Christian Straka has been in tennis for 40 years. He competed as a player at the professional level before a career-ending injury led him into coaching, serving as head coach at the Hofsaess Tennis Academy in Spain for six years before devoting his work to mental performance at the professional level.
The players he has worked with have won at the highest levels of the sport. Victoria Azarenka reached world number one in the juniors and took her Grand Slam titles during their time together. Mike Bryan won the 2018 ATP Finals alongside Jack Sock with Christian as his mindfulness coach. Tatjana Maria’s ITF $100K Bratislava title — the breakthrough that launched her WTA career — came during their work together.
The same framework has been validated at scale beyond tennis. As global mindset coach for Adidas Runners for six years, he created the training framework, defined the skills, and designed how they were developed. That framework was deployed by mindset coaches across approximately 80 cities worldwide and reached over 200,000 runners globally.
He currently lectures on mindfulness and athletic performance at USC, where he created the first course of its kind on the subject. He is co-authoring a book on mindfulness and tennis with Mike Bryan and has served as an on-air expert and commentator for Amazon’s Laver Cup broadcast.
His practice is informed by over 15 years of daily mindfulness, ongoing study, and twice-yearly silent retreats, including one conducted in collaboration with the SEMA Lab at the University of Arizona as part of a study on transcranial focused ultrasound (TFUS) and its effects on mindfulness practice and contemplative states.
He is a certified Unified Mindfulness Teacher and teaches the teacher trainings, including the yearlong program for those becoming mindfulness teachers. He is also a member of the International Mindfulness Teachers Association and co-founder of MindSize Sports alongside Julianna Raye, developed in collaboration with Unified Mindfulness.
For the texts and traditions that inform this work, see the reading list and influences.