We caught up with Craig Bryant (The TT Service Guy) to find out a little more about his link up with German professional player Benedikt Duda, how he helped Duda improve his serves and how it has worked out so far… spoiler alert… pretty well!
Benedikt and I first started working together in October 2023 and we worked through the Level Up Coaching Option, with a focus on helping him improve his service game. We had a consultation to discuss some of the specifics, so I could understand his situation and needs as well as an opportunity for him to understand what’s involved in the process and to answer any questions he might have. We worked together for 30 days, exchanging videos, receiving videos updates, regular comms through WhatsApp as well as a live online session. In truth, this was a new and daunting scenario for me, to work with a professional player of this stature. However, the reality was that he was a player looking to advance his game with upskilling his serving skills and serving strategy, so any apprehensions I had were put to the side and we got to work. We had a good connection and understanding and we made some small but significant changes over this period. It was a great experience for me and gave me real confidence that what I was doing (online coaching) was effective and could make a real difference to people’s games.
In January 2024 (on my birthday of all days), I was elated to receive a message from Benne asking if I would like to be his ‘service coach’ for 1 full year. How could I refuse? So, we started to make a plan. What’s going to make the biggest difference to his game? Advancing current skills, developing a strategy, working on new services, we explored many options. We settled on live sessions, plus video exchange and tutorials, which were specific to him (as he’s left-handed, I would record footage with my right hand and then flip the videos before sending them to him, to keep things as real and specific as possible).
As Benne is a full-time professional athlete, we quickly saw that a regular schedule wasn’t always possible. With training camps in Dusseldorf, WTT Feeders, WTT Contenders, Bundesliga matches, plus major events and often traveling from one competition and then directly to the next. It was important for me to support Benne in other ways. So, I developed a form to analyse his serving in his competitive matches. I would identify the following; length of serve, type of spin, service technique as well as the outcome. This gave the possibility to pick up on patterns (positive or negative), helped provide certain tactics against different opponents and crucially helped us with the specificity of our training together. I also put together an annual plan to help Benne track his competitions, training, physical training etc., the clearer the head is from all the organisational aspects involved, the more room there is for learning and developing (the things that are going to make a difference). A big shout out to fellow Bribar Coach, Stephen Gertsen for helping me out with a number of annual plan templates that he’d developed, this was a huge help.
Fast forward 8 months to August 2024, I had an opportunity to combine a visit to Belgium with a prior stop off in Dusseldorf, Germany to meet and train with Mr Duda in person. What I quickly discovered was, he is really tall and conversely, I am very short! It was great to finally meet in person, what a really nice, genuine person he is. From a table tennis perspective, very professional, completely open to learning, soaks up information and gives things a try (there’s no ego or judgement to be seen at all). He’s curious and motivated, a recipe for learning and developing. We worked on many technical elements; creating different spins, attempting to make the actions look similar, creating some deception, developing strategies that were relevant to him and crucially some challenges here and there, that really help cement the learning process. AND…of course I took the opportunity to test my own serves out on him! You can check out the footage here.
Benne has had ups and down this season, which is completely normal (progress is rarely linear) but he has made some exceptional improvements and achieved some remarkable results. He won his second WTT Feeder Event in Biella, Italy in December 2023, his first ever WTT Contender title in Mendoza, Argentina in June 2024 and he’s very recently had an incredible run at the European Championships in Linz, Austria winning a Silver Medal in the Men’s Singles, beating European Number 1 (WR No 7) Felix Lebrun, then overcoming legend of the sport and fellow countryman Dimitrij Ovtcharov (European No 3 and WR No 10) on route to the final, where he lost out to Alexis Lebrun. As well as now obtaining his highest World Ranking to date, which has now risen to 17 in the World. Benne has a big team around him, he has the support of the German National Coaches and the centre in Dusseldorf. He has physical trainers, mental trainers, his brother is the coach of his Bundesliga team and also supports Benne in various ways. It’s an honour to be part of his team, I hope that my support has helped him achieve some of these remarkable results and progression.
We shall continue to work together through the rest of the annual programme and we’ll see where the future takes us both. I’m very grateful for the opportunity, it’s certainly challenged and developed me as a coach too.
If you’re interested in working with Craig, you can find out more about his online coaching options here thettserviceguy.com or you can get in touch with him here coachcraigtt@gmail.com.
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Posted on 28th October 2024
