ParentingAces - The Junior Tennis and College Tennis Podcast

Welcome to Season 15 Episode 40 of the ParentingAces Podcast! Most families misunderstand what college tennis actually demands, and that misunderstanding can cost a player the right opportunity. Eric Dobsha pulls back the curtain on the reality of high-level Division I tennis, why international recruiting is not a new problem, and how parents can make smarter college choices for their children. Er...

Welcome to Season 15 Episode 39 of the ParentingAces Podcast! Tennis should build confident kids, not exhausted robots. Adriana Dino shares the coaching philosophy that helps young players grow into thinkers, leaders, and lifelong fans of the game—while showing parents exactly when to step back and when to lean in. Born and raised in Romania, Adriana started with a wooden racket, a straight-talkin...

Welcome to Season 15 Episode 38 of the ParentingAces Podcast! What if the biggest mistake in college tennis recruiting is treating tournament results like player development? Lisa Stone and tennis parent Jennifer Faulkner unpack the hard lesson every tennis family needs to hear: UTR, rankings, and constant travel are not the same thing as real growth. Jennifer shares the full arc of her family’s t...

Welcome to Season 15 Episode 37 of the ParentingAces Podcast! What can stepping into the unknown teach you about life beyond tennis? Lisa Stone and Levi Hecht talk about the courage to do difficult, scary things when you cannot predict the outcome - because the biggest opportunities often begin outside your comfort zone. Drawing on Levi’s experiences in Brazil and Argentina, the conversation looks...

Welcome to Season 15 Episode 36 of the ParentingAces Podcast! Former top junior and Division I tennis player Cassandra Torian joins Lisa Stone to discuss how tennis shaped her resilience, independence, and entrepreneurial mindset. Cassandra also shares the stories behind Ruley AI, a rules-reference tool for racket sports and youth sports, and Volleybird, a subscription box featuring gear and produ...

Welcome to Season 15 Episode 35 of the ParentingAces Podcast! This week, Lisa talks with Amaury Blondet, a tennis parent, entrepreneur, and creator of PathTennis, about the real-world problems that led him to build a platform for competitive tennis families, coaches, academies, and college teams. They dig into the communication gaps, tournament-planning chaos, and lack of alignment that so many ju...

Welcome to Season 15 Episode 34 of the ParentingAces Podcast! Coach Todd Widom is back to talk about what's happening in junior tennis development now and comparing it to how he was developed as a young player. Those of you who have been part of our ParentingAces Community for a while should be very familiar with Todd and his no-holds-barred approach to working with junior players and their fa...

Welcome to Season 15 Episode 33 of the ParentingAces Podcast! This week, UK-based coach, Ryan Horgan, joins the pod to talk about the best ways coaches can get young players to listen and integrate the lessons they are trying to teach through a process called Ecological Dynamics . Ryan started playing tennis around age 9 and always felt he was developmentally behind his peers. He was able to have...

Welcome to Season 15 Episode 32 of the ParentingAces Podcast! Former professional dancer turned performance coach, Kamala Nellen, is back on the podcast (see https://youtu.be/orH0phGwcW0 for our previous podcast together) to discuss training and coaching the whole athlete from the mental/emotional side to the physical. Kamala understands the challenges parents face when trying to help their young...

Welcome to Season 15 Episode 31 of the ParentingAces Podcast! This week, rising high school senior, Tanner Oberg, joins Lisa to discuss the organization started by his older brothers which he now leads, Rally for Tennis . Rally for Tennis is led by a network of student volunteers across high schools and colleges nationwide — united by the belief that every kid deserves a chance to learn, grow, and...

Welcome to Season 15 Episode 30 of the ParentingAces Podcast! Coach Duey Evans is back to delve into the work he's been doing over the last year or so, observing player, parent, and coach behaviors in order to formulate a better way to develop junior players. Coach Duey has some insightful observations on the role of tennis parents and how they can recognize their "job" in their chil...

Welcome to Season 15 Episode 29 of the ParentingAces Podcast! This week we hear from the Program Director of the Harlem Junior Tennis & Education Program (HJTEP), Simone Spigner. Simone, a graduate of HJTEP herself, is a head coach of entry-level programs for its youngest players. She is a PTR-certified teaching professional with more than 10 years of experience in coaching. She attended South...

Welcome to Season 15 Episode 28 of the ParentingAces Podcast! This week, Jerry Lynch and John O'Sullivan are back to discuss their new book on leadership in youth sports. Dr. Jerry Lynch, one of the world’s top leadership, performance and team culture specialists, is the founder of Way of Champions , a science-backed, values-based, vision-driven, progressive and pragmatic movement to help lead...

Welcome to Season 15 Episode 27 of the ParentingAces Podcast! This week, UTR Sports CEO and Senior Vice President, Mark Leschly and Chase Hodges, are back to discuss the latest happenings in ratings, recruiting, and player pathways. We've seen a lot of news recently about UTR and its elimination from the TennisRecruiting.net website as well as the MatchTennis app . Mark and Chase talk about th...

Welcome to Season 15 Episode 26 of the ParentingAces Podcast! In this week's podcast, Danielle McNamara is back to take a deep look at the current college tennis landscape and how the NCAA's proposed rule changes could affect recruits and transfer athletes.  Danielle McNamara was the women’s tennis head coach at Yale from 2006-14, and 2016-21. She was also the head coach at Texas from 2014...

Welcome to Season 15 Episode 25 of the ParentingAces Podcast! This week, Lisa speaks with high school tennis player, Sid Chalamalasetty, about his new app, MatchGenie . Sid has been playing competitive tennis while also pursuing a challenging education at The Roxbury Latin School in the Boston area. As he made his way through tournaments, he wished for access to the type of in-depth analytics avai...

Welcome to Season 15 Episode 24 of the ParentingAces Podcast! This week, we compare what is happening in junior tennis development in the US vs Australia with coaches John Thompson and Kelsey Lewis. John and Kelsey host the Tennis Talk 101 podcast and had me on as a guest in 2024 (click https://open.spotify.com/episode/3MSDPeRxY842W4G3OnNSqs to listen). They are committed to educating coaches, pla...

Welcome to Season 15 Episode 23 of the ParentingAces Podcast! This week's guest, Chris Boyer, is a Tennis Parent as well as someone who has worked closely with the United States Tennis Association (USTA) and is here to offer his insights into what makes tennis a hard sport. Chris's professional background as a nationally award-winning marketing executive for brands including Coca-Cola, The...

Welcome to Season 15 Episode 22 of the ParentingAces Podcast! The term "high-performance" gets thrown around with abandon in the world of Junior Tennis. This week, we hear from a coach and 2 of his players what a high-performance developmental program truly looks like. Coach Sukhwa Young grew up in the unlikely-for-tennis-players place of Alaska. When he fell in love with tennis, his fam...

Welcome to Season 15 Episode 21 of the ParentingAces Podcast! In this episode, one of the world's leading tennis writers, Joel Drucker, joins me to discuss what's new in the world of junior tennis coaching, instruction, and competition. Over the last 40 years, Joel's stories have been published in a wide range of media outlets including Tennis.com, Tennis Channel, HBO, CBS, the New York Times, and...

Welcome to Season 15 Episode 20 of the ParentingAces Podcast. This week, sport psychology professional, Brian Lomax, digs into the work Tennis Parents can do for themselves that will benefit their junior player on and off the court. Dr. Brian Lomax has been playing tennis for over 45 years and has been ranked in various divisions in New England and at the National level.  He has always been a stud...

Welcome to Season 15 Episode 19 of the ParentingAces Podcast! This week, we dive into the player data of Division I college tennis with a former DI golf (yes, golf!) coach from Norway, Mikkel Bjerk-Andresen. A few weeks ago, Coach Todd Widom texted me an article he had read showing the increasing number of international players on Division I college tennis teams. Given that this has been a recurri...

Welcome to Season 15 Episode 18 of the ParentingAces Podcast! In this episode, Lisa is joined by former top junior and college players, Madison Harrison and Natalie Suk. Both of these young women were raised in very successful tennis families. Madison's father, Pat, was a top junior player who went on to have a successful college career before turning to coaching. Her brothers, Ryan and Christ...

Welcome to Season 15 Episode 17 of the ParentingAces Podcast! This week, Lisa is joined by Randall Scott, author of THE INNER WAY OF TENNIS . Randy has had an interesting journey through junior and college tennis that led him to high-performance coaching around the world. While he had struggled tremendously with his emotions on court, Randy recognized that existing tennis programs didn't seem...

Welcome to Season 15 Episode 16 of the ParentingAces Podcast! This week, former college coach, Hannah Keeling, is back to share with us her new position with BUNKR . BUNKR is an online platform providing security for a player's, family's, and team's most vulnerable personal and financial information and safeguarding their communications while they travel. . Several hundred highly ranke...