Vesa Punca grew up on a farm in Finland.

When he was eight years old, he and his dad built their own tennis court on the farm.

We built the cheapest tennis court in the world.

It cost about $100 and I started to hit the ball there.

So I remember it like yesterday.

I just loved how the ball fell on the strings and in Finland, you know, everybody plays

hockey. But I like tennis because it was an individual sport. You know, you kind of have

to rely on yourself, you have to problem solve. You get all the glory, but you get also all

the blame too.

Vessa moved on from the farm court to play but you get also all the playing too.

Vessa moved on from the farm court to play matches as a junior tennis player,

and he got a scholarship to play at the University of Tennessee at Martin,

where he became an all-American.

And I played internationally, but never was able to make the big money and a big breakthrough.

So in my mid-20s, I thought that playing tennis is the best thing in the world, but coaching tennis might be the second best thing.

And so I went to coaching when I was about 25 years old, and now I can safely say that

coaching is the best thing in the world.

For Vessa, as you'll hear, coaching has become less about showing a kid how to crush a

forehand down the line and more about how they feel after they've done it.

I remember it was a young girl, I think that the player was around 12 years old and had a very kind of low self-esteem and never looked at in the eye when she communicated

and always was looking at down, and this was years and years ago,

but I still remember starting to see the change that her posture started to get better.

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