Denis Kudla keeps a notebook with him at all times, but his coach, Billy Heiser, can't tell you what it looks like. Heiser has never seen it, even though he asked the 22-year-old tennis player to get one.
When the two first started working together after the French Open, Heiser wanted Kudla, then ranked 139th in the world in men’s singles, to give self-evaluation a try.
So every day now no matter what — after practices, matches and even when he has time off — Kudla will pull out the mysterious notebook and start writing about his game. Afterward, he’ll type his latest tennis thoughts into an online workspace and eventually Heiser gets access to them.
“They started out a little bit scattered,” Heiser said. “Over the course of just consistently doing it, his thoughts have become much more concise and clear. He now has a consistent approach to each day, holding himself accountable to make sure he’s doing things to the best of his ability.”
Kudla is now ranked a career-high 79th in the world, back in the ATP Top 100 for the first time in two years, while the Arlington native’s ranking hasn’t dropped once since June. In the past two months, he’s advanced to his first-ever second week of a Grand Slam and made his first ATP 250 semifinal since turning pro in 2008.
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He entered the main draw of this year’s Citi Open as a wild-card recipient having won 17 of his last 20 matches before he lost Tuesday night to Blaz Rola, 6-2, 4-6, 7-6 (7-5). He was down 6-1 in the tiebreak but won four straight points to narrow the lead to 6-5. Rola then won it.
So one might ask, what’s the secret to his success? The self-evaluating notes he often pens are definitely a part the formula, but Kudla knows that the fresh approach of the man reading them deserves even more of the credit.
“For me, Billy has approached the mental side of my game more than anybody else I’ve had as a tennis coach,” Kudla said. “That has allowed me to kind of free up my mind tennis-wise and just play well. With that kind of mentality and change with him, a lot goes into controlling what I can control. When you do that, you worry about a lot less.”
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What Kudla can’t control is his health — something he had to learn the hard way. Last July after advancing to the second round at Wimbledon, Kudla felt he was beginning to hit his stride following a win at the Nielsen Pro Tennis Championship. With every match, he was getting closer to both living up to the huge expectations he once faced as a top junior and silencing the skeptics who questioned his decision to go pro at the age of 16.
Then at his next tournament, the Levene Gouldin & Thompson Tennis Challenge in Binghamton, N.Y., Kudla went to the hospital with what he knew was much more than a sore throat. The diagnosis was mononucleosis, which forced him out of the competition. For a second opinion, he returned to Arlington where his doctor confirmed the news.
“It hit me like a brick wall,” he said. “Knowing I’d be out for two months and couldn’t even touch a racket, that frightened me a little bit. It was definitely emotional for me to be able to regroup and be healthy. Once I could step back on the court two and a half months later was an accomplishment.”
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After missing a great deal of action, including the 2014 Citi Open, Kudla returned to competition in late September, playing in six tournaments before the end of last year. But all were challengers and the furthest he was able to advance was at the Men’s Tennis Championships in October when Liam Brody defeated him, 7-5, 6-0, in the semifinals.
As the midway point of 2015 approached, Kudla began thinking about leaving the United States Tennis Association, an organization under which he’d been coached for four years.
“I just needed a little change in my life,” Kudla said.
He now jokes that he hand-picked the “perfect match” between him and his new coach, who’s only 28 years old and has never played on tour.
“It was pretty much a no-brainer,” Heiser said. “I saw tremendous upside in his game.”
The partnership was finalized before the French Open, but Heiser wanted at least 10 days in practice with Kudla before coaching his first tournament. Their first Grand Slam together was Wimbledon, where Kudla was the last American standing in men’s singles, defeated in the fourth round by the world’s ninth-ranked Marin Cilic, 6-4, 4-6, 6-3, 7-5.
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“After Wimbledon, you sort of start thinking a little crazy, like maybe I could win it one of these years,” Kudla said.
But he doesn’t have to write that down in his notebook. He rather saves room on the lined pages for commentary on the improvements he can make to get him there.
So Kudla will take time to reflect on Tuesday’s match and soon thereafter Heiser will get an e-mail with the subject line, “Denis Kudla updated his notebook.”
Not until the next time they meet on the practice court will the tweaks come to life.
“To see what he writes, I kind of get into his brain that way,” Heiser said. “It helps me coach him if I know what he’s thinking out there.”
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