Discipline, devotion define Jimmy Arias, former player, now Olympic commentator

When he was eight years old, Jimmy Arias immersed himself in mastering the overhead smash. For the next two years, under the guidance of his father, Antonio, Arias practiced that shot at least 100 times a day.

Nearly half a century later, that same deep level of discipline and devotion continues to define Arias’ relationship to tennis. There are the hot Florida days when he makes the rounds of 26 courts at IMG Academy, where Arias is the director of tennis, in charge of approximately 240 students. Then there are those mornings on both coasts, when Arias is up at 3:00 a.m. to commence his shifts as a television commentator, be it with Tennis Channel or, over the next week, for NBC’s coverage of the Olympics.

“It is an honor to do the Olympics,” Arias said on Florida TV station WFLA this week. “As a kid, you watched every minute of the Olympics.”

There’s a full circle dimension to Arias’ work at the Olympics this year. Forty years ago, when the 19-year-old Arias was ranked No. 5 in the world, he passed up the chance to earn ranking points, opting instead to go to Los Angeles, where, following a 60-year-absence, tennis had returned to the Games as a test sport. “The Olympics are a chance to represent my country with the whole world watching—it's an opportunity I can't pass up,” Arias said at the time. Arias went on to earn a bronze medal.

Recently, Arias and I spoke in Santa Monica, a couple of miles from Tennis Channel’s studios. The mix of coaching and broadcasting keeps him perpetually engaged and refreshed. “I love the game of tennis,” says Arias. “The work I do keeps me seeing all the nuances and all of the things that keep changing as the athletes keep getting bigger, stronger, and faster. All of that keeps me in touch with the sport that my whole life has been based on.”

At heart, Arias proves the point that a great teacher is at heart an eternal. “I want you to be able to learn something while I’m commentating,” he says. Arias is constantly curious about various ways men and women play the game, be it with technique, tactics, or training habits. Endlessly fascinated by such things as Daniil Medvedev’s seemingly unorthodox backhand or Andy Roddick’s distinctive toss, Arias loves being able to dissect and describe what goes on inside the lines. He's acutely concerned with how players of all levels approach match play.

The work I do keeps me seeing all the nuances and all of the things that keep changing as the athletes keep getting bigger, stronger, and faster. All of that keeps me in touch with the sport that my whole life has been based on. Jimmy Arias

“One of the things that drives me crazy in today’s players is I don’t feel as though they are as aware of their opponent as my generation,” says Arias. “I think today’s players are way better at what they do. They have no weaknesses that you can really see that are obvious. But they’re not aware of the opponent even emotionally.”

Indeed, over recent decades, such terms as “play my game” or “I only take care of my side of the net” or “I don’t scout,” are heard quite often. Arias laments how this has happened and how different things were when he was building his game. When Arias was ten years old, he came across a highly skilled moonballer in the semis of a national junior tournament.

“The first two games lasted 30 minutes and I lost both of them,” he says. “I realized that I wasn’t going to beat him from the baseline. So I started coming to net, and since my dad made me hit all those overheads every day, I was able to beat him. This was me, completely not playing my game.”

These are the kind of insights Arias seeks to share with ambitious young players at the IMG Academy. Each day, he roams the courts, looks closely at the ongoing drills and even more closely at what happens in practice matches.

“I’m a big believer in match play,” says Arias. “I like to see how players handle the pressure of competitive situations.” As he makes the rounds, Arias is also always open for giving private lessons.

Arias working at IMG Academy is an exemplary case of the prodigal son making a successful return to a significant point of origin. The IMG Academy began in the late ‘70s as the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy (a facility later sold to IMG). This was where Bollettieri created the competitive petri dish that shaped one generation after another of great players.

But young Jimmy Arias wasn’t merely one of many Bollettieri Academy students. He was its avatar, a highly precocious tennis player who, thanks to Antonio’s vision, had built a weapon that completely revolutionized tennis. An engineer, Antonio had studied the way the game was taught. A standard teaching technique was to have the student swing to the target. This struck Antonio as absurd: If the racquet stopped that soon, it was slowing down prior to contact. Wasn’t the goal to accelerate through the contact point?

His solution was for young Jimmy to swing swiftly and let the follow-through keep going, eventually wrapping around his left shoulder. Familiar as this is now, at the time it was a major breakthrough.

One of the things that drives me crazy in today’s players is I don’t feel as though they are as aware of their opponent as my generation. I think today’s players are way better at what they do. They have no weaknesses that you can really see that are obvious. But they’re not aware of the opponent even emotionally. Jimmy Arias

Seemingly instantly, Arias unveiled a blistering forehand. Upon seeing the 12-year-old Arias crack the ball with such conviction, Bollettieri proclaimed that this was how he and his staff would now teach the forehand (oddly enough, Antonio did not believe in the two-handed backhand, even resisting Bollettieri’s recommendation for Jimmy to hit one). Eventually, that massive forehand took Arias to the top ten, five ATP singles titles, and a reputation as one of the game’s sharpest minds.

“Initially, the hardest part about being a commentator after I was through playing was thinking that I could still be out there competing,” says Arias. “But by now, I realize I can’t be playing with any of these guys. I don’t have any ego in it.” That said, Arias would probably still enjoy the chance to exchange forehands with anyone.