Tennisnerd - Where we bond over tennis

Tony Wright is a USTPA Elite professional and a teaching pro at the Newport Beach Tennis Club. He runs the brand Balanced Tennis, where his interesting and often humorous clips using film references caught my and many other followers eyes. It turns out he is also a really nice guy and an interesting chat. In this podcast we get into anything from coaching headaches, to the life of being media on the tours and, as well, lots of gear.

Time stamps

00:00 Intro
03:34 Starting tennis late
07:59 Coaching kids vs seniors
16:17 Typical issues among rec players
17:45 Common injuries and racquet choices
22:27 Control racquet over power racquet to improve
25:56 Dealing with injuries
34:34 From creative writing to tennis
40:33 Being a self-taught tennis nerd
44:20 Are there pickleball wars in Newport?
52:37 The state of US tennis
1:00:18 Breakpoint vs ITF Futures
1:09:14 Going behind the scenes
1:19:18 Tony’s racquet(s) of choice
1:25:14 Playing tournaments
1:30:32 Tennis apparel and shoes
1:51:35 Selling tennis as a sport

Felix has become a well-known figure on the professional tennis circuit by documenting his quest for one ATP point on his YouTube channel, Tennis Brothers. We sit down with him after he has just gotten his first point! But the journey doesn't stop there, of course...

Time stamps

00:00 Intro
00:45 Combining tennis career with YouTube
12:20 Tennis and money
20:04 Tennis is too old-fashioned in terms of media
27:00 Is UTS the way to go?
29:35 Next steps in Felix’ journey
35:13 Felix’ maturity as a creator and entrepreneur
38:29 The work behind The Road to an ATP Point
42:55 How he dealt with the dark moments, like the injury period and the loss streak.
47:32 The bubble life of tennis
53:46 Felix racquet setup
1:02:35 There are TWO tennis brothers
1:04:16 The grind of the ITF vs the UTR circuit
1:07:54 How can we help lower-ranked players to make a living and also grow the sport?
1:14:48 Tennis has a marketing problem. We need more drama!
1:23:22 The varying conditions on the ITF circuit
1:30:35 Will we see other pros try to copy the Road to ATP format?
1:39:03 Do fans come up to you and ask for autographs?
1:44:57 Did you ever break a racquet?
1:49:26 Calling your own lines in ITF qualifiers

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

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 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.

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

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 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.

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 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 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.

 

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.

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

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 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