Mats Wilander Brings Tennis To The Fans
By STEVE DORSEY
DELRAY BEACH, Fla. -- Mats Wilander is a former world No. 1 tennis
player who won seven Grand Slam singles titles during his ATP World Tour
career. He actually became hooked on camping, however, before he became
hooked on tennis.
So the 46-year-old Swedish native’s Wilander On Wheels, which combines
fantasy tennis camps with actual camping while traveling in his
Winnebago, is a natural business adventure for the affable Wilander.
Wilander and his business partner Cameron Lickle travel to various
tennis sites and tournaments -- they’ve spent this week at the Delray
Beach International Tennis Championships -- where they hold several
90-minute sessions instructing amateur players to help them with their
game.
“I can’t change their game in an hour-and-a-half, but I can change the
way you look at it,” Wilander said Thursday between sessions at the
Delray Beach Stadium and Tennis Center. “This is not some violin lesson
on Tuesday morning with the same pro for the last five years.”
Wilander does not schedule more than three sessions a day and there’s
a maximum of eight players per session. Most trips are five- or six-day
stops. Lickle, who was the No. 1 player for four years when he attended
the U. S. Naval Academy -- he’s a 2003 graduate -- also helps with the
hands-on sessions.
Lickle met Wilander about two years ago at a tennis event in Sun
Valley, Idaho where Wilander now resides. He was invited to hit some
with Wilander, who is one of only two men in tennis history -- the other
being Rafael Nadal -- to have won at least two Grand Slam singles
titles on each of the three surfaces -- hardcourt, grass and clay.
Afterward, Wilander asked Lickle to practice with him in preparation for
an upcoming match against Pete Sampras.
“One thing led to another, and we hit it off and created Wilander On
Wheels (WOW) on a cocktail napkin,” said Lickle, who left the Navy after
his final tour of duty in Iraq in 2008. “I wrote a business plan and we
conceived the company Sept. 8, 2009.”
Lickle, who is 30, said he has a fascinating working relationship with
Wilander despite the generation gap, and the amateur players who sign up
for the WOW sessions seem to love the experience.
“It’s an opportunity to live your fantasy, being on the court with a
former world No. 1 player,” Lickle said. “I know how I felt the first
time (hitting with Wilander), and it’s easy for me to sell that to
anybody, because it was pure. It’s not fake. I was giddy as a kid. I’m
living a dream.”
Susan Yeager can vouch for that testament. The 54-year-old Boca Raton resident works in Delray Beach and her sister bought her a 90-minute WOW session as a Christmas gift. Yeager used it Thursday and was beaming after the session.
“It was unbelievable,” said Yeager, who has been taking lessons for
about 10 years and admitted she was nervous before hitting the court
with Wilander. “It was more fun than I imagined. And also, it was more
informative than I expected. It was really fun.”
That is exactly the response that Wilander loves to hear. He genuinely
wants the experience to be a learning workout but fun, too. It’s also
not as expensive for the participants because they don’t have to fork
out travel expenses as is the case with most fantasy camps. Wilander and
WOW come to you.
“This is much more fun,” Wilander said. “I think it’s easier. As a
player, I didn’t really get to meet the fans. I mean, you meet them, but
you sign a ball or a program and that’s it. Now we meet the people who
make up the fan base.”
It’s been less than two years since WOW was launched, and Wilander and
Lickle have enjoyed every trip, including the camping part. They try to
schedule one week-long trip each month. Wilander also played in the
round-robin Champions Tour event that ended Tuesday. They also have a
stop in Sarasota this weekend before heading out to Las Vegas for their
next stop on the WOW tour. .
One of Wilander’s favorite travel stories happened last year when they
were traveling from California to Washington, D.C. They stopped in
Memphis to take a break from the road and hit a couple of blues clubs on
famous Beale Street. Wilander wasn’t sleepy, so he volunteered to drive
for a couple of hours until they found a truck stop where they could
pull over, but Lickle and a photographer who was along on the trip
decided to catch some sleep. However, they were awakened by flashing
lights and a police dog looking into the Winnebago. The Tennessee state
trooper had no idea who Wilander was.
“I wasn’t speeding. He told me I swerved, but it was windy and no one
was on the road,” Wilander said of the incident. “(The trooper) looked
around the car, asked me a bunch of questions, asked for the IDs of the
other people in the car. It was adventurous.”
That’s what WOW is, a tennis adventure on wheels.
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