commentator 12]
Well, Patrick Mouratoglou,
who first spotted
the talent of this young man
and brought him with a scholarship at 13,
I asked him, "What didn't you like?"
And he said,
"He wasn't real eager to train hard."
I'm angry at him
because he makes me look bad,
he doesn't respect me.
And I feel this emotion, like,
really, really strong.
He needs to be punched,
and I told him,
"It's unacceptable.
Your parents gave everything for you.
We at the academy
gave everything for you."
Does he know how much effort I make?
How much sacrifice I make?
How motivated I am?
And he doesn't even try?
"This is completely disrespectful,
unacceptable.
And you have to realize that."
From that day, it broke our relationship.
I was not a good coach at the time.
I acted like, "I have emotion, I'm angry,
I'm gonna punch him."
Yeah, this is not coaching.
When you're a good coach,
you don't break the relationship.
Zero reason to break it.
To have emotions is not a problem.
To let them make the decisions for you,
this is wrong.
So, Marcos left.
Not something I'm happy with.
Until the last day of my life,
I will still feel
that he's like a son to me.
You have to pay
for what you do in life,
so you pay the hard price, but...
at least I learned something.
Always put the emotion apart,
make sure when you take a decision,
that it's not a decision that...
is taken because of the emotion you feel.
[in French] My dream is
to become #1 in the world,
but I don't know exactly
how that'll happen.
There's a long road ahead.
You're already number one in France
for your age.
Oui.
That's good, right?
It's okay.
[in English] When I consider a player,
the first qualities I would look at
are her ambition,
but I don't listen to what she says.
I hear what she thinks because
all say they want to be number one.
But most of them don't believe it.
I'm looking for people
who deeply believe in themselves,
and would not give up.
I want people who think
they're gonna be better than anybody else.
But players have to feel...
you are a team with them.
The relationship is everything.
[inaudible]
[Patrick]
Irena was a fantastic player.
[grunts]
But she had lost a lot of confidence
by losing too many matches.
[Patrick in French]
There are some parts of her game
that are preventing her
from being a champion.
[in English] When the matches
were going wrong,
I know it sounds crazy
for not-tennis people,
but she was tanking the match.
Which means she was not trying.
[Irena groans]
[umpire] Out!
[Patrick]
She was almost purposely missing.
Getting rid of the match.
- [umpire] Fault!
- [announcer] Jeu, set, match.
[Patrick] More than giving up.
Like, missing on purpose.
Basically telling to everyone,
"I'm not interested in the match,
not trying.
I am not trying."
Of course, what I want to say,
you know,
"I'm working really hard
to make you become a better player,
and you don't even try.
This is unacceptable."
That's what I want to tell her.
What I feel.
And so, I asked myself,
"Why do players tank?"
That's a good question.
[reporter 8] Aussie star,
Nick Kyrgios,
is in more hot water this morning.
He's denying deliberately tanking points.
[announcer] Forty-love.
Because from outside, it looks unreal.
I mean, these guys are working
every day to play better.
When the match comes,
they don't even try. Doesn't make sense.
Logically, it doesn't make sense.
[commentator 13] Oh, ridiculous.
You gotta feel he's gonna be pulling out?
So, I try to understand.
Most of the players who are tanking
are talented players.
Players who have easy power,
a lot of touch,
a lot of talent.
Most players are not confident
in themselves.
They don't know if they can,
they have doubts.
[commentator 14] Wild hit.
That had the feeling of capitulation,
right there.
[Patrick] There is one thing
they are sure about.
They have talent.
And this is, wow, so good.
It's like if people tell you all day long,
"You look good, handsome."
"Oh, wow, thank you." I like it.
I like to hear that, right?
So, there is one thing
that they don't want to lose...
is that.
So now, what happens
when you're a very talented player
and you play a player who is not talented,
and you start to lose.
Maybe that means
you're not that talented.
You're not gonna take that risk.
[crowd jeering]
[Patrick] You prefer to give up,
and you can always say,
"I tanked, I didn't try."
And that's what they do.
I want to have an answer,
I need to have it.
My player is tanking, I need to know why.
It's the fear of losing the only thing
that counts for you, your talent.
Then I asked myself a second question.
"What is the best thing you can do
to make her stop tanking?"
Hmm.
I have an idea.
We sat down and I said, "Explain
to me what happened during the match."
[in French] Before the match,
I was prepared.
But I was already melting down,
I was a bit of a mess.
- Oui?
- Oui.
[in English] She started to tell me,
"Well, I was missing everything,
everything went wrong."
Denial.
I said, "Okay," and then I said to her,
"It's 100 percent my fault, I'm sorry."
And then she opened her eyes,
like, this big, and she said to me,
"It's crazy, I thought you would kill me,"
she said.
She couldn't believe
what she was hearing.
She was very sensitive, very emotional,
so I knew that the right way
was to be very human with her.
Show her love, respect,
and show her that I wanted to help her.
We were together,
and because we were a team,
the last thing I would do is blame her.
When I said this to her...
she thought,
"Wow, he wants me to do better.
He's 100 percent with me.
I can't disappoint this guy. I can't."
She never, ever tanked a match after that.
Never.
[applause]
[Patrick]
Early preparation, Serena, early. Good.
Great.
Everyone has limits,
and the limits of everyone
- are not technical, tactical, physical.
- Good.
They're mental.
Why this is important?
Because even the player
who is the most ambitious on the planet,
when the doubt comes,
it can affect the way she thinks.
And when you don't think like a champion,
don't act like a champion
and don't win like a champion.
So, it's very important...
Great job.
...to make sure the mind works right.
That's my job.
I don't remember the year,
maybe 2015, or something like that.
She plays Wimbledon
and lost the year before,
so she was struggling with her confidence.
She was not thinking like Serena.
I didn't have a lot of time.
Two weeks to make her win Wimbledon.
And, at that time,
she's terrible at the net.
She's nervous, start of the tournament,
comes to the net and misses everything.
[umpire] Out!
Her stats at the net are terrible.
It's a big deal,
because when you are someone like Serena
and you're so aggressive,
you create short balls.
And when the balls come...
[applause]
...you have to be willing
to move up to the ball to attack.
The problem is,
when you're scared to go to the net
you're missing everything,
instinctively when the short ball comes,
you're not moving to get the ball early
and it hurts all your game.
That was happening at that start
of Wimbledon.
And I think,
"Okay, I have to come up with something."
I come to her.
What I'm going to tell her
can be true or not true.
What does it change? Nothing.
I said, "I have good news for you.
Every time you play a match
and you create a short ball,
I'm super relaxed.
I know you're going to win 80% of points."
"Why do you say that?"
"It's stats, it's not me, it's stats.
When there is a short ball,
you're gonna move up,
end up at the net..."
She was not doing it.
"...end up at the net and win 80%
of the points, best news."
"Incredible,
I thought I sucked at the net."
I said, "Maybe you feel that way,
but the stats
explain exactly the opposite."
I hate to lie, but as a coach,
you have to say the right thing
to bring confidence.
I lied to Serena about her stats.
I knew that if she thought
her stats were good,
the day after, she would play better.
[cheering]
Was that true or not, what I said?
Does it matter? Doesn't matter.
What matters is, if what you tell
your player brings the right result,
that's what everybody wants.
What does the truth have to do
with that? This is not the point.
No, it's true!
So, this was a lie. But from that day,
she was winning 80% of points at net.
I had to remind her who she is.
Nothing could stop her,
and no one could stop her.
[crowd cheering]
And she won the tournament.
So, the lie became a reality.
[clicking]
[playing "Clair de Lune"]
When I was young, I loved tennis.
I was obsessed with tennis,
and obsessed with tennis players.
That's what I wanted to become
and I could not.
But if there was one lesson
I learned in life,
I think it would be...
everything depends on you.
I realized I wanted to be
a professional tennis player.
I won't be,
but I can do something big in tennis.
And this stayed in me.
Everything depends on you.
And knowing that became so useful
for my life in the future.
And that helped me become
the coach that I become.
[cheering]
[song continues]
[Patrick]
You can have an impact on anything,
and at the end of the day,
if you think about it,
you can change everything that is around
you in order to get what you want.
So, everything depends on you.
And if you think like that,
whatever you start to do in life...
it's magic.
[song ends]
[fast-paced orchestral music plays]