Tennisnerd - Where we bond over tennis

Mark Sansait

Mark Sansait is a part-time tennis coach and runs a YouTube channel where he shares his competitive play, string reviews, and more. He is a regular feature of the Real Tennis channel and the Essential Tennis circuit and plays at 5.0 NTRP level. He is known for his explosive (he calls it "toxic") personality on the court, often resulting in humorous outbursts.

Timestamps

00:00 Intro

01:06 Competing in your 30s or 40s

13:34 Setting goals for improving

15:04 Dealing with losses and fast food

19:37 Tennis background

23:30 An Ode to the Battle in Tennis

26:45 Dealing with calling your own lines

36:12 The benefits of filming yourself

44:27 Levels and ratings in tennis

51:25 Time to talk tennis gear

58:07 The pros and cons of being a tennis Youtuber

1:05:15 Toxic on-court personality

1:15:11 Favorite players

Nikola from Intuitive Tennis is back!

One of your favorite podcast guests, Nikola Aracic, from Intuitive Tennis, is back on the pod! This was a marathon one. Sadly, there were some audio/video sync issues, so the video version covers around 50% of the topics discussed here. But the audio should give you PLENTY of interesting topics to dive into. I hope you like it!

Timestamps:

00:00 We are tennis nerds 
10:00 Tennis is a confidence game
15:54 Playing an ATP pro as an amateur
19:00 Different levels of tennis
35:00 The excitement and pain of competition
47:28 The battle against yourself
1:25:00 Over-the-top celebrations
1:56:48 Gear-talk
2:32:30 How to get more out of Nikola’s coaching

Karue Sell, Part 2

Karue Sell is an ex-pro player who still competes at a high level on the UTR circuit. He is on the Marcos Giron coaching team and runs MyTennisHQ, a popular website and YouTube channel.  He has now released a coaching platform with his friend, ex-pro player Klay Thompson called MPROOV. We talked about how YouTubers hurt your tennis, the experience of playing table tennis with Roger Federer, and much more! Video episode on YouTube.

Podcast with Juan from Restring

Juan is the co-founder of Restring, a company developing tennis strings with a focus on sustainability, durability and snapback. Their first string, Restring Zero, has garnered lots of praise and we sat down to talk about the journey with Restring, developing strings, being a hitting partner to the pros and much more. As always, video episode on YouTube and more tennis on tennisnerd.net

Get 10% off Restring Zero here: https://shoprestring.com/?ref=tennisnerd

US Open Predictions with Coach Karl Adrian

Coach Karl Adrian joins me to go through the US Open draw. "Adri" has been in several Tennisnerd videos, is now on the ATP player Roman Safiullin team, and runs the Tennis Valley Academy in Estepona, Spain. In this episode, we look at the men's and the women's draws and make predictions.

Dylan Gee from Tennis with Dylan

Dylan Gee is a London-based tennis coach who has built a strong following with the Instagram account @tenniswithdylan. He used to play professional tennis and is now mixing tennis coaching with sports modeling and influencer engagements. We talk about his passion for coaching, meeting Alcaraz, the rise of Chinese tennis, and much more.

Stringing on tour with Nikki Roenn

I sit down with my friend, ex-pro, and stringer, Nikki Roenn. We talk about the conditions for stringers and his recent experiences stringing at tour events.

Davor Dekaris, Tennis Haus

Davor Dekaris is a tennis director of Tchefuncta Country Club in Covington, Louisiana. He is an ex-pro player turned tennis coach who has had significant success with his brand Tennis Haus. We talk about everything from professional tennis life, to coaching club players, the state of tennis, and content creation.

Meike Babel, former top 30 WTA player

Meike Babel is a former WTA top 30 player who now works as a coach and is building a strong online following. She is refreshingly open and honest, and we had a great conversation, which I hope you all will enjoy! If you do, please subscribe to the podcast.

 

Grisha Kuklin, Gladiators Tennis

Grigory "Grisha" Kuklin is an aspiring pro player and content creator with his brand name Gladiators Tennis. He has been a hitting partner to top pros like Medvedev and Rublev and documents his journey on the ITF Tour on his YouTube channel. He is refreshingly honest and energetic, and we had a lot of fun in this hour of conversation.

When tennis becomes therapy with Sarah Koudouzian

Sarah Koudouzian is a bestselling author and fitness entrepreneur. She was once a high-ranked aspiring pro, but a nasty injury crushed her tennis dreams, and she had to find herself outside the tennis court. In this podcast, we talk about her journey outside tennis and how she found the sport again when she needed it most.

You can check out her book here: https://amzn.to/3rCh3P7
And her Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/sarahkoudouzian

Simon Konov, Top Tennis Training

Top Tennis Training is leading the charge of online tennis training on YouTube. The company is run by Simon Konov and Alex Slabinsky, two former tennis pros. They reach more than 350k subscribers on their YouTube channels and have amassed 200 million video views and 100 000 online students. I talked to founder Simon Konov about their journey on YouTube, the brutality of being a lower-ranked tennis pro and we also get some top tennis training tips for club level players.

Ian Westermann, Essential Tennis

Ian Westermann is one of the leading tennis coaches and personalities on YouTube. He has created educational tennis content for 14 years and built a large following. He has recently also written a book about improving as a tennis player called Essential Tennis: https://amzn.to/3PH9Vee

Rick Macci on Wimbledon, AI, Novak and more

I had the fortune to sit down with star coach Rick Macci to discuss Wimbledon, the addition of AI, Novak's legacy, Raducanu, and much more.

The video version is available on YouTube: https://youtu.be/3K9RBvFRff4

Find out more about Rick and his incredible coaching career: https://rickmacci.com/

Christopher Clarey, Author of the Federer biography, The Master

I am joined by Christopher Clarey, a sports journalist who spent over 30 years at the New York Times and did many personal interviews with Roger Federer. This prompted him to write the Federer biography, "The Master", which has become a bestseller. Now he is working on a book about Rafa Nadal and has recently left the Times and started a Substack. We talk about his work, tennis, media, and even get into racquets.

Check out The Master: https://amzn.to/3CRhfMU
Christopher's newsletter: https://substack.com/@christopherclarey