Tennisnerd - Where we bond over tennis

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/

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

Dr. Zach Thomas has built a significant following on social media as "Foot Doctor Zach," where he tests tennis and basketball shoes. Dr. Zach is a board-certified Podiatrist and Foot and Ankle Surgeon. In this podcast, we talk about his favorite tennis shoes, things to look for in finding the right shoe, and why pros rarely upgrade their shoes.

Henrik Wallensten is a racquet reviewer and tennis reporter for the Swedish Magazine. He is also a stringer for the Swedish Davis Cup team and plays with success on the ITF Masters Tour. Once in a while, we catch up on racquets, strings and tennis in general. This podcast also discusses our recent trip with Adidas to Paris.

Karue is a former #33 best junior player in the world, #371 ATP professional, and former UCLA college tennis standout. He co-founded My Tennis HQ and regularly shares his tennis knowledge and experience on his YouTube channel. He is also currently on the team of ATP pro Marcos Giron. In this episode, we talk about his career as a player, coach, and YouTuber. We also get into "tennisnerdy" topics like racquets, strings, and how your equipment can mold your game.

Nikola Aracic is a former top 40 NCAA D1 college player and tennis coach with 25 years of experience. He is one of the leading coaches on YouTube and has built a devoted following thanks to his straightforward approach and coaching methods. In this podcast, we talk about everything from how he got started, to racquets and strings, if it's too late to become a pro and much more.

Evan Gaudreau is a former D1 college player and coach who has developed a quite unique way of looking at tennis. We have talked about his box system and patterns of play in several podcasts before this one, but now he has put his thoughts down into a book called Shell Game. Check it out on Amazon.

Michelle is familiar with most people who follow the world of tennis gear. She is a play-tester, content creator, and podcaster for Tennis Warehouse. Make sure to check out her podcast, Talk Tennis! This conversation goes from racquets to shoes to wine and many other topics. We hope you like it, please subscribe if you do!

I sit down with Troy Lara, one of the long-timers at Tennis Warehouse and an integral part of their play-testing and content team. We talk about how he started at TW, his racquet history and compare our thoughts on recent releases.

Gear tester Henrik Wallensten joins me again on the podcast to discuss his latest batch of test racquets, balls, shoes, and strings. Henrik has contributed reviews to Tennisnerd, the Swedish Tennis Magazine, and strings for the Swedish Davis Cup team. He also likes pizza.

Rick Macci is a legendary coach from the US. He has won the USPTA national coach of the year seven times and trained five number-one-ranked players:

Andy Roddick, Jennifer Capriati, Maria Sharapova, Serena Williams, and Venus Williams. We talk about his coaching career, the King Richard movie, his latest passion project, and much more!

For this episode, I am joined by Will Hamilton, one of the co-founders of Fuzzy Yellow Balls. He was one of the first tennis content creators on YouTube and has since created and sold loads of instructional tennis content with stars like the Bryan Brothers and Martina Navratilova. This podcast went all over the place, from YouTube CPM levels to why Alcaraz's drop shot strategy should be copied (according to data). 

If you watch tennis gear reviews, I am sure you are familiar with Chris Edwards and his team. He has worked on content for Tennis Warehouse products for over 20 years. We met in Kennelbach, but didn't have time to sit down for a recorded interview. But we managed to do a longer one over Zoom. I hope you like it!

We cover the review process, racquet history, play-testing and many other topics!

 

This episode is a little different. Phil interviews me from Tweener Head, a tennis youtuber who you should check out. This is the video version of this interview on his channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36XxBOITCEQ

I hope you enjoy this podcast episode! And don't forget to play some tennis...

Henrik Wallensten is back on the podcast to talk about the new Pro Staffs, his experience with the Radicals, the importance of a good bag, why swing weights are too high, and more. I hope you enjoy this episode...

For more tennis, go to Tennisnerd.net