A Tennis Journey: Dalibor Sirola. “With The Top Players, It's Always About Negotiating.”
Meet Dalibor Sirola, one of the best strength and conditioning coaches on Tour, and read all about the stakes of the job. Also, launch grass season with some words from Petra Kvitova.
Welcome back! In today’s edition, here comes a new installment of my “A Tennis Journey” Series. This time, I’m getting you to know one of the best and most experienced strength and conditioning coaches on Tour, Dalibor Sirola (Piatti Tennis Center, Ivan Ljubicic, Andreas Seppi, Milos Raonic, Maria Sharapova, Jannik Sinner, Alexander Zverev). Also, in this edition, some words about grass season with two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova.
A word here to thank you all for the engagement during my coverage of Roland-Garros! It was intense but worth it! Also, a massive thanks to all of you who joined the Tennis Sweet Spot adventure during and after the tournament. I am happy to see the community grow! Free subscribers, the next edition will come on Monday with another exclusive interview. Also, please note that the archives are only available for free for six months, so if you feel like binging tennis content, don’t miss the time slot ;)
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A TENNIS JOURNEY - DALIBOR SIROLA
Strength and conditioning coach Dalibor Sirola is one of these tennis faces you keep crossing throughout the years and one of these names that keeps being mentioned by players and coaches. But he’s also one of these voices you rarely hear, so let’s try to correct that here. The Croatian has been working on the bodies of these elite athletes for over 15 years, and in tennis, he has seen it all from the highest level. “You can see how well the fitness coach is doing his job when the player needs to defend himself,” he says, for example.
Head of Performance at the Piatti Tennis Center, Dalibor Sirola has been working with some of the biggest names in the game, but he also works at bringing the new generation of professional players to the game and has the advantage of having worked in other professional sports, such as basketball or football. Sirola loves researching and sharing his knowledge, and more than anything else, he loves a challenge. He is so passionate about his work and about doing it the best way. “An athlete can get injured on the court but never - never - outside of the court. You cannot injure the athlete in the gym. This is like a mistake you should never make.” You could spend hours talking to him about his work without feeling it’s been hours! I’m very glad to bring his voice here to help you see what it takes to work at the highest level of professional tennis.
After the jump, there are over 4000 words of insight into the world of fitness training at the top players’ level, including not compromising on the foundation of the system, working with top players and aspiring top players, dealing with players coming back from severe injuries like Roanic or Sharapova, meeting Jannik Sinner’s teenager era, dealing with the pressure of being responsible for these elite bodies, supplementation and doping tests, consequences of tennis packed schedule, the change in body types in tennis and how he used his basketball experience to help, also how one needs to know how to negotiate with top players to work with them and to bring them where they should be.
“With The Top Players, It's Always About Negotiating.”
Carole Bouchard, The Tennis Sweet Spot: Have you always wanted to work in professional sports?
Dalibor Sirola: Actually, yes! Good question, for a start (he laughs). In the beginning, I was a strength and conditioning coach. I was a young coach for kids. So, yes, I was always passionate about this. As soon as I had the opportunity to work with professional players from different sports, I took it. In the beginning, I was working in Croatia with athletes from football, basketball, handball, and some volleyball players as well. I was also working with alpine skiers from the national team. So it was pretty interesting. I was pumped to do it, and then one day, Ivan Ljubicic called me to ask if I could help him in this late stage of his career. I was thrilled and immediately jumped in, and since then, I stayed in tennis.
Carole Bouchard, The Tennis Sweet Spot: Do you remember why you wanted to work in professional sports? Was there a special history in your family?
Dalibor Sirola: Well, it was not about doing it because of someone else, but more about proving to myself I was a good coach. Really, so many times I also think about that, you know. Also, when I was in tennis, and players would ask if I wanted to work with them, it was always this kind of, “Let's see if I can do something; if I can help in a way.” I always see this as a challenge, to be honest. We all have bad days at work, and then we start to think about why we are doing this, wondering if it would be better to only work at the Piatti Centre with mostly the kids. Less stress, fewer challenges. However, on the other hand, when you work at the professional level, it's a different kind of motivation, driven by this challenge and the adrenaline, and this is a big part of my motivation.
Carole Bouchard, The Tennis Sweet Spot: As you work with athletes from different sports, did you find any common ground?
Dalibor Sirola: The common ground for top-level athletes is more about the mentality. Every sport has its own rules and different physical attributes in every sport an athlete needs to have, so it's difficult to compare. But from a mentality standpoint, there you can find common ground. There, you can find athletes who are so motivated that they're not asking the price of what they need to pay to reach some goals. The mentality is unbelievably important. I also discuss this with the kids on a daily basis when I'm at the academy. Because this is huge. It's not only about working like, “I'm ready to work five hours a day.” It doesn't matter. It's all the