Biofile: Victor Estrella Burgos Interview

It is a rough sport, Scoop, especially for parents. I teach two yoga classes on Friday then come home take 30 minute nap and take Cal up to first match in a 10 and under tournament in Brewster, NY, which is a bit of truck from White Plains. Alright, I’m sleep-deprived because I also had to sit through two-hour meeting with my lawyer about a new lease we’re supposed to sign for yoga studio. Being a lawyer and just being around them is a tough game, too.

So Cal goes up there and plays first round match at 7 pm and beats his opponent 4-0, 4-0, kind of crushes the kid, who’s two years older and looked great in warmups, but then disintegrated into a slew of unforced errors once the match began.

I teach two more classes on Saturday, 45 students in my first class, 42 in my second. What ever happened to the days when I was a tennis pro and just taught a private or a group lesson of 4? Come home take a 30-minute nap and take Cal up to play 2nd Round match. He’s playing a Japanese kid, No. 98 in rankings, Cal’s No. 110, but should be higher because he got to the quarters of a 12-under tournament two weeks ago, but since they use different balls, the points don’t drop down to the 10’s.

This Japanese boy must weigh like 70 pounds, but he gets everything back and beautiful form on his strokes. He can even hit a one-handed backhand slice drop shot! But Cal loves players who don’t go for too many winners and he grinds him down 4-1, 5-3. But the match had about 3 calls where the other kid came on Cal’s side and Cal came on his side once to dispute a call.

Ok, Cal’s played a hoops game earlier in the day and then one tough match, and now we have to sit around for 2 hours before his next match in the quarters. This club, Hardscrabble, has 4 tournament going on at the same time. There are kids, parents, pros, tennis bags littered throughout the joint. Cal’s match starts about an hour late because there aren’t enough courts to house all 4 events at the same time.

Anyhow, Cal’s playing this 10-year-old, Cal doesn’t turn 9 until May, who’s got a really evolved game. He’s a lefty out of NYC where he trains at the Johnny Mac Academy in Randall’s Island. Chris Mayotte, Cal’s coach, who’s a real great guy, comes to see all of Cal’s tournament matches, says the kid reminds him of Fernando Verdasco. I say he reminds me of Johnny Mac, himself, all touch, great feel, very nonchalant manner on court, or the Johnny Mac lower imposter, who I always loved, Gianlucca Pozzi.

Anyhow, Cal loses first game at love, but slowly he starts to hit his signature cross-court forehand angle shot to this kid’s backhand and the kid is having trouble running it down even though he’s like 5-1 inches tall. Cal wins first set 4-2, and then they play like an 8-deuce game at 0-1 in the second set that Cal wins, but I can tell he’s like a punch drunk fighter, his legs have gone out from under him.

The little Johnny Mac proceeds to drop Callum and then lob him, drop him and lob and the kid has supreme touch, something you don’t see in kids this age at all. Cal fights, but loses next two sets 4-2, 4-2. Weird thing happened after second set, Cal’s opponent tells Cal that the tournament director told him they should play a breaker for the third set. This is not the rules. So they play the breaker and the kid wins, but when they come off the court to record the scores, I say to the director, “Hey, you’re supposed to play a regular third set.”

Cal’s opponent’s father goes ballistic saying that his son was told to play a breaker in lieu of the third set and since it’s already 9 pm. the breaker score should stand. But the director says they have to go out and play the third set. Mayotte says to me Cal should just give the kid a 1-0 or 2-0 lead in the third set since he won the breaker, but the director says they have to play the set in its entirety. I’m like, “Look, let’s listen to the director.” Mayotte thinks Cal should just default the third set because he’s clearly spent. Cal is noncommittal, but I say, “Look, this is not a good precedent, in Cal’s 5th tournament to start retiring in the middle of matches.”

So a little controversy and it looks like Cal at 8 will be ranked now in Top 50 in the 10’s. What I love is afterward, Cal was really pissed off like he always is after losing a tournament match. I try to console him, but with his red face, he smacks my hand off his shoulder. I tell him I’m proud of the way he fought and there are concrete things in his game we can work on to make him stronger.

But about 30 minutes later he says to me over a cheeseburger, “When’s my next tournament? I’m going to beat that guy.” So today, the next morning, we’re going to a lesson now with Mayotte to work on the short backhand and what to do with it. Change bottom hand to Continental grip and rip it down the line; use top hand more to flick sharp angle cross-court, or drop backhand shot.

But these long contested junior matches are taking its toll on me.

Enjoyable read. I like to see what’s up with some of these less known guys. A lot of people may think it’s silly to fall on the court after winning a Challenger but this shows how important it is to the grinders.

Great win for Estrella Burgos beating FLo. How about Monfils losing to Gasquet in Montpellier and then Jerzyboy, who’s been playing well in ’15, having to retire against Gasquet in the finals.

What is with it with Monfils. I’m trying to do a feature on him for either the New York Times or Tennis Australia when I go to Indian Wells, but here he is losing to Gasquet who he has owned in recent past. I just don’t know if the guy just can’t sustain a strong string of play to put him into a slam business weekend. King of disappointed in La Monf.

You’re right Lorely. I have fallen into the laziness of letting him eat just the things I know he will eat just so he’ll eat something so cheeseburger and fries always works. But he’s half Chinese so he eats foods other kids his age usually don’t like tofu. Last night we had salmon. But his favorite foods are white rice w soy sauce, chicken w noodles and ramen along w burgers and chicken nuggets. I try to get him to eat vegetables and fruit but it’s usually a losing battle and I notice his stamina is not great.

In one of his latest interviews Monfils told that he has some personal problems. He said his head is somewhere else.

What to do about Gulbis? When the guy has a no pace forehand hit to him, he almost always slugs it long or wide. He actually returns pretty well on forehand side, but on slow balls he over hits.

I’m going to be with Spadea in Indian Wells I think, so I’m going to engineer a Spadea-Gulbis coaching matchup. I mean can you think of a better guy to coach Gulbis. Clearly, he’s sharing a coach with Thiem now and in the coach’s eyes, Gulbis must be second fiddle after Thiem has beaten him twice in a row and he’s the much younger player.

“Monfils had a cold. Lots of players are sick these days. JJ was sick too, that’s why he had to retire.”

Jerzy claimed the flu. I knew Monfils was sick and thought maybe he spread it to Jerzy in the locker room. Often guys say they have a flu when it’s actually a bad cold, which can feel worse to one guy vs the next.

In any case it’s a shame. I woke at 6:30am PST to see Jerzy win his first ATP title, only to have him bail after three games without winning a single point.

Serve & Volley doesn’t work well these days for anyone, unless it’s a very fast surface.

Gulbis forehand might be strange, but it helped him to beat a lot of decent players & to get into top-10. He played much better in Rotterdam last year, when he reached the semis. So it can’t be only his forehand. The losing streak is going to his head. Who actually can blame him?

Monfils seems a kind of myth to me. I was surprised to learn that he has only 5 titles. One less than Gulbis, who is two years younger & has also two doubles titles. In contrast to Gulbis he didn’t reach a semis in a Slam yet.
Is he just a too flamboyant guy that ppl don’t see his flaws? He had/has to deal with injuries often, but that doesn’t hinder him to play exhibitions, like the IPTL last season.

I checked the stats on Wikipedia. They had it wrong then. 2008 is pretty long ago.

Still I think that Monfils is kind of a myth. Two years ago when he didn’t have the ranking to be in any main draw, he didn’t play qualifying, he just played tournaments who gave him a wildcard. He even wasted one from Munich. Still he appeared super relaxed. The next wildcard was waiting for him. He can always rely on that.

Monfils has more the game to succeed than Gulbis. He is a better defensive player. Actually he became much of a pusher who forgets to attack too often now.