ParentingAces - The Junior Tennis and College Tennis Podcast

Imagine being outside on a summer day surrounded by people who all share a love of the same thing. The only sounds are of feet skidding on green "clay", the contact of ball and string, and the occasional outburst of applause. You are hot and sweaty, but it doesn't matter because you are in your Happy Place doing what you love. Ten years ago, a long-standing tennis tradition in my hometown of Shrev...

What happens when 3 tennis-playing brothers get together and start a website? Get the answer in this week's episode (apologies for the poor sound quality in the intro - it gets way better after that!) with Vanderbilt Men's Tennis Assistant Coach, Ryan Lipman, and his mom, Lisa. Ryan and his brothers, Maxx and Marshall, all played college tennis and all still love the sport. They followed very diff...

In our last episode, we talked to you about how you can manage your college recruiting in the palm of your hand with the newest feature on the Match! Tennis App . This week, we discuss college scholarships and how best to get them. Marisa Meddin worked in marketing after a very successful college career at the University of Michigan. She found her greatest satisfaction, however, in volunteering to...

Last year, we were all introduced to the Match! Tennis App , a one-stop-shop for all your junior tournament needs - a calendar, rankings, ratings, medical release, weather updates, doubles partner search, and more. When I used the app during the 2017 Sol Schwartz #SaveCollegeTennis All-In Tournaments, I was blown away by all it could do from the Tournament Director side, too.  And now the app has...

Barry Fulcher grew up in a Tennis Family. His parents and his siblings were avid players, so it was only fitting that Barry start honing his racquet and court skills as a toddler in the UK. His love of the game and of competition led him to a very successful junior tennis career such that he decided to go the professional route rather than come to the US to try his hand in our college tennis syste...

How lucky are we to have both Coach Todd Widom and Tennis Parent George Opelka together in one podcast?!?!?! These two gentleman offer their wisdom on everything from the different developmental pathways to college vs. pro tennis and everything in between. They have spent many hours talking to each other courtside while watching their respective player's practice and compete and share those conver...

June is prime recruiting season for many college coaches. That said, what better time to do a podcast about Division III and how it differs from DI? Coach Matt Brisotti leads both the men's and women's tennis teams at Hamilton College, a Division III school in New York that is part of the NESCAC, one of the stronger conferences in DIII. He played college tennis at Drew University (also DIII) and f...

A few weeks ago, I posted on our Facebook page that I would be doing an interview with a USTA official and asked you for questions to ask him. You did not disappoint!  In this week's episode of the ParentingAces Podcast, recorded in person at Goldberg's Deli (!), I chat with Gary Link, an amazing official based in South Carolina who has committed the past 21 years to helping junior tennis players...

I know. No one likes talking about periods and puberty. But, it's a reality of life and a topic that we need to discuss if we're going to help our young players maintain a healthy body image and feel comfortable asking for help whenever and wherever they may need it. In this week's episode, Katie Malinski and I get pretty candid and raw in our conversation about how to talk to our children about t...

Jackie Slomin is a sports dietitian who helps high school athletes get recruited to top tier colleges on scholarship with her Fuel Your Full Ride program.  Having previously worked with hundreds of division I and II athletes from all different sports and holding a master's degree in sports nutrition and exercise science, Jackie is an expert at helping athlete's discover how to improve their perfor...

Wouldn't it be awesome if you could find a teaching pro who actually had a college degree in Tennis? What if she had an in-depth knowledge not only of teaching forehands and backhands but also sport psychology, injury prevention, nutrition, and communication? Well, thanks to several hard-working and forward-thinking folks, the Professional Tennis Management (PTM) Certificate is now a reality! Coac...

If you're a Tennis Parent or Coach, you know how frustrating it is to travel to a tournament only to find out the Tournament Director has decided to use short scoring due to weather or other impediments to play. This week's podcast guest, Mark Milne, has a great solution to present. Thirty30 Tennis presents a format where players start each game at the score 30-all then play out the game from ther...

As of the taping of this week's podcast, there are 4 former college players in the Top 100 of the ATP and 2 former college players in the Top 100 of the WTA. It begs the question: is college tennis really a pathway to the pros?  In this week's podcast, Todd Widom discusses how juniors should use college as a step in their overall development process. He also talks about the Junior ITF pathway and...

With the new recruiting rules announced by the NCAA (click here ), making sure your child is properly prepared for the process is crucial to his/her success.  In this week's episode, we talk about how junior players can increase their exposure to college coaches, especially if they are not among the top-ranked players in their recruiting class. We also discuss several recruiting myths that seem to...

Last week I published an article on the new partnerships between Universal Tennis Ratings and the two major coaching certification organizations, USPTA and PTR ( click here to read the article). And this week UTR announced another new partnership with Chinese Tennis organization Love Sports. Now, you have the opportunity to hear from UTR's CEO, Mark Leschly, about how UTR works and what's in store...

Several months ago, Tennis Parent (and now, Podcaster!), Robert Garrett called and asked me if I would ever consider doing an episode where he could ask questions of a top junior player, parent, and coach. Of course, I said YES, and this week's episode is the outcome of that conversation. Coach Todd Widom, who y'all have heard from many times on ParentingAces, arranged for his young player, Ronnie...

Sports Made Easy , formerly known as My Game Solutions, is an online community that connects players, instructors, and facilities in real time. With the mobile app you can search for players using any preferred location and find a place to play. Participate in a friendly game or competition to help you improve your overall game.   Parents and junior players can use the app to schedule practice mat...

We rarely get to hear from Tennis Parents outside the US, so I was thrilled when UK Tennis Parent Sharon Gaskin agreed to come on the podcast! Sharon shares her son, Ryan's, entire tennis journey starting with his early junior years and moving to his training at  Soto Tennis Academy in Spain, eventually landing in the US to play college tennis. She talks about the difficulty of working with the LT...

Tami Matheny became a Mental Game Coach in 2008 and started Refuse2LoseCoaching, LLC . She knows the role the intangibles play in career success and longevity and has had experience with working on the mental skills at the collegiate level with tennis, basketball, softball, baseball, volleyball, golf, field hockey, cross country and soccer student-athletes.   Tami believes that while it’s importan...

I can't tell you how thrilled I was to run into my old friend, Craig Cignarelli, at the BNP Paribas Open last weekend! It's been quite a while since we've chatted, and I knew he had some incredible knowledge to share with all of us. Thankfully, he agreed to sit down with me and talk junior development pathways and how technology is impacting today's up and coming players (and their parents). He al...

Sixteen-year-old Ronnie Hohmann, who won the 2017 Eddie Herr 16s, recently had the unique opportunity to train with several players on the ATP tour. Both Ronnie - and his coach, Todd Widom - learned so much from these training sessions beyond just hitting forehands and backhands. All junior players and their coaches can learn a lot from studying how the pros train. With so many pro tournaments acr...

In order to further junior tennis development, it is crucial that coaches learn about and use the new technologies being developed. One of my favorites in terms of planning and communication is Tenicity. Harsh Mankad, the founder of Tenicity, is back with us to talk about the latest updates to his platform, including a new mobile app that parents, players, and coaches can use to track progress and...

I recently had the opportunity to be interviewed by the amazing talents behind the Great Shot Podcast, Alex Gruskin and Max Rothman. We did the interview as I was driving back to Atlanta from the Blue Gray Tennis Classic in Alabama, and I had a blast chatting with these guys! From their website: Welcome toooooo…. Another special edition of Hey, Great Shot!! In today’s episode, co-hosts Alex Gruski...

As an adjunct to this week's podcast with Tim Russell, I also had the opportunity to chat with Dave Miley who has written a very detailed article about the ITF Transition Tour ( https://www.facebook.com/davemileytennis/posts/987689468064829 ).  Dave Miley was the Executive Director of Tennis Development for the International Tennis Federation from 1991 until 2015 and in this role he lead the bigge...

On February 1, 2018, the International Tennis Federation (ITF) sent out a press release describing its effort to reduce the number of professional tennis players through the creation of a Transition Tour (see  http://parentingaces.com/repost-zootennis-itf-junior-rule-changes-2018/  and  http://www.itftennis.com/news/278962.aspx  for more info).  What's obviously missing from the ITF's announcement...