Former Italian tennis player Claudio Pistolesi had a pretty decent tennis career. However, he was mainly known for his tremendous coaching career, as he coached many underrated players in the past and helped them achieve new heights in their careers.
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Notably, Claudio Pistolesi was with the legendary American tennis star, Monica Seles, during the latter part of her career. Once known as the giant killer, Robin Soderling hired the Italian to be his coach as well and ascended to No.4 in the ATP rankings under his tutelage. Additionally, he coached another well-known Slovak player, Daniela Hantuchova, who became world no.17 under his guidance.
In terms of his tennis career, Claudio Pistolesi achieved 71, his highest ever singles ATP ranking, and took part in the Italian Davis Cup team as well. Apart from that, he also became the World ITF Junior champion. Alongside playing tennis, Pistolesi also did commentary once in his career.
The 55-year-old former tennis player has delivered coaching to other coaches, especially in India, Japan, and Ireland. Currently, he is working on a new Virtual Reality training project for tennis called Sense Arena, alongside 18-time Grand Slam champion Martina Navratilova.
To talk about his new project, Claudio Pistolesi had an exclusive interview with EssentiallySports’ Mahalakshmi Murali, where he also spoke about his partnership with Martina Navratilova, coaching Monica Seles and Robin Soderling, and the importance of mental health.
Hello Claudio! Thank you very much for your time today. So how have you been?
Oh, good. Hello to all of you. Pleasure to be here. Oh, it’s great. I’m in Florida now.
So yeah, once again, thank you very much for your time. So Mr. Claudio Pistolesi, am I saying it correctly?
Yes, you did.
Okay, so he’s the former tennis player on the ATP tour. He was ranked as high as number 71. During his time, and apart from his playing career, he has also coached renowned tennis players, which includes 9-time Grand Slam champion Monica Seles and, and other renowned players such as Robin Soderling, and Daniela Hantuchova. And presently, he’s part of the advisory board for Sense Arena, which is a VR training tool to improve mental and cognitive skills for tennis players and other athletes, who are aiming to perform at their peak. So Claudio once again, welcome to our show.
Thank you, pleasure to be here. And also I want to add to that, Director of JTCC, Florida, which is a company partner of Sense Arena, and very exciting to start this new project in tennis.
So what are the benefits of VR training, and how can Sense Arena for tennis help to improve a player’s game?
Benefits are huge because it goes in the direction where all coaches at a high level are looking in nowadays, which is to train the brain and the nerve system. In my time when I was a player was so much about the muscles and through the years, tennis developed so much like other sports, but probably tennis is more than others. And Sense Arena is a fantastic tool.
To help coaches but mainly players to go in this direction to help the aspect of the mental training you know mental training same way you have a physical training or technical training is as much important as deserve and is the need to give time and energy to develop and to grow and to learn and you can get to the most important thing, the body awareness through the nerve system. And Sense Arena is great tool for that; that’s incredible benefit.
Yeah, since you reinforce the importance of mental health and mental trainings in tennis. We also know that tennis legend 59-Time Grand Slam champion Martina Navratilova has been in collaboration with Sense Arena, and she mentioned the visualization. And Sense Arena, virtual reality training in tennis is a game changer. And the game of tennis involves a lot of physical activity in the present times, and the differentiation comes in the mental game. So how did you get the idea to have a partnership with Martina Navratilova into Sense Arena?
I was approached from Sense Arena leaders and told me about this project and was very natural very also very exciting to immediately understand that this is a continuation of my work for the last 15 or 20 years because you know the beauty of my job of coaching is that we get older aging, there’s nobody can change that. But we don’t want our job to get older, you know, because we want to be the first to see the developments. And I’m sure the Sense Arena is an upfront on that you know on the mental training. If you break down this meaning of mental training, you need to train a different mental abilities, like self confidence, like concentration, like stress management.
So there is so many of these mental ability that’s this means mental training and the tool of Sense Arena is going to the future is projected to the present and to the future. Because it’s giving you the technology behind that. You know, we’re studying for many years trying to find a way and there was really immediate match, immediate good fit with what I would offer myself but I’m sure it’ll form many of our coaches they work with a professional players and you know, it was a great fit to continuation with the incredible add and benefit of the modern technology about mental training.
So, following up with your answer you mentioned about self-confidence, concentration, and stress management. Present day, not just in sports in other fields of work, everybody is having difficulties in dealing with stress management. We have other traditional methods as well for that. So, do you think Sense Arena can replace the traditional methods?
I think, you still go and train on the court or do the what we used to do but there is an adding as Sense Arena add a great tool to develop and to also to explain to make it more clear to send a message. You know, in tennis there is a need of this revolutionary coaching. How do you look at coaching you know, what is important for coaching them how to deliver the message, how to teach, on the teaching tennis? You know, the tennis learning goes through the is visual, so, exactly what we’re talking about visual, brain, cycle, from the brain goes to the nerve system and finally muscular.
So, this is the process to feed all the time and we have tools you know, that we can invent we have to be always tried to be creative on that. It’s no more executing orders no more going by the book you know, is a cooperation with a player because players will be involved because it’s his body, it’s his arm, it’s his brain, it’s his or her nerve system. And we need to fit that and that’s the main coaching job. We are too much behind in many in many places of the world in many situation many organization on that.
So, I have the feeling that this is a revolution. This is really a step forward huge step forward to the future for teaching tennis for coaching tennis. You know, I think I’m a strong believer for many years. So just a few months ago I learned about Sense Arena and immediately you know the light came in the dark with this technology applied to this concept, you know is a new concept of watching at the coaching tennis involves you know. We spent millions of dollars to make the kids start earlier and earlier. But the fact was that they also quit much earlier and earlier. So we have to stay with the one they start to keep them, involve them and Sense Arena goes so much in this direction to keep and grow the passion for this beautiful sports and the world changes there is nothing to do.
You like it or not the world changes but we have to update and try to adapt the need that the especially the young generation they have and we on our generation 55 years old, we have to be ready to understand that and to be ready to do the right changes, the right updating, and the right adding. Looking at what we have today, today we has fantastic technology. Of course, this in my time was impossible. And we have to be very happy about that because it’s incredible good news to have Sense Arena in the world for also for the coaching world to teach tennis with new concepts. You know there are many that they are not working well. That’s we have to say the truth. So now we are improving we have an occasion we have an opportunity. That’s what I see Sense Arena, great opportunity for all tennis coaches in the world and players.
That’s wonderful to know and also like Navratilova mentioned, it’s definitely the game changer and it will revolutionize tennis in the coming future.
Yes, I didn’t know, but I’m not surprised, as probably Martina and I had the same feeling about that.
We also know that Sense Arena has collaboration with amazing athletes such as Jack Sock and Australian Open finalist, Jennifer Brady. How has the relationship has been and how do you see the partnership with these two players going forward in the future?
Well, I know that Jack and Jennifer tried it and they are very impressed and they’re very attracted from this new concept and a new tool for Sense Arena training. Talk about training and I’m sure in the future would be many top players training with Sense Arena, this is this for sure I can tell.
Since you mentioned about Sense Arena trainings, how do you divide the training session for players? And what are the experiments that are you going to include to judge a player’s mental resilience or mental skill before the training?
Well, there is the beauty of that is you have to go through a personalized program for each player, you know. The word that like is the delicious system because system gives me the idea that there is something the same for everybody but that’s actually the opposite there are as many systems as many programs for as many players we have, you know, so Sense Arena give you a number of drills that the player can select according what is his need or her need to improve where he or she needs field fields to need to improve? You know, so that’s why the drills are very important. And with technology you can do things you cannot do in real life. And so we have you know, we can see tangible difference being a game changer thanks to Sense Arena.
So from what I understand is every player will be having a personal team and Sense Arena has the equipment and they will be analyzing the cognition and the mental resilience of each player. So am I correct?
Yes, and I can add to that you can measure your results, you can measure your efficiency on the mental training through the drills how good you can make the drills you know this how much time you need to deliver some numbers and the measuring is something incredibly important and precious in tennis because you know it’s tough to measure the tennis level is only by you know discretion always watching but not anymore now because Sense Arena can measure things through the drills and this feed your self-confidence you know if you work well it’s not coming in one day but you know if you keep consistency on adding Sense Arena training in your daily, weekly, monthly, yearly work which is not going to substitute that all the rest that you do in the real training but it can also help you so much on the self-confidence because you can measure it.
If I’m an athlete of long jump, for example, I know what is my personal best and I have the numbers to measure my performance. In tennis. The typical language in tennis is I play well, I play bad, but it’s very general you know, we need to go for sharp and try to give more information about where I am is like the GPS you know; I have to know where I am. If I, if I know where I want to go, first thing to know is where I am. So I can measure I can see the results of different drills and then you can see the improvements and compare what you did from the past. And of course, this is great motivation also to be there and to feel the passion the internal push that you have for getting a better tennis player.
Sense Arena will be delivering a magnitude of mental resilience of an athlete so that’s wonderful to know like this parameter, we have never really heard of, you know, having a magnitude for the mental resilience of any given athlete. And over the past few months, we have had Grand Slam champions like Naomi Osaka, Bianca Andreescu, Sloane Stephens. They have been really vocal about their mental health issues. And how important is mental health training parameter in order to have a successful tennis career or a sporting career?
Yes, for all the stories you have to one by one, if you really want to know what’s happened to each one of the player, you mentioned the general situation for also for life, not only for tennis, but for sure. Tennis is at the center of their life. They are tennis champions and to having a tool that they can help them to know themselves better how they are in this moment. It can be a help to you know, to stay attached and to stay really in the good balance with the relationship with the tennis, in my opinion.
So right now, if I’m not wrong, you have Sense Arena for tennis and hockey. And in the future. Do you plan to expand it in other sports as well?
For now, we are very proud what Sense Arena doing in hockey is three years old hockey experience and is doing incredibly well and we just started, not even started with tennis actually. So we are focused on tennis and if I can project the future in three years where we are we are in the hockey now will be tennis in three years is unbelievable. Unbelievable with what we can do with that, so for now we’re focused on that and then we will see for other opportunities.
Why do you think that the scope in tennis is unbelievable?
Because you have to continuously improving you have updating you have the team of technologists is incredible, it’s really incredibly advanced. I’m learning things that I didn’t know, my age even being 45 players in the business, tennis. So I can feel that every week of every month, this goes better and better. So if you project three years of this, you know, keep this pace of the pace of improving that’s why I say it’s gonna be unbelievable in three years maybe isn’t going to be in two or four. But for sure there is a plus sign we always get better and better you know, this is incredibly exciting and contribution of all the team is fantastic team with incredible spirits. We have Martina Navratilova and the team is growing and the leaders are doing a great job of putting together this team. So that’s why I believe much and very excited to be part of it.
You mentioned about your constant hunger to learn new things and every day the changes that are happening in the world right now and you are not reluctant to adapt to something new. So, one personal question like- What motivated you to be involved in the Sense Arena project?
As I said, Sense Arena reader cannot read my mind you know, because it since 20 years I am looking for tools to improve the self-awareness, to have the concept of teaching tennis through the proprioception to visualization not only talking you know the message you send to this to the students is not only talk is not only from the years you know you can you can show visual you make them feel. So, nothing better the Sense Arena to feel you know to a proprioceptive and feed the process I was mentioning before you know this flow of feeding the nerve system you know the top athletes in the world Michael Jordan, Roger Federer, Tom Brady, etc.
They are born with incredible capacity to send this message from the brain to the muscle through the from the eye to the brain to the to the nerve system to the muscle through cords nerve cords, they’re behind here. I don’t know the name English; I apologize. There’s two wire they are bigger and so the message goes more clearer and faster. The good news is that we can train this flow. Sense Arena is a perfect tool to train this flow. Are we going to be everybody like Roger Federer or Michael Jordan? No, but for sure all of us can improve so much can get to the best we can do according to our possibilities at any level but you know this that’s incredibly interesting for the high-level players, juniors or professionals because you go in details you know, you go more details maybe you need the three inches far from your best you can find the tools to train and get this region missing which translate and the results can be huge difference in the results during the year.
What I understand from your answer is like the top athletes like Michael Jordan and Roger Federer, they have an exceptional central nervous system. Am I correct?
Yes, for sure. There’s something that they are born with that makes them I had the privilege to work with one of them and compare with Monica Seles. I was the practice partner, I was still young and honored to be in her team for more than one year and be in the box when she won the Australian Open ’96 and I was feeling you know, I was still young I was still very high ranked. I mean top 200 in the world. As a man, I was to try to guarantee a good level of practice for her; she was number one in the world. And I felt that these kind of champions they have something extra on this matter. You know, the coordination and the mental ability.
The coordination skills is different and nobody understand well, and how they’re different. Now we do and now we can practice. And again, they’re not going to be everybody like the legends. Martina Navratilova is another one of them. But it’s exciting for everyone to know that now nowadays there is a tool that you can practice, you can have access to this tool easily. And explore, challenge yourself to get your best because this is the real victory. This is when you say I made it, I get my best. What is your best depends to each player but once you say I know that I get my best. All the years that you spend improving and investing in the sport, you will be incredibly rewarding. I did my best and now we have accessible tool to get to this the best result possible in your tennis life. Do your best.
Since you mentioned about Monica Seles, we would like to dig deep in that topic. So your experience was definitely wonderful with her and you were honored to be her hitting partner and you had a seat for yourself in her box when she was winning the Australian Open in 1996. And prior to that, like three years prior to that, she underwent a really unfortunate incident, which was the stabbing. Till date, it intrigues me it gives everyone in the tennis world goosebumps when they talk about you know, Monica Seles being stabbed and despite you know, undergoing such a traumatic situation, she bounced back on the WTA tour she was winning she won a slam and which was really exceptional. So did she have to undergo a mental training before coming back to the tour after being in a such a catastrophic place?
Well, you know, this is something you should ask her and this is talking about in the 90s. So what I can tell you she is fantastic woman. She’s one of the best athletes ever. To be able to win a major after what’s happened to her, I think it’s one of the best achievement ever in every sport, not only in tennis, and there’s not enough highlighted I think in the world. In Milan, Italy, in a big tournament that time I think it was 1991. Guess against who? Against Martina Navratilova and they say one of the best match ever played from two women in the WTA. I was there and for sure this level they must be in another gear, another level of mental balance and motivation, and triggered the best level when it counts and important points. Remember, like rarely mistakes there only winners or Martina was coming in every point and Monica was trying to pass her, lob her and it was just a fantastic performance from both and I was there so I consider myself very lucky to have seen this match as a team of one of the two players. Now I’m very honored to be in the team of Martina for Sense Arena.
That’s wonderful to know you have collaborated with all legendary tennis players of the Open era. So moving on another great player, but not on the WTA Tour. This time on the ATP tour, you had a chance to work with- Robin Soderling. He’s really famous for what he did in 2009 at Roland Garros. In the fourth round, he did something which none of the tennis players on the ATP tour back then could do that and till date, there are just two tennis players who could pull off that victory against Rafa Nadal on the Parisian clay. He also underwent a very difficult situation with his health during the later years of his career. When he was diagnosed with mononucleosis, it was really sad and if I’m not wrong; you were working with him when he was at that stage. So how was that experience for you with him and how did he tackle everything?
Actually, no, I was working with him from end of 2010 until April 2011. So it was a couple of months where he did something great. He won 3 ATP titles in a row: Brisbane, Rotterdam, Marseille. In the middle was an Australian Open fourth round. Yeah, the record I think like one loss and 20 wins was fantastic. Then Robin were great friends nowadays still and he invite me I was really honored to invite him in the stage in front of all college tennis coaches in Naples, Florida telling a story.
I was next to him he introduced me telling about this period of time that you should listen to me because I was thinking that he was challenging and loading his body with too much work. And, that’s the reason why we quit and then he keep playing for another couple of months. And only then he find out about his mono (mononucleosis) that interrupt his career at 27 years old, which is incredibly sad. But the human part is great. We are great friends and he understand later why I was trying to manage better the amount of loading the part of physical that doesn’t have to be a stream, you know; I don’t like this stream. I like to have a pause between our every aspects. And I was working with him in Rotterdam. Remember, it’s a big tournament he won the best compliment ever had he told me ‘yes, I was focused on some drills’ that I gave him some Uch called in psychology. During the match in the final, that allowed me to win.
So this best compliment I ever had. So we understand the importance of mental, as I said this many years and trying to know as a mentor Castillanies is the one who brought mental training in tennis in the 80s and 90s from Italy. He was my coach, so I’m really into it so much in this part. I will say mental/ emotional parts, because the emotions are involved, you know, so you can work on your, your emotions. And so I’m allowed to say this because Robin publicly said that many times and is playing that if we have time machine and go back he would do it differently. But you know, this doesn’t change that he’s fantastic champion is remembered because he beat Nadal in French Open. But he went to the final beaten by Federer, but he went to the final the next year as well. So it needed many others winning one. He won this Rotterdam back to back one year one after the year 2010,2011. I was with him in 2011. So it’s just a fantastic champion and this fantastic person. That’s what I want to say about Robin and his incredible intelligence, so interesting to talk to him. He’s incredibly honest and transparent. And I’m very proud to be his friend.
Since you mentioned about your friendship with Robin Soderling and both of you are really good friends till date. Do we expect him his presence, his guidance, and his knowledge of tennis to be applied in the sense that in a project?
Well, I don’t know; it didn’t start yet. But for sure, I think at some point Sense Arena will be very well known in the world you know and he’s now involved with his companies in tennis industry. And I’m sure if some point is going to take a look, he will be taking a serious look and we like it and I hope so. I think there is good chance that at some point you will know about that but I cannot predict the future but you know I think it makes sense that not only Robin I think it’s gonna be big you know and now we’re at the beginning but I was going to be really really visual reality in other fields like your military in medicine is taking place and is utilizing a lot in many activities of the humanities. So tennis is not an exception as sensory nice, they’re in front to deliver this update, this step forward to the future.
All right, so talking about the mental aspect and mental resilience of big three who are Roger Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, and also Serena. So what separates them from rest of the tour when it comes to mental trainings or mental resilience which they wear it on court?
Well, the mental is very wide range topic you know. So, when we go to the mental in tennis and, as I explained before, to train the brain to have better decision making to have better anticipation, better concentration, then you have to put these into the rest. As I said, it is tailor-made the each player has his own stories and family all situation, emotional situations. And it’s up to them to get the best from Sense Arena when you go back on court, when your relation directly player with the sport of tennis. So this is what is focused Sense Arena. And the good side effects of that can be that, you know, you can have another tool in your life, to put the tennis in the right place and to give the right importance and to have the feeling that you’re doing your best. And to measure what you’re doing, as I mentioned before, so that’s that’s the way I look at it.
So I’ll just wrap up with my one final question. So where can someone or a tennis player, when will it be available? Like the Sense Arena, when will it be available for tennis players? And where can they purchase the tool? Or where can they avail the service?
Well, now we are about to go to US Open to have the launch to have the demo there. And after that, we’ll be public and through the social and through the promotion work we’re doing that everybody will know, after US Open, how to go to next step and to be able to access to Sense Arena, the ones are interested.
So talking about the US Open, has the demo already taken place, or will it take place in the coming days?
Will take place in the next weekend. And in the Hotel in Manhattan, in the Lexington hotel, and if you go to the website, tennis.sensearena.com, you can see everything and you can come to visit and you can ask questions. You know, you can start the process to approach as a tennis player to have this new reality, even virtual reality. But I like the second word ‘reality’ is the reality of tennis, even though visual is a new reality of tennis, which I love. And I invite everybody to take a very serious look at that.
So you will be flying to Manhattan this weekend.
Yes, I’ll be there.
Are you following the US Open? Are you enjoying it presently?
Yeah, absolutely. I’m looking at very close to it as Italian. I know the coach of Matteo Berrettini is there, and we grew up together. And so Matteo is a great champion. And we have the other champions (Jannik) Sinner that still in place and they have a chance to go probably to the second week and who knows where
Talking about Berrettini, I remember watching his match in 2019 US Open like it was a wonderful match against Gael Monfils if I’m not wrong, the quarterfinal match, which they played under a roof and I was really sad at the semi-finals he lost to Rafa Nadal.
Yeah, but he had the chance. Talking about mental, Matteo is amazing strongly. Maybe his strength is to be mentally strong. Not only his big serve big forehand, but how tough he is mentally when it counts.
I think he’s coming back from injuries right now. So hope he does well this US Open.
Yeah, and talking about Sense Arena, this is another of many benefits. You know, when you’re injured or coming back from injury, you can play tennis without stress your body, but train the brain, the same way. Thank you for giving me the hint that you know, this is another many very important benefit to work with your attention without in your tennis to be able to play tennis and train the brain the same way you do in but without loading the body the same way.
Absolutely. So you’re rooting for Berrettini on the men’s game?
Yes. yes. It’s Rome Like me.
Who will you pick on the women’s side for this year’s championships?
It’s very wide open to answer to this question. Really don’t know I don’t want to say. Well, I admire so much I like so much Bianca Andreescu, Jabeur, and I used to like very much Jennifer Brady. Now I can’t wait, she’s back. Honestly, she come from college; you know she made great speech about college tennis.
And Ashleigh Barty is a pity, she stopped playing, this is really pity. She was incredible, good example, and great player.
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If she would have won the US Open, she would have completed her career slam.
Yeah, but there are many. She was just 25 years old, and she could do anything. But it’s interesting to have, of course, Swiatek as the favorite because she won so much but you know, others, they have the shot to maybe go all the way.
Thank you so much Claudio for your time. It was a pleasure talking to you and learning about how important is mental training and mental ability to perform in a sport. So thank you very much for sharing all your knowledge and I hope for tennis players Sense Arena becomes an household equipment very soon.
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Thank you. Thank you for having me. It was a great pleasure for me to be with you today.
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