With his bleached blonde hair tied up neatly in a bun, and his tanned, freckled face hidden behind his big black sunglasses, you’d think Rob Steckley was coming from the beach and not the tennis court. The laid back 34-year-old didn’t grow up surfing on the Malibu coast, but rather, across the continent, playing tennis in Thornhill, Ontario.
Steckley was a solid Canadian junior player, a three-time junior Canadian national champion and a junior U.S. Open and Australian Open quarterfinalist. He competed for Canada at the Davis Cup and reached a career-high ATP singles ranking of no. 464. But the Canuck has found his greatest success, as a coach.
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Steckley briefly worked with fellow Canadians Genie Bouchard and Milos Raonic when they were juniors. He remembers the first time he saw Bouchard on the court, as a 15-year-old.
“I’ll never forget when she was young, she was almost kind of intimidating,” Steckley says with a laugh over the phone from Australia, a week before the year’s first Slam. “If it wasn’t for the fact I don’t get intimated very much, I probably would have been a little shaken up, cause I didn’t know who this little girl was, who was listening, but still trying to give orders. It was unique to watch.”
Five years later, Bouchard’s success on tour doesn’t come as a surprise.
“She’s got that same, take the ball early, doesn’t care who is on the other side [of the net] mentality [as she did when I first met her],” Steckley adds. “I think that’s why she’s progressed at such a fast pace. She’s always been very hungry.”
Early in Steckley’s coaching career he worked with Niagara Falls’ Frank Dancevic and he coached Montreal’s Aleksandra Wozniak to her career high ranking of no. 21 in the world. And despite the potential he saw from all of those players, he didn’t expect Canadian tennis to blow up the way it has.
“I don’t think anybody did, to be honest. And so quickly,” Steckley admits. “With the growth of Milos, Vasek [Pospisil], and Eugenie, I just think there’s going to be another surge of players. That’s the beauty, it’s a chain reaction.
“I hope that we can keep growing as a country. It’s nice to hear people out on tour, from coaches and players saying Canada is a well-respected country now. When I was playing, it wasn’t the case so much. We had a bunch of players, but no one was pushing through. So now, we have that push and it’s a good look for us.”
Steckley has been earning respect on tour as Lucie Safarova’s coach. The 16th ranked WTA player from the Czech Republic began working with Steckley in the summer of 2012.
“She’s by far the nicest player I’ve worked with,” Steckley asserts. “It’s really, really simple to have a genuine working relationship with Lucie. We both have each other’s best interests in mind, which isn’t the easiest thing to find in any working relationship — whether it’s in sports, business, or anything. I’m fortunate with her. She’s a delightful girl to work with. She’s a friend.”
And what do friends do? They have fun, especially at work. And with Steckley, a self-described “clown,” as her coach, he jokes around, even making his own short films with footage from their training sessions.
“I think she’d say it’s fun, she learns a lot,” Steckley says with a laugh, when asked how Safarova would describe working with him. “There’s never a dull moment. I like to joke around. That’s just my personality. There are times to be serious and times to have fun. I let it all out on the table. If they accept it, they accept it. And with Lucie, it seems to work.”
At Wimbledon in 2014, it did work, as the 27-year-old reached her first Grand Slam semi-final, where she lost in straight sets to fellow Czech player and eventual Wimbledon champion, Petra Kvitova.
“Last year Lucie achieved something so great at such a big stage, a life-long dream to go that deep in a Grand Slam,” Steckley boasts. “To be a part of that is something special. Just to see your player out there so happy and pleased with herself and her team. It’s a big moment.”
“It was nice to have a couple years of work [with her] and then finally break through,” Steckley says of the career highlight. “It’s not easy to get deep into the second week of a Grand Slam. It was exciting and that was a big moment and big realization that I’m on to something. Hopefully [there is] more to come.”
Steckley uttered those hopeful words over the phone, just a week before Yaroslava Shvedova upset Safarova in the first round of the Australian Open. But her tournament didn’t end there.
Safarova went on to win her first Grand Slam title — a doubles title with her good friend and first time partner, American Bethanie Mattek-Sands. Steckley and Mattek-Sands’ husband are good friends and suggested the two ladies pair up on the doubles court. Turned out to be a great suggestion.
The past six months, have been unforgettable for Steckley and Safarova: a Wimbledon semifinal, a Fed Cup title with the Czech Republic, a career-high ranking of no. 14 in the world, and a doubles Grand Slam title. With a growing confidence and evolving game, Steckley and Safarova’s next goal is to crack into the Top 10.
So Canada, while Genie Bouchard and Milos Raonic didn’t advance past the quarterfinals in Melbourne, this bright-eyed, smiling, surfer dude-like Canadian did and he has a title to prove it.