Courtside Sessions

Greg Patton, a long time college coach with experience in the USA National Collegiate program, opens up his full notebook to share experiences and stories from his life long journey in tennis. He discussed many topics and here is a quick note he had on the college recruiting process: "One thing I think a lot of players have to realize is that good people make good teams." Check out the full episode to hear everything he had to say about recruiting and much more!

Jose Ayala, a former ATP pro, long time junior tennis development specialist, and tennis dad shares some insight in how he mastered the game and the philosophy he has developed as a coach. He had a lot of great insight that he shared in this episode. He had this to say on competition, "you know, you go on the court, somebody has to win and somebody has to lose and most of time it wasn't me. That's what made me strive to be better."

Author, speaker, and entrepreneur, JM Ryerson, who specializes in mindset and leadership shares some insight on his work with professional players and his 17 year old tennis playing son, TJ. He dropped so many gems in this conversation, but one the stuck out was, "You're not going to stop your emotions from happening. Look, you hit a bad shot, you got upset. But how do you respond? If you react, throw your hands in the air, throw your racket, it doesn't do anything and you're giving your opponent confidence

158 views  Sep 29, 2023  Courtside Sessions

Former top junior, UCLA Bruin, world number #1, Grand Slam champion, Mark Knowles, shares his tennis journey and some valuable insight learned along the way. Mark said "I was probably delusional, because literally from 9 to 10 years old I wanted to be #1 in the world and I thought I would be number one in the world. Those were my goals, to be the best tennis player I could be, which, you know, like I said is a little bit delusional, right?

Magda Linette's coach, Mark Gellard, shares insight into his tennis journey coming to the US to play in college and rising through the ranks of high-performance coaching. "I think that to achieve the ranking we've reached, you had to perform well in significant events because the points are heavily weighted. You can win those 250-point events, but you'll only earn 280 points. What she did this year in Australia, reaching the semifinals of the Open and earning 780 points, resulted in a significant jump in the rankings right away. I believe that for junior players as well, much of your potential or success will depend on how effectively you schedule.

University of Illinois rising junior, Kida Ferrari, shares the approach she took to defy the odds and accomplish her dream of playing D1 tennis. "I come from literally the second worst tennis state in the US... There maybe were two other people who went to college for tennis, besides me. So, I had to get creative and build a game plan. There's going to be a lot of threes here - I played 6 days a week, I would do 3 lessons a week, 3 practice sets, 3 days of strength and conditioning, and 3 days of yoga." Stay tuned for more episodes, every Friday at 10 am EST.

Venus Williams coach, Hugo Armando, shares how a growth mindset helped shape his junior, pro, and coahing career. "My dad was my coach back then and I was lucky that he had a growth midset mentality. Yes - the results are great, having a good ranking is awsome, it teaches you to deal with a lot, but the main thing was to devlope your game, get better, and improve. Especially in pressure situations, with the expectation of winning and all the things that surround the game that are so difficult to deal with." Stay tuned for more episodes, every Friday at 10am EST. 

"Parents, they're hard on the kids, they want the best for the kids, but they also expect a lot" - Evan Specht, Co-Founder of Diadem Sports. Listen to the Courtside Sessions Trailer now on all streaming platforms. Official Website | World Class Tennis & Pickleball Goods – Diadem Sports