Brad Stine began coaching American tennis legend Jim Courier in 1991.
Stine, who now works with top 20 ATP star Tommy Paul, coached Courier to four Grand Slam titles before the pair parted ways in 1994. They later worked with each other from 1997 to 2000.
Courier, who achieved the status of world number one under Stine’s tutelage, won his final major title at the 1993 Australian Open.
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However, Stine may have never coached Courier had he taken another coaching job in 1989.
Brad Stine says he turned down coaching Pete Sampras because there was ‘too much risk’
Speaking on the Ground Pass Podcast, Stine revealed that he simply could not turn down the opportunity to coach Jim Courier after turning down Pete Sampras in 1989.
Sampras won 14 Grand Slam titles during his career and is widely considered to be one of the greatest players in tennis history. However, he failed to win the career Grand Slam.
Stine, who has also coached former Wimbledon finalist Kevin Anderson, said coaching Courier was too good of an opportunity to squander.
Stine said: “Down the road he’s [Jim Courier] looking to make a change in coaching and at the time one of my really, really close friends to this day, Tom Gullikson, in charge of our men’s program back then, and Jim contacted Tom. He wanted to work with Jose Higueras.
“Jose wasn’t really very interested at that time in travelling, [instead he was] working with a few different players on a part-time basis with the USTA, mostly American players.
“And my name was on a shortlist that Jim came up with Tom Gullikson of people that he would potentially be interested in travelling with and so Tom called me and said ‘hey, Courier’s looking for a guy to be on the road with him. Would you be interested in doing it?’
“I jumped at the chance because two years earlier, Pete Fisher, the guy who’s credited with developing Pete Sampras called me and asked me if I would be interested in travelling with Pete.
“And being the genius that I am, I turned him down. At that time two years earlier Pete had literally qualified for like one tournament and I don’t know, his ranking was like in the 300s or something like that.
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“And I was the head coach of Fresno State and I’d kind of gotten bumped up a little bit in the hierarchy of the USTA and I felt like it was just too much risk to go on the road with this one young… Pete was like 16 and a half, 17 years old at the time, maybe younger.
“So I turned him down and I sat in my office at Fresno State for two years watching Pete’s progress and was like ‘God, what an idiot.’
“So when Jim came along and presented the option to go on Tour you know, I jumped at it. When I started with Courier Jim was ranked 28 in the world so it was a much different scenario.”
‘A wise old man’
Speaking to the Tennis Channel in 2022, Tommy Paul summarised Brad Stine’s personality in one sentence.
“He’s a wise old man and young at the same time,” Paul said.
Paul has worked with Stine since 2020. During their time together, Paul has achieved a career-high ranking of world number eight and reached one Grand Slam semi-final, at the 2023 Australian Open.
Stine has also worked with Jim Courier, Jonathan Stark, Andrei Medvedev, Mardy Fish, Taylor Dent, Sebastien Grosjean and Kevin Anderson.
