Steve Denton - Head Men's Tennis Coach, Texas A&M University

A true legend of our sport. Steve won Grand Slams as a player and has been the Head Coach for the Aggies since 06'. Two of his former players, who are first cousins, also just reached the final of the Shanghai Masters 1000. Tune in and listen to the raw emotions of what that must have felt like and how he incorporates pro tennis into his program in College Station.

Episode Transcript

(00:02):
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome toepisode #17 of the James McKay
UTR Podcast. I bring to you today, honestly
an absolute legend of the game, a legend of the game of tennis
that has done pretty much everything as a player and

(00:22):
pretty much everything as a coach.
Steve Denton at Texas A&M, thankyou for your time and and
welcome on. Thanks James.
I appreciate you having me on. So for those that don't know,
Steve is currently the head coach at Texas A&M.
He's been there since 2006. They have had monumental

(00:43):
success. Steve, as briefly as you can,
just tell us a little bit about,you know, your, your love for
Texas A&M, your, your role as a head coach and, and your
experience and what you're doing.
Yeah, I, as you said, I got herein 2006 and I've always been a

(01:05):
Texas guy. I grew up in Texas and, and got
the opportunity to become the head coach here and almost kind
of right off the bat, pretty quickly, Bob McKinley and Kevin
O'Shea were here with me, got them to come on board who are
great guys to really start the program with.

(01:27):
And we were able to kind of turnAustin Krycheck around in the
recruiting process pretty quickly, which really cemented
our our future. And, you know, it's kind of been
a great run since that time of just kind of been a love affair
with tennis and, and love working with these guys and help

(01:51):
them try to get better. And my, my approach is probably
a little different than some andthat because of my pro
background, I, I really am pretty patient and, you know,
try to help develop these guys to, to get to go play on the
tour. And that's, you know, obviously
takes a lot more work and attention to detail just because

(02:14):
you know, the nuances of the of the pro game today obviously is
so is, is such a high level. I, I often joke about it.
If, if I knew that I I was goingto have to play against Alcaraz
and Center, who are who in my opinion are both freaks of
nature, and that because at a young age they were so good, I'd

(02:35):
have starved. Oh, it's great.
Steve Denton won the US Open in double S He made the semis of
Wimbledon, quarters of French and the final of the Australian
Open. He also in singles made the

(02:58):
final of the Australian Open twice and got to the fourth
round of Wimbledon and the US Open.
There's a lot of great coaches out there, but there are not
many coaches with that background.
So like you kind of just said there, Steve, how do you you
know the game is also changed? How are you using your

(03:18):
experience as a player to recruit?
How are you using your experience as a player to to now
coach this this time in the in wherever we are in the in the
year? It's, it's totally different.
As you say, you've had to have flexibility and adaptability to
be able to have some longevity at this.

(03:41):
But I think it, it really boils down to, you know, stability, if
you can kind of and also with young players, getting them to
really buy in and believe in in what you're in, what you're
teaching them and, and then it'sgoing to be successful.
And if you can get that and you can get guys that are passionate

(04:01):
about the game and want to work hard, you know, obviously you
can reach high levels. I mean, case in point, obviously
this last week, just a dream come true for our program and
for a couple of my guys that have gone on to play the tour.
To think that they were going toplay each other and the in the

(04:24):
finals of a 1000 series tournament is kind of almost
beyond belief. But in fact, you know, that's
what's great about sports. You just don't know.
If you work hard and you and you're in the right place at the
right time and you take advantage of your opportunities
and you're ready, you know, if you're ready to take advantage,

(04:46):
then things like that can happen.
Let's talk about that. You have two former players,
you're probably at home and. Two or three in the morning, by
the way, I feel like I was in Europe.
Yeah, I was in. Europe got Valentin Vassaro and
Arthur Rinderno Renderneck sorrythat are playing in the Shanghai

(05:10):
Masters and they just keep winning and they win again and
they win again and before you know it they win again.
What I mean that that honestly had to be emotional for you as a
as a former coach to recruit those guys to Texas A&M, watch
them grow and then to see them do that.
Yeah, it I had a lump in my throat for about a week because

(05:33):
it just, you know, I had really thought probably around the
quarterfinals and that's a really good run, you know, good
tournament guys, well done. You know, really kind of set you
up a little bit more for the future.
And then both of them had good quarter final wins there that

(05:54):
were against really high level players.
I believe Rune was the player that Vassaro beat and and Arthur
beat. I know he'd beaten Zverev the
round before, but I think he beat FAA, who has not, who
Arthur had lost to a couple times before.
You can just tell he's playing on a really different level and

(06:16):
they get through that match and then again, I think before the
semi finals. Well, great tournament guys.
You guys have done unbelievable.You're getting ready to play
Novak Djokovic, Val who, you know, I kind of told him
beforehand, I said, look, you kind of have to look at your
shoes. You got to you got to not
idolize the guy. You got to play the ball.

(06:38):
You got to do all these things, you know, to kind of not think
about who you're playing againstand, and make it real physical
and who knows? I mean, it's hot there and it's
humid and, you know, he's 38 years old and you're coming and,
you know, but you just got to have an idea that you can
possibly win that match and, andyou know, incredibly, you know,

(07:01):
and part of it a little bit of luck.
You know, they, they play prettyclose early on.
In fact, he he loses his serve right away because of course
he's nervous and then he breaks right back.
And then they get through kind of middle of the first set And
Novak, you know, kind of has hadsome physical things going on.
It's that tournament already. And that kind of began to rear

(07:23):
its ugly head. And again, I said to Val,
obviously didn't talk to him during that.
But beforehand I said, you got to look at your shoes.
You got to look at your strings.You can't look over there.
You can't focus on any of that. And for me, he won that match
mentally, not necessarily physically with the shots.

(07:44):
And so that was great to see. And then and then to think that
Arthur, after beating Sparrow for the second time, you know,
he beat him at first round of Wimbledon when he laid down on
the grass court port at Wimbledon after he beat him the
first time, that you're going tobeat that guy again on a hard
court. And you know good and well, the

(08:05):
second time a guy like that plays you, you know, they're
going to be ready. They're not going to take you
lightly at all and you're going to get their best effort.
And for him to kind of basicallybeat Medvedev, sorry, Zverev 3
and two in the last two sets andthen in the semi finals have to

(08:25):
play, play Medvedev, who has hadhis struggles this year, not
playing as confident as he did acouple years ago when he was #1
in the world. But he's a nasty player and he's
a tough out. And Arthur had a huge battle
with him and ended up beating him in the third set.

(08:48):
I mean, I was, I couldn't believe it.
I couldn't sleep because I knew what was coming, that they were
actually going to play each other in the finals.
You know, your old, your old coach Chris Woodruff, I believe,
had a pretty good runway back. He'd maybe been 500 or something
to the world and then did reallywell in one of those

(09:09):
tournaments, maybe won it. But the difference was, was that
he would had been top 30 in the world.
I guess he had gotten injured and then was coming back.
So he had at least had a, a feeling of what that was going
to be like. Well, Val had no feeling of
that. I mean, he was 204 in the world

(09:29):
coming up against all these guysand playing in that situation.
And then to have, I think it wasin the early 1990s that Michael
Pernforz, who played for Georgia, Swedish player and Todd
Martin who played at Northwestern, they were in a big
tournament, played in the finals.
That was the last time 2 collegeplayers played each other in a,

(09:52):
in a major final like that. So then you've got two guys on
the same team and oh, by the way, they're first cousins
because their mothers are sisters.
I mean, it's just mind boggling all that.
The chances of that I think I saw somewhere was one in 4.6
billion. So you can take that with your

(10:15):
Powerball, you know, and, and that's kind of, it was kind of a
storybook week for, for both of them and for them to actually
play each other in the finals and how that match played out,
you know it, it was just a amazing experience.
And for me personally, I kept thinking in my mind, not about

(10:38):
A&M necessarily and certainly not about me, but college
tennis. College tennis is the winner
here today. And all these college coaches
and these players around the world, whether it's junior
players and coaches of those junior players, it showcased

(10:58):
what we're all capable of. If guys will buy in, give their
best effort, you know, stay there and learn the game and not
get wrapped up too much in winning and losing.
And those are the kind of things, storybook things that
can happen. Incredible story, by the way,

(11:19):
Adam Walton played against Valentin Vassaro at #4 singles
and both are now top 100 players.
Pretty cool story. That's just one of many, Steve,
about you, right? Who are you as a coach?
If there's a recruit that's listening to this podcast today,

(11:40):
who are you? What can what can you say about
yourself and what they will learn from from for playing for
you for for four years? Yeah, well, I think I offer a
lot of experience to young players to have been where they
want to go with their game. You know, I've been in their

(12:03):
shoes. So it's not like it's, it has
been a long time ago for me, butbut I know what it feels like.
I know what's required to be a professional tennis player.
I know the hard yards that you have to go through for for us to
play this sport. This sport is obviously an
individual sport first and then it becomes a team sport in

(12:26):
college, which I think is more fun.
I can tell you me personally that my my fondest memories of
my tennis career, and obviously I got to play in Grand Slam
finals and all that and play Davis Cup for the United States
when Arthur Ashe was the captain.
I was the orange squeezer. You know, you didn't get to play

(12:48):
in the match because Arthur, youknow, pick somebody else to play
over me. But to be on the team of four in
that era and US tennis was an unbelievable honor.
But, you know, to to get to do all those things.
My fondest memories still is my college career with my teammates

(13:11):
in college and the most fun thatI had playing tennis in my life.
And I'm and I'm reminded of thatall the time.
And I tell Barney Smith, who's been with me for a few years and
played for me. He was on our 2018 team that got
to the got to the semi finals when we lost the weight Forest

(13:32):
4/3 and and Arthur and Patrick and Val were all in that team.
Arthur played 2, Val played four.
And I'm, I'm, I'm reminded of that.
And then also Kevin O'Shea has been with me for 20 years, who's
a amazing coach that people maybe don't give enough credit
to because he's really, really agood coach and a passionate guy

(13:56):
about the game. But, but my message to both of
them is we got to give these guys the same kind of experience
that that we had as players. And so I feel like I'm AI guess
in answering your question in the roundabout way, I'm a
player's coach. I'm a player's coach.

(14:17):
My players, I think have respectfor me and and they know that
I'm there for them to help them.And it's not a a two or three
years decision for these kids. It's a 20 year decision.
I'm still as active with my former players that played for
me. I'm still helping them as much

(14:40):
as they would like for me to help.
I'm still communicating with them and helping them with lots
of different things in their game.
And so, you know, for, for me, it's just been a kind of a love
affair with tennis, but but also, I guess with someone that
comes to Texas A&M to school, knowing that we're going to give

(15:04):
you everything that we got and then we're going to help you try
to get as good as you can get. And obviously we've had a lot of
success in that area. I I thought right before
Wimbledon this year, I looked, we had six guys playing in the
Wimbledon main draw of, you know, singles of double s.
I had four or five other guys that same week that were playing

(15:27):
in challenger level and then a few others like I was just as
happy for Rafael Perot, who's one he graduated 24 and he won
two future A3. He's won three futures this
year, two in a row. And it it's just about the

(15:47):
pathway that these guys are can take.
And I think that if they will stay with it and they'll keep
working at it, then, you know, these types of things that
happened this last week or are certainly a possibility.
Well, if there's one thing to hear there it is.
You have two former players playing in the final of the

(16:07):
Shanghai Masters or they're playing in a Master tournament
and they're still calling you. They're calling you, they want
to talk to you. They're asking for advice.
You're giving them advice. I mean, that's just, that's just
cool. And, and I think you as a coach
and as a person, which more importantly, you should, you
should feel very proud about that.
That's just, that's just my opinion.
Shifting gears just a little bithere, Steve, this is a big one.

(16:32):
And this is in regards to college tennis, right?
And that is you're obviously Texas A&M, you're part of the
SEC, right? It is, it is.
I don't want to say it's the hardest conference, I don't want
to take sides, but it is incredibly, incredibly strong
conference. The question I have is in
regards to scheduling. This was something I personally

(16:55):
maybe overlooked, but I realizedafter the first couple years the
importance of scheduling. What is your mindset to what
kind of teams you play against outside of the SEC conference?
You know, maybe I'm old school alittle bit James, but I, and

(17:17):
I've kind of been, now that Manny Diaz is retired, I, I
guess I'm the elder statesman inthe SEC and I have said all
along that I really felt like that we should play all these
other teams in the conference. And, and it's a grueling
schedule. You're right.
But you know, one of the things for me as we look at if I tell a

(17:38):
young player and his coach and his parents I'm going to try to
help you go play afterwards, I need to challenge you in order
for that to happen. So you need to be in the fire
and you need a lot of tests along the way.
And I don't get my heart rate upand they don't either if they're
not challenged. And some teams you play against,

(18:00):
nothing to take away from them, but maybe the 4-5 and six guys
are not really challenged that much.
And yet in the SEC one through 6, you better put your big boy
pants on because you're going tohave a battle on your hands and
you got to figure it out. You and I think it's great for

(18:21):
for these young players to have to go through that.
So I, I try to play tough teams non conference.
I mean, we've had a home and away with Ohio State.
You know, every year we played Texas and Oklahoma when they
weren't in the conference and now they are.
And so now I've tried to find a couple of other teams that would

(18:42):
want to play us because I want to test our guys a bit.
We play some double headers to kind of test them a bit as well.
And so, yeah, I I'm all for thatdevelopment part of it.
I get it though, that at the endof the season, if you're trying
to win a national championship and you're trying to make a

(19:05):
push, you know, you got to have some fresh minds and some fresh
legs a little bit to do that. And you know, that's something
that probably I could do a better job of, but I just love
the competition and I love theseguys to have to play against
tough guys and learn the problemsolve out there.

(19:27):
And obviously in the SEC, you know this better than anyone how
difficult some of these places are to play there.
It's it's not easy and you got some crowds against you.
And I think that toughens you upa bit in preparation for what
you're going to face in the future.
You, you got to be able to deal with adversity.

(19:47):
You know, adversity's coming absolutely 100%.
But is that adversity going to run you over or is it going to
make you stronger? And that's, that's that's why
they have to have those tests. And then in that adversity, they
got to learn to problem solve. And I think our guys, your guys

(20:08):
probably as well. I think the player of today, to
a certain extent, maybe gets a little bit too emotional
sometimes. And when you get real emotional,
you don't think as well. And I don't think you see the
guys on the tour, you know, hollering and screaming and
doing all that stuff much. I mean, there's a few guys that

(20:28):
obviously are more emotional than others.
You know, it's, I guess it's better to tame a tiger than fire
up a Pussycat. But I, I, I think that these
guys have have got to continue to be tested and I think they've

(20:49):
got to be able to think the way through matches and problem
solve and that's what gives themconfidence to continue to gain
momentum with their game. I have always felt like Texas
A&M play good double s Do you have a philosophy?
You know, you don't have to share everything from a
competitive standpoint, but do you look for certain pairs?

(21:10):
Do you look for righty and a lefty, a guy with a good serve
and someone is good at the net? What do you how do you train it
and and how are you so good at it?
Yeah. I mean, I think we're pretty
good in double s. I think obviously that was as I
started the tour, I was actuallytalking to Paul McNamee earlier

(21:32):
today and he was one of the top double S players in the world
when he played with Peter McNamara in his day.
And I think what happened for usperson, for me personally, as I
kind of made the tour first the double S and then the singles
kind of came a bit later. And so I, I think that I think
that we, we, we spend a fair amount of time in double S and

(21:59):
double S drills, but mainly morein the transition part of the
court. I think all these really good
juniors are very good at the back of the court and they can
hit a serve and hit a forehand and and be really good at that
part of the game. But I think the nuanced part of
the game, which is two or three feet behind the service line and

(22:22):
inside the service line, that part of the court is a little
bit misunderstood. Case in point, in the old days
when we played at Wimbledon, if you looked at the court, you saw
you saw dirt basically up aroundthe service line and inside.
And now you see mostly dirt on the baseline, but the the grass

(22:42):
is still pretty pristine in thatupper part of the core.
And I think that a guy like Roger Federer, who was able to
be an all court player has really helped our cause more
because, you know, he was able to finish at the net.
And heck, even the doll who was a, a baseline player, you know,

(23:06):
continue to work on his net game.
And you see now Alcarres and center, they're moving forward
doing more, even though their ground strokes are so great and
they're serving everything else is so great.
They're they're trying to move forward.
And so we, we spent some, we spend the time each day on that
transition game and obviously that translates into playing

(23:27):
some double S And then as far asfinding players, you kind of
identify who's going to be a good left court player, who's
going to be a right court player.
You try to put those guys together the best you can.
And there's been several times, James, where I haven't really
found all the combinations untilalmost middle of the season or

(23:49):
even later the season where I felt like, OK, these are the
guys that are really playing double S well at this time and
they're going to match well withthese other guys.
And and I've not been afraid to,you know, mix it up and do some
things differently with those kind of players.
And if you work on the double skills and you work on the

(24:09):
transition game, I think then you're giving yourself a decent
chance of having some pretty good double S players.
And obviously that double S point is huge because I mean
let's face it, probably most of these matches, if you did the
stats on it, 70 or 80% of the matches that are won or are won
by the team that wins a double sport.

(24:31):
It's just tough to win 4 singlesagainst a really good.
Team, yeah, Yep. Steve, you are great partners of
UTR Sports. You have hosted multiple PTT
events. I guess my simple question to
you Steve is why? Why do you host these events?
Yeah, very simple matches. You know, this is you.

(24:54):
You get 5 or 6 quality matches in a tournament, we get to be at
home and we can evaluate those players while they're playing
those matches and you're testingthem, you know?
I mean, they know we're watching, you know, you know,

(25:14):
they know what's going on there and you test them to see how
they can handle playing against their teammates.
And I think it's an important component of this.
But but the matches themselves are are high quality matches
that these guys that these guys get.

(25:34):
And I'm hopeful some at some point in the future that, that
they're going to come up with a,a method or a way for these boys
to, to get some points and ranking out of it.
That would be wonderful as far as I'm concerned, because you
have your cake and eating it too.
Because obviously some of them are wanting to get points to

(25:56):
help them with their, their ATP ranking and, and, and they don't
have that at this point. So they can put a little money
in their pocket, but they can also get all these quality
matches, which I think ultimately makes you a better
tennis. Last question, Steve, I
appreciate your time. I know you're, you're busy this

(26:17):
weekend, you've got a big tournament coming up.
How do you incorporate allowing your players to play
professional tennis whilst beingat Texas A&M?
How do you do that with their scheduling?
You know, you take them to pro events.
You how do you do that as a program?

(26:38):
Well, you know, the NCA allows you to to take them to up to
seven events during the of your 25 dates of competition,
probably 7 is a bit unrealistic.So we try to do some of it in
the fall. Obviously with the new NCAA Fall
Championship, it's made it a little more complicated.

(27:01):
Some of the team, some of the, we'll use some of the dates to
take the guys to tournaments, but some of them will go on
there, they'll go on their own. You know, thankfully we have
quite a few 15 and 25 K tournaments in our area as well
as a lot of these UTRPTT tournaments.
And so we mix and match all thatjust to get them a quality

(27:25):
schedule. And you know, I'm not opposed to
it's, I guess another, you know,when, when Austin Krycheck was
here, this has been obviously a few years back, but I think he
played close to 50 pro tournaments while he was still
with us. And and that was, you know,
playing in the summer. It was playing some of his own,

(27:47):
something we can provide for him.
And I'm not, I have not been too, you know, some guys are
concerned about, well, they may play Davis Cup.
Can I, am I going to let them goplay Davis Cup for their
country? I would say as a as a coach,
absolutely. You know, if you miss a match or
two because of of Davis Cup, youknow, I think you need that

(28:11):
experience to do that and and have that honor to be able to
play. Also, if you getting into
challenger level tournaments, you know, got to let them go,
let them go play. I know that.
Just give an example, 11 match that we had just a couple years
ago, Patrick Kipson had played in Miami.

(28:32):
He got a wild card. He beat Timothy Smechek first
round of qualies and and then heplayed, I'm sorry, I'm trying to
play on the really good TCU player that was the lefty that
played #1 for them, that's English Cam Norick.
So he played him in the last round of qualities in Miami.
And, and so Patrick calls me, hegoes Stevo, he says, I'm, I'm

(28:59):
playing, I'm playing Cam Nori tomorrow in the, in the last
round of qualies. He says, but we're, we're
playing TCU tomorrow at, at our place.
And, and we're #4 and they're #5what do you want me to do?
And, and I said, I said, Patrick, I, I told you when you

(29:20):
came that, you know, I was goingto let you play some tournaments
and you know, I'm going to honorthat commitment.
So you go beat Cam Dory. You're playing him.
He's on TCU's team. You can, we won't get to count
it, but but you go play him and do your best.
Well, he ended up losing 3 or 4 in the third, didn't qualify.

(29:44):
Obviously Cam Dory's had a greatcareer and we ended up playing
TCU that night and they beat us 4 three without it.
But what happened in that whole thing?
I got Max effort from Patrick Gibson because of what I ended

(30:06):
up doing for him there and allowing him to stay and play
that event because I knew how important it was for him.
And and then you know it, It's that player coach relationship.
I think that's so important thatyou can get the most out of your
guys if you, you know, think about them and show them that

(30:27):
you're really interested in their career.
It's not all about me or it's not all about Texas A&M, but
it's a it's a path. And I did that.
Maybe some other coaches wouldn't have done that.
They've done that differently and I'm certainly not judging
them for that. But it's my personality to want
to help these guys, to give themthe chance.

(30:50):
And I think that's why I have the relationship with the the
Vashuros and the Rendernecks andthe Kipsons and all these guys
that have played for us over theyears, because I have rooted for
them and wanted them to do well and, and thought about them and
put them. 1st I remember watching Tipson in the I believe

(31:11):
it was the semi finals against Wake I think at Wake Forest.
So there you go. Yeah, poor kid, he got killed
that day, you know, he lost to Gojo and.
Arthur. Not that.
And then Arthur lost to the number one, Yeah, in a pretty

(31:33):
close match. But neither one of them played
very well for us that day. And I told Patrick after the
match against because they were obviously going back to North
Carolina, where he's from. And big crowd.
They were tight. I mean, they didn't play what
they're capable of. And I told him, I said, you will

(31:55):
never likely lose to that guy again.
And since that time, he's beatenhim several times.
And he's reminded me of that. And, you know, sometimes, you
know, those things happen in sports.
You don't always get what you want.
But, you know, let's play the long game.
You know. Let's see where you are in in 5

(32:18):
or 10 years time. Well, look, just to recap Steve,
I, I didn't have this written down, but what I hear and I hope
people listening here is that Steve truly cares about you as a
player and as a human being. He does things the right way.
I've coached against Steve many times.

(32:39):
He truly does things the right way.
His players act competitively but also with respect.
You will not find a coach out there who has the experience as
as Steve does. Just again, he has played and
beaten players like Boris Becker, John McEnroe, Stan
Smith, Davis Cup alongside people like Arthur Ashe and

(33:03):
McEnroe. He truly is a legend in in the
game of tennis. So Steve from us at UTR, we
really appreciate your time. We wish you the best of luck
this season and and thank you. So all the best to you and your
program. Appreciate all you're doing for

(33:26):
college tennis. It's a, it's a major part of
our, our pathway to help these guys get to where they want to
go. And really appreciate you guys
at UTR and all you're doing. Thank you.
Cheers.