Nick Bollettieri
Encyclopedia
Nicholas James Bollettieri (born July 31, 1931 in Pelham, New York
) is an American tennis
coach
who is credited with developing many world-class champion
s, including Andre Agassi
, Jim Courier
, Monica Seles
, and Mary Pierce
. Recently, he has worked with 2006 U.S. Open
champion Maria Sharapova
, Jelena Janković
, Nicole Vaidišová
and Sabine Lisicki
. He has also worked with Tommy Haas
, Max Mirnyi
, Xavier Malisse
, Venus Williams
, Serena Williams
, Martina Hingis
, Anna Kournikova
, and Marcelo Ríos
. He also coached Boris Becker
for two years.
(Mobile, Alabama
) with a degree in philosophy. After serving with the United States Army
, attaining the rank of First Lieutenant, he turned in 1956 to teaching tennis after dropping out of the University of Miami
Law School. Bollettieri's first students included Sheryl Smith and Brian Gottfried
. His first formal tennis camp was at Wayland Academy
in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin
.
in the early-mid 1970s when it was a Rockefeller resort. His main assistant coach there was Julio Moros, who followed Nick when he set up his academy in Bradenton.
Moving to Longboat Key, Florida
in 1977, Bollettieri served as an instructor for the Colony Beach and Tennis Resort. In 1978, Bollettieri opened the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy
near Bradenton, Florida
on 40 acres (162,000 m²) in unincorporated Manatee County
on the west coast of Florida
, about fifty miles south of Tampa
. It was the first major tennis boarding school and it changed the way tennis was taught at the elite junior level. Seeing a template for other sports, International Management Group (IMG) bought the academy from Bollettieri in 1987, but Bollettieri continues to manage and play a pivotal role in the development of the tennis academy and ancillary programs.
with an Honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters for his contribution to the world of sports, fitness, and wellness. Nick also was commencement speaker at the college's commencement ceremony.
Bollettieri continues with teaching and public speaking engagements throughout the world. He is instruction editor of Tennis Magazine and has written an autobiography, My Aces, My Faults, with Dick Schaap
. New York
: HarperCollins
(1996). Hardcover: ISBN 0-380-97306-5, ISBN 978-0-380-97306-4. New York: Avon Books
(1997). Paperback: ISBN 0-380-78723-7, ISBN 978-0-38078-723-4.
Pelham (town), New York
Pelham is a town in Westchester County, New York, United States. As of the 2010 census, it had a population of 12,396. Historically, Pelham was composed of five villages and became known as "the Pelhams"...
) is an American tennis
Tennis
Tennis is a sport usually played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a racket that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all...
coach
Coach (sport)
In sports, a coach is an individual involved in the direction, instruction and training of the operations of a sports team or of individual sportspeople.-Staff:...
who is credited with developing many world-class champion
Champion
A champion is the victor in a challenge, contest or competition.There can be a territorial pyramid of championships, e.g. local, regional / provincial, state, national, continental and world championships, and even further divisions at one or more of these levels, as in soccer. Their champions...
s, including Andre Agassi
Andre Agassi
Andre Kirk Agassi is a retired American professional tennis player and former world no. 1. Generally considered by critics and fellow players to be one of the greatest tennis players of all time, Agassi has been called the best service returner in the history of the game...
, Jim Courier
Jim Courier
James Spencer "Jim" Courier, Jr. is a former world no. 1 professional tennis player from the United States. During his career, he won four Grand Slam singles titles, two at the French Open and two at the Australian Open...
, Monica Seles
Monica Seles
Monica Seles is a former world no. 1 professional tennis player and a member of the International Tennis Hall of Fame. She was born in Novi Sad, Serbia, former Yugoslavia to Hungarian parents. She became a naturalized United States citizen in 1994 and also received Hungarian citizenship in June 2007...
, and Mary Pierce
Mary Pierce
Mary Pierce is a French-American tennis professional playing on the Women's Tennis Association tour. She is a citizen of France, Canada, and the United States but plays for France in team competitions and the Olympics.Pierce has won four Grand Slam titles, two in singles and two in doubles...
. Recently, he has worked with 2006 U.S. Open
U.S. Open (tennis)
The US Open, formally the United States Open Tennis Championships, is a hardcourt tennis tournament which is the modern iteration of one of the oldest tennis championships in the world, the U.S. National Championship, which for men's singles was first contested in 1881...
champion Maria Sharapova
Maria Sharapova
Maria Yuryevna Sharapova ,. is a Russian professional tennis player and a former world no. 1. A US resident since 1994, Sharapova has won 24 WTA singles titles, including three Grand Slam singles titles at the 2004 Wimbledon, 2006 US Open and 2008 Australian Open...
, Jelena Janković
Jelena Janković
Jelena Janković is a former world no. 1 professional tennis player from Serbia. She reached the final of the 2008 US Open and won the 2007 Wimbledon Mixed Doubles title. Janković is ranked world no...
, Nicole Vaidišová
Nicole Vaidišová
Nicole Vaidišová is a retired Czech tennis player.Vaidišová was an Australian Open and French Open semifinalist and also reached the quarterfinals at Wimbledon. Vaidišová started playing tennis when she was six years old, enrolling to train at Nick Bollettieri's tennis academy in Bradenton,...
and Sabine Lisicki
Sabine Lisicki
Sabine Lisicki is a German professional tennis player of Polish background.Lisicki has won three WTA singles tournaments in her career and one doubles tournament . She reached the semifinals of the 2011 Wimbledon Championships and also reached the quarterfinals of the 2009 Wimbledon Championships...
. He has also worked with Tommy Haas
Tommy Haas
Tommy Haas is a German and recently naturalized American professional tennis player. He has competed on the ATP Tour since 1996. After breaking into the world top 100 in 1997, and reaching a career-high ranking of world no...
, Max Mirnyi
Max Mirnyi
Max Mirnyi is a professional tennis player from Belarus.Today Mirnyi is a doubles specialist, but he also enjoyed a good singles career, finishing in the top 50 in the world for seven straight years, as well as representing Belarus in Davis Cup competition since April 1994, where he holds a...
, Xavier Malisse
Xavier Malisse
Xavier Malisse is a Belgian tennis player. Born in Kortrijk, Belgium, he is the only men's player from his country to have been ranked in the top 20 of the ATP tour. He is sponsored by Prince and Lotto. His nickname is "The X-Man"....
, Venus Williams
Venus Williams
Venus Ebony Starr Williams is an American professional tennis player who is a former World No. 1 and is ranked World No. 101 as of 10 October 2011 in singles and World No. 20 in doubles as of 2011. She has been ranked World No. 1 in singles by the Women's Tennis Association on three separate...
, Serena Williams
Serena Williams
Serena Jameka Williams is an American professional tennis player and a former world no. 1. The Women's Tennis Association has ranked her world no. 1 in singles on five separate occasions. She became the world no. 1 for the first time on July 8, 2002 and regained this ranking for the fifth time on...
, Martina Hingis
Martina Hingis
Martina Hingis is a retired Swiss professional tennis player who spent a total of 209 weeks as World No. 1. She won five Grand Slam singles titles...
, Anna Kournikova
Anna Kournikova
Anna Sergeyevna Kournikova is a Russian retired professional tennis player. Her beauty and celebrity status made her one of the best known tennis stars worldwide, despite the fact that she never won a WTA singles title. At the peak of her fame, fans looking for images of Kournikova made her name...
, and Marcelo Ríos
Marcelo Ríos
Marcelo Andrés Ríos Mayorga is a former World No. 1 tennis player from Chile. Nicknamed El Chino and El zurdo de Vitacura , he became the first Latin American player to reach the top position on the Association of Tennis Professionals singles rankings in 1998. He held the World No...
. He also coached Boris Becker
Boris Becker
Boris Franz Becker is a former World No. 1 professional tennis player from Germany. He is a six-time Grand Slam singles champion, an Olympic gold medalist, and the youngest-ever winner of the men's singles title at Wimbledon at the age of 17...
for two years.
Education
Nick Bollettieri attended Pelham Memorial High School in his home town and was a charter member of the Beta Lambda Chapter of the Omega Gamma Delta Fraternity, graduating in 1949. He graduated in 1953 from Spring Hill CollegeSpring Hill College
Spring Hill College is a private, Roman Catholic Jesuit liberal arts college in the United States. It was founded in 1830 on the Gulf Coast in Mobile, Alabama, by Most Rev. Michael Portier, Bishop of Mobile, Alabama...
(Mobile, Alabama
Mobile, Alabama
Mobile is the third most populous city in the Southern US state of Alabama and is the county seat of Mobile County. It is located on the Mobile River and the central Gulf Coast of the United States. The population within the city limits was 195,111 during the 2010 census. It is the largest...
) with a degree in philosophy. After serving with the United States Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
, attaining the rank of First Lieutenant, he turned in 1956 to teaching tennis after dropping out of the University of Miami
University of Miami
The University of Miami is a private, non-sectarian university founded in 1925 with its main campus in Coral Gables, Florida, a medical campus in Miami city proper at Civic Center, and an oceanographic research facility on Virginia Key., the university currently enrolls 15,629 students in 12...
Law School. Bollettieri's first students included Sheryl Smith and Brian Gottfried
Brian Gottfried
Brian Edward Gottfried is a retired tennis player from the United States who won 25 singles titles and 54 doubles titles during his professional career. The right-hander reached his highest ranking on the Association of Tennis Professionals tour on June 19, 1977, when he became World No....
. His first formal tennis camp was at Wayland Academy
Wayland Academy
Wayland Academy is a private, coeducational college preparatory boarding high school located in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, USA. The student population at the beginning of the 2011-2012 school year was 220...
in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin
Beaver Dam, Wisconsin
Beaver Dam is a city in Dodge County, Wisconsin, United States, along Beaver Dam Lake and the Beaver Dam River. The population was 16,243 at the 2010 census, making it the second largest city in Dodge County, and the largest city fully located within the county. It is the principal city of the...
.
Career Path
Bollettieri was the tennis director at Dorado Beach Hotel in Puerto RicoPuerto Rico
Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...
in the early-mid 1970s when it was a Rockefeller resort. His main assistant coach there was Julio Moros, who followed Nick when he set up his academy in Bradenton.
Moving to Longboat Key, Florida
Longboat Key, Florida
Longboat Key is a town in Manatee and Sarasota counties along the central west coast of the U.S. state of Florida, located on the barrier island of the same name. Longboat Key is south of Anna Maria Island, between Sarasota Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. It is almost equally divided between Manatee...
in 1977, Bollettieri served as an instructor for the Colony Beach and Tennis Resort. In 1978, Bollettieri opened the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy
Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy
The Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy is located in Bradenton, Florida, and was founded in 1978 by Nick Bollettieri as a full-time tennis boarding school that combines intensive tennis training with an academic curriculum....
near Bradenton, Florida
Bradenton, Florida
Bradenton is a city in Manatee County, Florida, United States. The U.S. Census Bureau estimated the city's 2007 population to be 53,471. Bradenton is the largest Principal City of the Bradenton-Sarasota-Venice, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area, which had a 2007 estimated population of 682,833...
on 40 acres (162,000 m²) in unincorporated Manatee County
Manatee County, Florida
Manatee County is a county in the state of Florida. According to the 2010 census by the U.S. Census Bureau there are 322,833 people living in Manatee Country.Manatee County is part of the North Port-Bradenton-Sarasota Metropolitan Statistical Area...
on the west coast of Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
, about fifty miles south of Tampa
Tampa, Florida
Tampa is a city in the U.S. state of Florida. It serves as the county seat for Hillsborough County. Tampa is located on the west coast of Florida. The population of Tampa in 2010 was 335,709....
. It was the first major tennis boarding school and it changed the way tennis was taught at the elite junior level. Seeing a template for other sports, International Management Group (IMG) bought the academy from Bollettieri in 1987, but Bollettieri continues to manage and play a pivotal role in the development of the tennis academy and ancillary programs.
Successful Students
The earliest Bollettieri pupils to reach number one were Monica Seles, Jim Courier and Andre Agassi. Later, Marcelo Ríos climbed to the top while associated with Bollettieri. The Williams have a long-standing relationship with Bollettieri, having visited Bradenton for years and often prepare for Grand Slams there. More recently, Sharapova (who arrived from Siberia at the age of 9) and Janković (who came to the academy as a 12-year-old, direct from Belgrade, Serbia) became No. 1.Honors
On May 18, 2008, Nick Bollettieri was honored at the New York College of Health ProfessionsNew York College of Health Professions
New York College of Health Professions, chartered by the , is one of the leading colleges of Holistic medicine in the US. The College offers undergraduate and graduate degree programs in Massage Therapy, Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine, and a Continuing Education Certificate program in Holistic...
with an Honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters for his contribution to the world of sports, fitness, and wellness. Nick also was commencement speaker at the college's commencement ceremony.
Bollettieri continues with teaching and public speaking engagements throughout the world. He is instruction editor of Tennis Magazine and has written an autobiography, My Aces, My Faults, with Dick Schaap
Dick Schaap
Richard Jay Schaap was an American sportswriter, broadcaster, and author.-Early life and education:...
. New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
: HarperCollins
HarperCollins
HarperCollins is a publishing company owned by News Corporation. It is the combination of the publishers William Collins, Sons and Co Ltd, a British company, and Harper & Row, an American company, itself the result of an earlier merger of Harper & Brothers and Row, Peterson & Company. The worldwide...
(1996). Hardcover: ISBN 0-380-97306-5, ISBN 978-0-380-97306-4. New York: Avon Books
Avon (publishers)
Avon Publications was an American paperback book and comic book publisher. As of 2010, it is an imprint of HarperCollins, publishing primarily romance novels.-History:...
(1997). Paperback: ISBN 0-380-78723-7, ISBN 978-0-38078-723-4.