Parentingaces - The Junior Tennis And College Tennis Podcast

Welcome to Season 12 Episode 27 of the ParentingAces Podcast, a proud member of the Tennis Channel Podcast Network. In this week's podcast, we take a look at a new way to help players get in their fitness training on or off the court.Gemma Coles is a former gymnast in the UK who moved into the coaching arena once her competitive years came to a close. She became very interested in learning how young athletes can maximize their performance by increasing their physical strength, flexibility, and endurance. Shuffle Up Games came about with the help of experts in their respective fields, starting with gymnastics and moving into the tennis arena with the help of former ATP player, Marcus Willis.  Gemma's goal in creating Shuffle Up is to provide a simple way for players to work on a variety of skills with a minimum of equipment while giving players a fun way to compete with family and friends. The game box comes with a variety of game-playing ideas while leaving room for players to create their own games as well.

Welcome to Season 12 Episode 26 of the ParentingAces Podcast, a proud member of the Tennis Channel Podcast Network. In this week's podcast, we revisit the idea of virtual academic learning and do a deep dive into a program based in the UK called Minerva Virtual Academy.Fabian Spiess grew up in the world of soccer - or as he calls it, football. After realizing his professional career had reached its end, he wanted a way to give back to other young athletes and found his way to Minerva, a unique virtual school for children ages 11-18.Fabian works across the entire group of Minerva's offerings (Minerva's Virtual Academy, Minerva Tutors and Minerva Homeschooling) to develop relationships and partnerships with sporting governing bodies, academies and clubs to help deliver an education which is accessible, flexible and manageable for young athletes around their athletic commitments. He also works as a mentor to the student-athletes to help them stay grounded in both their academic and athletic pursuits. Minerva pla

Welcome to Season 12 Episode 25 of the ParentingAces Podcast, a proud member of the Tennis Channel Podcast Network. Todd Widom is back to discuss how junior players can take full advantage of their time away from school to maximize their training.While we realize many junior tennis players are now opting for virtual school, summertime is still a lighter load, academically speaking, and the perfect time to maximize time working on their game both on and off the court.In this episode, Todd talks about how players can best use the summer months to get in peak physical shape, peak mental shape, and peak competitive shape. He discusses specific drills he uses with his players as well as some of the shortcomings he and his team of coaches have recently noticed in the players who come work with them in Florida.To contact Todd or to get information on his training, you can reach him at todd@twtennis.com. If you aren’t already, be sure to follow him on Facebook and Instagram as well.If you’re so inclined, please share

Welcome to Season 12 Episode 24 of the ParentingAces Podcast, a proud member of the Tennis Channel Podcast Network. Tanner Stump is back this week to discuss his upcoming college showcase and why these showcases are so valuable to college-bound junior players.As you may remember from our previous conversation, Tanner is the former Associate Head Coach of the University of Florida Men's Tennis Team and is now working to help educate and mentor other college coaches. To that end, he has tapped into his extensive network to offer a great opportunity to players ages 13-18 who want to play college tennis.The inaugural Slamstox College Tennis Showcase at Michigan State University August 1-3, 2023, is open to boys and girls with a cost of $399 ($349 if you sign up before July 1st). Included are college coach panel discussions for both parents and players, singles and doubles match play in a round-robin format, and time between matches for one-on-one conversations with the college coaches themselves.You may notice th

Welcome to Season 12 Episode 23 of the ParentingAces Podcast, a proud member of the Tennis Channel Podcast Network. This week's episode continues our recent theme around Tennis Parenting with guest Violet Clark.Violet is the mother to 3 tennis-playing adult daughters, all of whom started playing the sport at young ages at a local grassroots program in their hometown of Chicago. Each daughter had different levels of commitment to tennis but all pursued their love of the game into college. While the two oldest Clarks played at the club level in college, the youngest, Gabrielle, went on to Emory University where she played the top position in both singles and doubles and won the NCAA DIII Singles Championship not once but twice in her four years in Atlanta.Throughout her daughters' developmental years, Vi became involved in the sport as a valuable volunteer, starting with the Love to Serve Tennis and Education Foundation and eventually moving into her current role on the National Board of the USTA. She has seen

Welcome to Season 12 Episode 22 of the ParentingAces Podcast, a proud member of the Tennis Channel Podcast Network. This week, Argentinian Tennis Parent, Hernan Chousa, is back to discuss his thoughts on being a better sports parent as well as his latest book, PARENTSHIFT.Being a former top junior and professional player himself, Hernan believed he was the best-equipped person to coach his own sons to tennis success. While things started off just fine, there came a point in their journey that Hernan realized he needed to take a step back in order to salvage what was left of his relationship with his oldest son. It dawned on Hernan that it wasn't his son who needed to change but himself. He began the long journey of self-reflection that eventually led to the healing of their relationship and speaks very candidly about that journey in this week's episode.Be sure to follow Hernan on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/hernanchousa/?hl=en and Twitter at https://twitter.com/chousahernan. His courses are availab

Welcome to Season 12 Episode 21 of the ParentingAces Podcast, a proud member of the Tennis Channel Podcast Network. For this week's pod, Lisa chats with sports parents, Mark and Britt McKinney, about their book, THE DRIVE HOME, and some of the things we can do to be better at this Tennis Parent thing.Mark and Britt have a daughter who participated in competitive cheerleading and a son who still competes in competitive junior golf. They began to realize they each had a role to play in their children's - and their family's - well-being when it came to extra-curricular pursuits and that they weren't doing things as well as they could. They sought counsel from other sports parents but also from highly-successful coaches and business leaders to improve their own sports parenting skills. As they gathered information, they realized other sports parents could likely benefit from their new-found knowledge so decided to write a book together.THE DRIVE HOME delves into the common issues all sports parents face when help

Welcome to Season 12 Episode 20 of the ParentingAces Podcast, a proud member of the Tennis Channel Podcast Network. This week's guests are two former Division I college tennis coaches - Danielle McNamara (Yale) and Tanner Stump (University of Florida) who have taken their expertise to the private sector and are now working with players and coaches on an individual level to continue to grow and improve the college tennis landscape.When Danielle reached out to me about tackling the topic of growth over results on the podcast, I couldn't wait to get these two behind the mic! As Danielle wrote, "[Tanner and I] were having this really interesting conversation on our thoughts, experiences and beliefs on the need for players (and parents!!) to focus on the long game (e.g. development) over wins today. It seems like so many parents are putting so much pressure on kids to perform so they can 'make it' to the name brand school rather than the process of improvement. Sounds cliche but something I think the two of us rea

Welcome to Season 12 Episode 19 of the ParentingAces Podcast, a proud member of the Tennis Channel Podcast Network. This week, Lisa chats with Australian tennis enthusiast, Ric Curnow, about his solution to players ducking matches because of a potential negative impact on their UTR.Since the dawn of junior tennis ratings and rankings, we've seen players opt out of certain tournaments or matches due to fear of losing to a lower-ranked or lower-rated player. Rather than focusing on the benefits to be gained from playing any and all matches, some coaches, parents, and players only focus on outcomes which doesn't serve anyone well.Ric saw this happening over and over again with Tennis Australia tournaments and wanted to create a solution that could show players (and parents and coaches!) whether a match would be UTR-positive, UTR-neutral, or UTR-negative based on the ratings of the two players involved and the resulting final score. Tennis Neutral was born!Players can now input their own UTR and that of their upc

Welcome to Season 12 Episode 18 of the ParentingAces Podcast, a proud member of the Tennis Channel Podcast Network. This week Lisa chats with Haitham Eletrabi, co-founder and CEO of Tennibot.We all know the pain of picking up tons of balls during a lesson or ball machine session. It takes up time and energy that could be better spent working on your game. Tennibot is a company that builds robotic assistants for sports. It won TechCrunch Disrupt in Berlin 2017, was a finalist in the Silicon Valley Robotics competition in 2018, and has won multiple awards since, including the 2021 European Product Design Top Design Award and the Wingfield Tennis Innovation Award in 2022.Haitham is a tennis player himself and has captained many USTA teams that won the local chapters and made it to the state (the last team was in 2022). He also currently serves as a board member for the Auburn (Alabama) USTA league. His passion and love for the game come through loud and clear!For more information via video on Tennibot, go to htt

Welcome to Season 12 Episode 17 of the ParentingAces Podcast, a proud member of the Tennis Channel Podcast Network. In this episode, the ITA's Dave Mullins is back to discuss what's happening in the world of College Tennis and to update us on new and returning initiatives to look forward to.Dave Mullins is the Managing Director of the ITA. As such he works closely with the Tennis For America (TFA) program as well as other areas of the organization and is an incredible resource for us at ParentingAces. In this week’s episode, Dave updates us on the ITA Summer Circuit, ITA's partnership with the USTA and World Tennis Number (WTN), the joint NCAA Championships later this month, and other upcoming events in the works.For more information on Tennis for America, go to https://www.tennisforamerica.com. To see the 2023 ITA Summer Circuit schedule, go to https://www.wearecollegetennis.com/championships/summer-circuit/. For more information on the ITA, go to https://www.wearecollegetennis.com. You can reach Dave Mullin

Welcome to Season 12 Episode 16 of the ParentingAces Podcast, a proud member of the Tennis Channel Podcast Network. In this episode, Lisa chats again with Coach Peter Scales, creator of the Compete, Learn, Honor approach to junior tennis development and author of the new Raising Aces series on ParentingAces.com.Coach Pete is a highly-respected coach who works with players of all levels with a focus on high-school players and college-bound athletes. He has graciously offered to create a series of articles for the ParentingAces website to help parents better navigate the junior and college tennis journey. The first installment is now online at https://parentingaces.com/articles.For more information on Coach Pete, be sure to visit his website at https://www.competelearnhonor.com/. You can reach out to him directly via email at scalespc@gmail.com. Be sure to check back periodically for updates to Pete's series!If you’re so inclined, please share this – and all our episodes! – with your tennis community. You can s

Welcome to Season 12 Episode 15 of the ParentingAces Podcast, a proud member of the Tennis Channel Podcast Network. This week, Lisa chats with Stanford Men's Tennis player, Anders Matta, and the creator of CoachU, Adrian Levitt, about leveraging NIL opportunities to help both college and junior players.If you've been listening to the podcast for a while, you know how Lisa feels about the importance of mentors, both for coaches and for parents and players. CoachU is filling a void by creating a platform where college players can take advantage of the still new NIL rules to earn money while in school AND junior players can be mentored by these more-experienced players who are living the life they aspire to.Adrian grew up in a tennis family and saw his brother go through the entire junior and college tennis process. Anders is currently a college player, balancing academics and tennis at Stanford while trying to gain some work experience that will help him get a job after he graduates.In this episode, you will he

Welcome to Season 12 Episode 14 of the ParentingAces Podcast, a proud member of the Tennis Channel Podcast Network. This week's episode is all about using virtual reality to enhance tennis training and recovery.Yannick Yoshizawa and Nick Monroe are tennis veterans. From playing junior and college tennis to coaching, they have seen the sport change and develop over the years. One thing was missing, though - finding a way to use virtual reality (VR) technology effectively to help tennis athletes reach their full potential. So Yannick and his team of developers created Sense Arena, enlisting the expertise and guidance of coaches like Nick and players like Jennifer Brady to ensure a positive and beneficial user experience.Sense Arena’s groundbreaking technology provides tennis players of all ages and abilities with enhanced visualization, allowing them to improve the mental aspects of their game such as anticipation and decision-making skills. Using VR goggles and a haptic racquet, players can train their body an

Welcome to Season 12 Episode 13 of the ParentingAces Podcast, a proud member of the Tennis Channel Podcast Network. Lavie Sak rejoins the podcast to share V2 of the ADV Tennis Bag and ADV Tennis Backpack. Be sure to catch the video version of this one on ParentingAces.com!Making a better mousetrap has always been at the core of entrepreneurship, and Lavie's latest creations are no exception. His team of engineers and designers have reimagined the ordinary tennis bag to create an iteration that solves for so many common issues such as where to store wet clothes and how to keep drinks cool.And the story behind ADV Tennis is a great one! If you missed our last podcast with Lavie, I encourage you to check it out at https://parentingaces.com/articles/reimagining-tennis-essentials-ft-lavie-sak/. The show notes include a link to a very inspirational video that speaks to the philanthropic aspect of ADV Tennis.To learn more and to pre-order your bag(s), go to www.advtennis.pro. You can contact Lavie directly with any

Welcome to Season 12 Episode 12 of the ParentingAces Podcast, a proud member of the Tennis Channel Podcast Network. Chase Hodges, Vice President at Universal Tennis, joins us this week to discuss his company's role in junior, high school, and college tennis. I highly recommend you watch the video version on ParentingAces.com so you can get a better understanding of how to use Universal Tennis.As the former Men's & Women's Head Coach at NAIA powerhouse, Georgia Gwinnett College, Chase Hodges knows recruiting and college tennis. When he decided to retire from college coaching, the move to Universal Tennis seemed the perfect next step. Since Summer 2022, Chase has been working hard to ensure junior, high school, and college coaches have the tools and tournament structure they need to develop players to their highest potential.Each week, it seems, Chase and Universal Tennis are announcing new initiatives to help players, parents, and coaches maximize opportunities to learn and compete. Whether it's the Junior

Welcome to Season 12 Episode 11 of the ParentingAces Podcast, a proud member of the Tennis Channel Podcast Network. This week, we are chatting with the former Head Women's Tennis Coach at Emory University, Amy Bryant, who has moved into the executive coaching and recruiting support space with her company, Bryant College Coaching.Amy shares her knowledge and experience regarding college tennis recruiting and its ever-changing landscape, especially now due to the adoption of the World Tennis Number (WTN) by both USTA and ITA. Her no-nonsense approach to junior development and recruiting is 100% in line with what we've heard from other junior and college coaches as well as industry experts, so I'm hoping you'll take it to heart and stay focused on improving just 1% each day. At the end of the day, the best college coaches are looking for players who will fit into their team culture and work hard for the betterment of the team. And the responsibility lies with each junior player to reach out to coaches for whom t

Welcome to Season 12 Episode 10 of the ParentingAces Podcast, a proud member of the Tennis Channel Podcast Network. Coach Todd Widom is back with us to shed some light on why tour players don't always make the best junior coaches.Many of you have had the good fortune to see former professional tennis players come to your local club or academy or other facility and offer to work with developing juniors. Sometimes they make great coaches right away, using the lessons they've learned throughout their development and career to teach younger players how to be successful on and off the court. But sometimes they need time to develop into effective coaches, and sometimes that never happens for them.Todd and I discuss what questions parents should be asking of these former pro players to ensure they are the right fit to coach your particular child. It's not rocket science, but we just don't want you to let their star power impact your judgement in this very important decision.To contact Todd or to get information on h

Welcome to Season 12 Episode 9 of the ParentingAces Podcast, a proud member of the Tennis Channel Podcast Network. This week we welcome Coach Tim Noonan to discuss his very interesting proposal to discourage cheating in junior tennis.Several years ago, Tim wrote an article (click here to read in full) with some thoughts on why junior players cheat and what we as a sport can do to put a stop to it. I came across Tim's article in an industry newsletter I get each month and immediately reached out to him to invite him on the podcast.Tim and I moved in the same circles in Atlanta. Tim is behind the very successful Universal Tennis Academy (UTA) with multiple locations in the metro Atlanta area and has played and coached tennis at every level from beginners to high-performance juniors to college to adult league players. He's seen it all when it comes to on- and off-court behavior and has felt the same frustration as the rest of us in terms of the continual cheating and lack of meaningful consequences.Please take t

Welcome to Season 12 Episode 8 of the ParentingAces Podcast, a proud member of the Tennis Channel Podcast Network. This week we return to our recent discussions around UTR, WTN, and what that means for junior tennis and college recruiting with guest Chris Lewit.Chris Lewit is a former number one for Cornell and pro-circuit player. He is a high-performance coach, educator, and the author of two best-selling books: The Secrets of Spanish Tennis (2014) The Tennis Technique Bible Chris has coached numerous top 10 nationally-ranked players and is known for his expertise in building the foundations of young prodigies. Chris coaches in NYC and year-round at his high-performance tennis academy in Manchester, Vermont, where players can live and train the Spanish Way full-time or short-term.Chris has studied the various rating systems currently in use and has some very definite thoughts on how players, parents, and coaches should be using them.To listen to the podcast that led to this conversation, visit https://podcas