Bollettieri [Tennis Academy] has given away hundreds of scholarships, but never to a child Jan’s [Silva] age. The strength of the game today has made Bollettieri less likely, not more, to deviate from that principle, especially for a boy. Top coaches almost uniformly use the word they gave their daughter, Greer, a racquet for her fourth birthday. A year later, she had improved to the point where the Glodjos, who aren’t tennis players, felt compelled to send a Videotape of her to Bollettieri (Greer saw him on television and asked about him, Arman says). At first, Bollettieri wasn’t interested; Greer was too young. But eventually he invited her for a week in August 2005, when Greer was 5, She stayed for six weeks at Bollettieri’s request and couldn’t wait to go back once she had left, Arman says. She returned a few weeks later and has worked with Bollettieri since, though not on full scholarship (Bollettieri’s rule still applies). These days, she and her family-parents, older sister, and two younger brothers live a golf cart ride from the academy.
When Bollettieri first saw Greer, he says, her strokes were flawed, but she had the “concentration of a 15-year-old.’ Bollettieri hasn’t coached any players from their starts all the way to the pros. He hopes Greer will be his first, and that she will break what many people see as the traditional tennis academy mold: ground strokes, ground strokes, and more ground strokes. Greer plays a lot of doubles and she’s unlearning her two handed back-hand in favor of a one-handed. Bollettieri says that when she begins to play tournaments, at 11 or 12, she might serve and volley.
A private teacher tutors Greer at home from the curriculum of the Canadian school where she’s enrolled (Greer, who was born in North Carolina and raised there and in Bermuda, is in third grade, a year ahead for her age). Her daily schedule usually includes tennis, school, and conditioning, She practices kung fu twice a week; yoga three times a week. Sybel Boss-Ayme, who has taught yoga to Sharapova and numerous other top athletes, says Greer enjoys creating poses for herself and her dolls. There’s one hobby she prefers to tennis: sleeping, which she has done for 12 hours a day since birth, Arman says.
Bollettieri puts Greer, now 7, among the best players in the world for her age, but says that these days such a compliment doesn’t mean much. “Do I have a winner? I don’t know,” he says. “I certainly will have a complete player, but I can’t get into her mind.”
Though Greer hasn’t received much media attention, Arman has already heard from critics. He expects people to find fault no matter what his family does. Best, he says, to concentrate on their lives and give their daughter a chance to succeed.
“What happens in five or six years, nobody knows:’ Arman says. “If she decides to hang up her racquet and concentrate on painting or whatever, God bless her.”
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Louisiana is not known as the mecca of the tennis world by any means, but it has produced one of the finest coaches the tennis world has ever seen. David Ayme, known as Coach Red around the IMG Academies in Bradenton, FL, has coached some of the games best players ranging from Boris Becker to Tommy Haas. Although Coach Ayme is now world renowned for his coaching expertise of upper echelon players, Nick Bollettieri’s right hand man for the past 23 years wants his legacy written in a different light.
