According to Richard Goldstein of the New York Times on Monday, legendary tennis coach Nick Bollettieri of Pelham, New York passed away at the age of 91 on Sunday. It is no surprise he passed away in Bradenton, Florida, as that is where he opened his high-profile tennis academy.
Bollettieri was the traveling coach for American tennis star Andre Agassi of Las Vegas, Nevada from 1986 to 1993, and then with German tennis star Boris Becker from 1993 to 1995. With Bollettieri as his coach, Agassi won Wimbledon in 1992. In the final, he defeated Goran Ivanisevic of Croatia, 6-7, 6-4, 6-4, 1-6, 6-4.
It was the number of players who went to the Bollettieri Academy, which was extremely impressive. The list included Americans Jim Courier, Venus Williams, and Serena Williams, Yugoslavia’s Monica Seles, France’s Mary Pierce, Germany’s Tommy Haas and Sabine Lisicki, Switzerland’s Martina Hingis, Russia’s Maria Sharapova and Anna Kournikova, Slovakia’s Daniela Hantuchova, the Czech Republic’s Nicole Vaidisova, Serbia’s Jelena Jankovic, Italy’s Sara Errani, Belarusian doubles specialist Max Mirnyi, Belgium’s Xavier Malisse, Chile’s Marcelo Rios, and Japan’s Kei Nishikori.
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Bollettieri was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, Rhode Island in 2014. That year he was inducted alongside three-time grand slam singles champion Lindsay Davenport of the United States and wheelchair tennis player Chantal Vandierendonck of the Netherlands.
Before the time when people would get their tennis knowledge from the World Wide Web, Bollettieri wrote an instructional book on tennis and would teach his methods on DVDs. Bollettieri gave detailed instruction on 10 DVDs, which were considered extremely informative and detailed.
