First conversation between Gil and Andre
When Andre Aggasi first meets Gil Reyes (his fitness trainer and mentor for over ten years) there is something that Gil says that makes lots of sense to Andre. The conversation was about his fitness training-
Gil: How much do you run each day?
Andre: Five miles.
Gil: Why
Andre: I don’t know
Gil: Have you ever run five miles in a match?
Andre: No
Gil: How often in a match do you run more than five steps in one direction before stopping?
Andre: Not very.
Gil: I don’t know anything about tennis, but it seems to me that, by the third step, you’d better be thinking about stopping. Otherwise your’e going to hit the ball and keep running, which means you’ll be out of position for your next shot. The trick is to throttle down, then hit, then slam on the brakes, then hustle back. The way I see it, your sport isn’t about running, its about starting and stopping. you need to focus on building the muscles necessary for starting and stopping!
Andre laughs and tells Gil that “that might be the smartest thing I’ve ever heard anyone say about tennis”