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Walker Webcast: Hall of Famer Jim Courier on Being the Best You Can Be
Tennis Hall of Famer Jim Courier vividly remembers the sensation that washed over him at the moment he won the 1991 French Open, defeating his former Bollettieri Academy roommate Andre Agassi, even if the two days that followed were largely “a blur,” he said on this week’s Walker Webcast. A combination of endorphins and adrenaline surge as one’s life changes, it’s a sensation that could only be compared to childbirth, Courier told Walker & Dunlop CEO Willy Walker.
The youngest man ever to reach the finals of all four Grand Slam singles tournaments, Courier came into professional tennis at an extraordinary time for the sport. He believes that what helped put him ahead of some of his Bollettieri Academy classmates was a combination of guts, not being afraid of “the big moments” and not being afraid to fail.
“There’s a wall that some people aren’t willing to scale, and that’s the failure wall,” Courier said on this week’s webcast. He saw a number of would-be champions who were weighed down by expectations of success, whether those expectations were their own or others’.
That work ethic propelled Courier to four Grand Slam victories, and victory in turn put him into the spotlight—a place he wasn’t accustomed to being. As the adrenaline rush of that first French Open win wore off, Courier quickly developed a sense of perspective.
“By and large, the people that come into the public eye—you’re renting a space, you don’t own it,” Courier said.
Courier retired from the ATP tour in 2000, and since 2005 has served as a tennis analyst and commentator. In that capacity, he had a courtside vantage point for the recent controversy involving Novak Djokovic and his deportation from Australia over the COVID-19 vaccine.
As Courier saw it, it was a matter of “the left hand not talking to the right hand at the government level.” He expressed the hope, though, that Djokovic wouldn’t allow the incident to be the last word on his career.
Considering Djokovic, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, it’s a point of debate on which of the three is the current greatest player in men’s tennis. Conspicuously absent from that trio are any Americans, and Courier has a theory on why the U.S. hasn’t produced any men’s Grand Slam singles champions since Andy Roddick’s victory in the 2003 U.S. Open.
“Very, very few of them do everything right,” said Courier. His personal credo is to “be the best you can be. Explore all the options for being the best you can be.”
On-demand replays of the Jan. 19 webcast are available by clicking here and through Walker & Dunlop’s Driven by Insight podcast series.
- ◦People
