Parentingaces - The Junior Tennis And College Tennis Podcast

Welcome to Season 8, Episode 47 of the ParentingAces Podcast! This week, you will learn about a new app that brings Artificial Intelligence to the tennis court, allowing not only for score-keeping and match stats but also in-depth analysis, coaching, and social networking. Swupnil Sahai started playing tennis with his younger brother at an early age. He went on to play for his high school team then played recreationally throughout college and graduate school, always maintaining a great love of the sport both as a player and as a fan.  As a side project during college, Swupnil and a buddy developed an app for the newly-emerging Apple Watch to keep score and capture stats while playing tennis. Their little side project has now morphed into Swing Tennis, a highly-intelligent app for IOS devices that does what Hawkeye does . . . and more! Both James Blake and Andy Roddick were so impressed by this new technology that they became not only investors but also consultants as new features are developed and added to th

Welcome to Season 8, Episode 46 of the ParentingAces Podcast! This week we are talking nutrition, but not in the way you might think! Andrew Golub is a founding and managing member of ArrowBar. Andrew earned his Bachelor of Science Degree with a focus on Business Management from the University of Miami. Following graduation Andrew started Golub Tennis, which is now one of the most successful tennis academies in Florida. Andrew gained invaluable skills through his experiences as a highly ranked junior tennis player and scholarship athlete, as well as a four year letterman at The University of Miami, which lead him to be voted a two-time team captain. In twelve years of business, Golub Tennis has impacted the lives of hundreds of children who have come through the program, more than 120 of whom have received college scholarships to universities across the country. Andrew, along with a few of his tennis compatriots, has used his experience as a player to help develop ArrowBar. In this week's episode, he shares t

Welcome to Season 8 Episode 45 of the ParentingAces Podcast! In this week's show, I chat with Matt Manasse, former Purdue standout and current Tennis Coach. Matt has a unique perspective on the role of the Player, Parent, and Coach. Having now coached at the college, professional, and junior levels, Matt shares his insights on the similarities and differences in  coaching at the different levels. I think you'll find his approach interesting and thought-provoking! Matt is now co-hosting his own tennis-themed podcast called Double Fault which you can find on Spotify here. If you'd like to email him, his address is matt.manasse@gmail.com. You can find him on Twitter and Instagram @Matt_Manasse.  As always, a big thank you to Morgan Stone, aka STØNE, for our intro and outro music this season. You can find more of his music at SoundCloud.com/stonemuzic. If you’re interested in House Music, please be sure to check out his social media channels on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram.  If you’re so inclined, please share th

Carlos Silva joined World TeamTennis (WTT) as CEO in Jan of 2019 to lead the organization forward. He led expansion team efforts in Las Vegas and Orlando. He also led the efforts to partner with CBS Sports and ESPN to broadcast the WTT in 2019.  A veteran media and digital executive, Silva has built and sold companies in the TV and Media convergence space over the last 25 years. He has also raised more than $250M for the startups that he has operated. Prior to WTT, Silva served as CEO for the World Series of Fighting for three years, beginning in August of 2015. He led the sale of the MMA property to new investors, staying on as President of the newly named Professional Fighters League (PFL) until Jan. 2018, following the success of season one of the PFL MMA season format. PFL is one of the top three MMA properties. Silva served as President of Back9Network beginning in an Jan. 2013, where he led day to day operations of the golf-lifestyle focused network as it grew its digital audience, launched on DirecTV,

Welcome to Season 8, Episode 43 of the ParentingAces Podcast! This week's guest is Jack Newman, founder of the Austin Tennis Academy in Austin, Texas.Not only is the ATA turning out excellent tennis players, but it is also turning out excellent Human Beings. The academy was founded with the idea of using tennis to teach children how to be good World Citizens, and Jack and his staff impart those lessons each day through work on and off the court. You will hear Jack talk about the community service efforts he and ATA are committed to on a daily basis as well as how the academy provides opportunities for the junior players and their families to learn and grow together. For more information on the Austin Tennis Academy, visit its website here and follow on Twitter, Facebook, and/or Instagram.As always, a big thank you to Morgan Stone, aka STØNE, for our intro and outro music this season. You can find more of his music at SoundCloud.com/stonemuzic. If you’re interested in House Music, please be sure to check out h

Welcome to Season 8, Episode 42 of the ParentingAces Podcast! This week I chat with Dave Mullins about his recent Masters Thesis research around which players improve as tennis players during college and what specific qualities they possess. I will likely be driving across the US as you listen to this week's episode! Dave is a former top college tennis player himself who moved into college coaching after a brief run in the World of Finance. He coached on both the men's and women's sides and brings incredible knowledge and experience to his latest role as the Managing Director of Community Engagement and Coach Empowerment at the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA). In this week's episode, Dave shares with us some of what's on tap for the ITA in the coming months in terms of recruiting information, coach support, player support, and even parent support. He also shares the insights he gleaned from his research into what attributes are common among those college tennis players who improve the most during the

Welcome to Season 8, Episode 41 of the ParentingAces Podcast! In this week's show, I chat with Bella Heidenreich, a former Division I college tennis player who experienced a career-ending injury during her first semester at James Madison University. Note: There are a few 4-letter words in this week's episode which I chose to leave in, so please use care when sharing with young children. Any time a young athlete is side-lined due to injury, it is emotionally stressful on top of being physically painful. When the injured athlete falls under the jurisdiction of a college coach and trainer, there are additional factors that may come into play.  Bella went through a series of challenges and obstacles while trying to recover from a fluke foot injury that happened her first month in college. Being far away from home, she dealt with the incident in the best way she knew how and shares that experience with us this week.  My conversation with Bella is the first in an effort to bring Truth to Tennis. We often try to sug

Welcome to Season 8, Episode 40 of the ParentingAces Podcast! This week is all about Tennis Technology, specifically, AccuTennis, and how collecting data can help our junior players develop more fully. AccuTennis is a new on-court automated camera and player analysis technology that enables game-based play for all players. It can be used by clubs and other facilities to call lines, run drills, keep score, livestream matches, scout opponents, and review play. Building trust in the system has been one of AccuTennis's biggest challenges to date, and getting organizations - like the ITF and USTA - to approve its use in official tournaments is a work in progress. In terms of Junior Development and how AccuTennis can help, the technology "chunks" matches into usable video that can be sorted by stroke, spin, score, etc. For coaches, this makes watching a student's match video doable in terms of time commitment and takes the onus off the player or parent to edit a full match before seeking input from the coach. For p

Welcome to Season 8, Episode 39 of the ParentingAces Podcast! This week, we're talking Team Tennis and how our Junior players can benefit from it. My guest is Tammy Anderson, a long-time tennis player and tennis coach who, most recently, coached a team at the U12 Southern Cup (click here to go to the tournament page). She is also the chief financial officer and executive board member of the Women's Tennis Coaching Association (WTCA). Tammy shares her thoughts on what makes these top-level team events so great for developing Juniors and how they can help grow the sport through engaging the players with their peers of both genders.  For more information on the Southern Cup across all age divisions, click here.  You can reach Tammy Anderson via email at tanderson@springhurst.com or tammy@wtcatennis.org or via text at 859-409-0554.  For more information on the Top Gun Academy at the Springhurst Tennis Club, click here. To find your sectional USTA TSA and Junior Competition Manager, go to our Guide to the USTA Web

Welcome to Season 8 Episode 38 of the ParentingAces Podcast! In this week's episode, I sit down with veteran tennis journalist Joel Drucker to talk about this year's US Open Junior players and his thoughts on their future prospects in the college and pro game. According to his profile on the Tennis Channel website, Joel Drucker has been writing about tennis since 1982 for a variety of magazines and broadcast outlets. He has been part of Tennis Channel's team since the network stared airing in 2003, including work as story editor at all of the Grand Slam events, as well with various documentaries and special projects. Most recently, he was story editor-researcher for the network's "Barnstormers" documentary. In 2016, Joel was named a historian-at-large by the International Tennis Hall of Fame. Drucker’s tennis work spans the worlds of professional and recreational tennis – history, news, player profiles, psychology, instruction, travel, humor and participatory experiences. On the court, he has been berated by

Welcome to Season 8, Episode 37 of the ParentingAces Podcast! My guest this week is Coach Todd Widom discussing how he helped his player, Ronnie Hohmann, prepare for the US Open Juniors. A big thank-you to Colette Lewis of ZooTennis for the photo! Of course, it's "just another junior tournament". However, winning the US Open Juniors is often a stepping stone to a successful collegiate and professional career, so preparing properly can be key. For Ronnie, this is literally his Home Slam since he grew up very close to the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, and there might be some added pressure on him as local friends and family come out to see him play. Handling that pressure, according to Todd, will be one of the keys to Ronnie's success this week. As promised in the podcast, here are links to the ITF and USTA Pro Circuit Tournament pages:  USTA Pro Circuit Events ITF Events - Men ITF Events - Women If you would like to contact Todd Widom, you can find him on Facebook and Instagram or email him at todd@

Welcome to Season 8, Episode 36 of the ParentingAces Podcast. In this week's episode, we hear from the 2019 ITA Division I Arthur Ashe Leadership & Sportsmanship Award Winner Isaac Perez and his college coach Dan Oosterhous. Apologies for the poor sound quality - we recorded this episode while sitting outside during Arthur Ashe Kids Day and it was just a little noisy out there! Coming from a military family, it wasn't so far-fetched that Isaac Perez would look to the military academies to further his education and tennis career. While he was a solid 4-star recruit according to TennisRecruiting.net, he knew he wanted to fly jets once he completed his college degree. Air Force Academy Men's Coach Dan Oosterhous said he could tell right away that Isaac would be a great fit for his academy and his team. He noticed leadership qualities in Isaac from the first time they met and was thrilled to nominate Isaac for the prestigious ITA award. You will hear from both Isaac and Coach Oosterhous about what's involved

Welcome to Season 8, Episode 35 of the ParentingAces Podcast! In this week's episode, Creator Lisa Stone, gives a brief update on what's happening at ParentingAces and what's coming on the website and podcast during the 2019 US Open.If you are going to be in New York for either Lisa's Tennis Parent Recruiting Session (click here for more info) or the US Open, please let her know so you can connect. You can reach her via email at lisa@parentingaces.com. You can also message her on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.As always, a big thank you to Morgan Stone, aka STØNE, for our intro and outro music this season! You can find more of his music at SoundCloud.com/stonemuzic. If you're interested in House Music, please be sure to check out his social media channels: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. For those of you in the San Francisco area, he is performing August 23rd at 1015 Folsom starting at 10pm. Click here for more information and to purchase tickets.If you're so inclined, please share this – and all our episodes

Welcome to Season 8 Episode 34 of the ParentingAces Podcast! This week, we hear from Todd Widom about the work he's been doing this summer with juniors from all across the US and the developmental shortfalls he's had to work on with them. It turns out, several of you ParentingAces Listeners have reached out to Todd over the past couple of years. Several of you have even sent your kids down to Florida to work with him either short-term or long-term.  In this week's episode, Todd talks about some of the things he sees when he gets a new player, what he does to help players improve, and how he works with their full-time coach to keep things moving in the right direction.  You can reach Todd via email at todd@twtennis.com or via phone at 854-296-5610. Be sure to follow him on both Facebook and Instagram.  As always, a big thank you to my son, Morgan Stone, aka STØNE, for our intro and outro music this season! You can find more of his music at SoundCloud.com/stonemuzic. If you're interested in House Music, please

Welcome to Season 8 Episode 33 of the ParentingAces Podcast! Jimmy Bendeck started playing tennis at a young age after growing up watching his parents play at the local courts in South Florida. After having early success as a Junior Player, he developed a serious injury that kept him out of the game for over 4 years. In this week's episode, Jimmy talks about overcoming injury and working to restore his tennis level so he could fulfill his dream of playing high level Division I tennis. After competing for four years at Baylor, Jimmy is finishing his degree this summer then embarking on a professional tennis career.  To that end, Jimmy is using his college degree in finance to creatively fund his first year on tour. To read more about Jimmy's plan, you can find his Make A Champ website here: https://makeachamp.com/jimmybendeck. If you are interested in making a donation, click here. Don't miss your chance to participate in our upcoming Tennis Parent Recruiting Panel at the WTCA Conference in New York August 23,

Welcome to Season 8 Episode 32 of the ParentingAces Podcast! Before embarking on a professional tennis career, Danielle Lao had an outstanding 4 years as part of the women's tennis team at USC. She was an All-American in Singles and won multiple doubles titles throughout her time in college. She wrote a book about her experiences entitled THE INVALUABLE EXPERIENCE. Since graduating in 2013, Danielle has been out on tour, working her way up the rankings as she confronts and conquers the various challenges that entails. In this week's episode, Danielle shares her junior tennis development, her experiences at USC, and how she has been managing as a professional athlete. There is a lot of wisdom in her words both for parents and for players themselves. You can follow Danielle on the various social media outlets: Twitter: @TheLittleGiant Facebook: facebook.com/danielle.lao Instagram: instagram.com/thelittlegiant A quick reminder about our upcoming Tennis Parent Recruiting Panel at the WTCA Conference in New York A

Welcome to Season 8 Episode 31 of the ParentingAces Podcast! This week we are discussing Division III recruiting with Jordan Brown. Jordan Brown is Assistant Dean of Admission & Coordinator of Student-Athlete Recruitment at Occidental College. In his role he works with both coaches and prospective student-athletes as they navigate the college admission and recruitment process. Jordan is also a tennis enthusiast, who played for both Fordham University and Occidental College. He holds a bachelor's degree from Occidental College and a master's degree in education policy from Columbia. Jordan shares his experience and insights about what sets Division III apart and why recruiting at this level may be different from Division I. He talks about the academic and athletic requirements to gain admission to a DIII university as well as funding options available.  If you have further questions for Jordan about Occidental or about DIII recruiting in general, you can reach him via email at brownj@oxy.edu. A quick remi

Welcome to Season 8, Episode 30 of the ParentingAces Podcast! In this week's episode, I chat with Jeff Puhan about how junior players can best prepare to play at the National Clay Court Tournament. Coach Jeff Puhan has been in the tennis business for over 25 years and has worked alongside of some of the best coaches, fitness trainers, mental coaches, and players in the tennis world. Throughout his years in the Coaching Business, he has coached 9 different National USTA Champions, 4 Top 20 ITF ranked players, 4 NCAA All- Americans, 2 NCAA National Champions, and many who have gone on to play on the WTA and ATP tour. All of which is to say, he knows of which he speaks! Jeff gives us details about what it takes for a junior player to prepare, both mentally and physically, to compete on the clay. Specifically, he talks about how he gets players ready for the USTA National Clay Court Tournament going on now in various locations in the Southeastern US. He will also be training players for Kalamazoo, just FYI! If yo

Welcome to Season 8, Episode 29, of the ParentingAces Podcast! My guest this week is Coach Bill Patton, and we discuss the concept of the athlete-centered coach. Most Tennis Parents struggle with identifying the "right" coach for their child and may make several "wrong" choices along the way. In this week's episode, Bill talks with us about what an athlete-centered coach is, why these coaches may be preferable to others in the field, and how parents can recognize the difference. Bill has written several books over the past few years, even co-authoring one with Yours Truly. Most of them are available on the ParentingAces shop at Amazon.com. But, to order his latest, The Athlete-Centered Coach, click here. To buy an autographed copy of Bill's latest book, email him directly at 720degreecoaching@gmail.com. Subscribe to Bill's YouTube Channel here. For those interested in learning more about the Omni Athlete concept, Bill will be at its upcoming event July 19-21, 2019. Find out more here. Bill mentions the Sports

Welcome to Season 8, Episode 28, of the ParentingAces Podcast! This week, my guest is Marianne Werdel. Several weeks ago, I read an article on Marianne's website discussing Toni Nadal aka Uncle Toni and his approach to developing his nephew's tennis game. Marianne had shared her article on the ParentingAces Facebook Group, and it sparked several communications between the two of us regarding junior tennis development and the parents' role in the process. Marianne is a former junior champion and collegiate player (Stanford University) who went on to have a very long - and very successful - professional tennis career. She is now a certified coach and works closely with the USTA to help educate parents on the junior development pathway. Marianne draws on her personal experiences in the sport as well as her personal experiences as a parent to inform her work with USTA and her own website. In this week's podcast, Marianne and I dig a little deeper into what it means to raise a champion human, not just a champion t