The GreatBase Tennis Podcast

On the 183rd episode, a young Ivan Ozerets, an old Andres Barbosa, and a real old Steve Smith are a dollar late and a day short. The threesome randomly chat three weeks after the 2024 Australian Open. New listeners may quickly agree with their comment about putting them in section F to eat a hot dog but insiders to the GreatBase Tennis Podcast will likely think otherwise. The session has some info...

University of North Carolina 2023 NCAA Women's Tennis Championship The Power Suggestion On the 182nd episode of the GreatBase Tennis podcast, Steve Smith reconnects with Sophia Patel. She shares many golden nuggets for one to add to their tennis treasure chest. To make an understatement, she possesses deep and insightful wisdom. Sophia was an integral part of the UNC 2023 national championshi...

On the 181st episode of the GreatBase Tennis podcast, Steve Smith and Ivan Ozerets talk tennis. Their topic centers around Alex Michelsen, the young player from southern California. They discuss and speculate as to why and how Alex reached a top 100 ATP ranking as a teenager. Perhaps Steve and Ivan should just go sit in section F and eat some popcorn. On the other hand, those who listen to their c...

Great person, great family, great competitor.  On the 180th episode of the GreatBase Tennis, Steve Smith's guest is Rachel Rohrabacher. She talks about her background in junior tennis and college tennis as well as her current life as a pickleball professional. During their conversation, Rachel shares golden nugget after golden nugget. Their dialogue will help parents, athletes, and coaches. ...

On the 179th episode of the GreatBase Tennis podcast, Steve Smith has a conversation with John Valenti. To make an understatement, John Valenti has a story to tell. He claims to be the only person to have always made money from playing tournament tennis at the professional level. For over ten years, he followed the circuit living out of his van. The native of Rochester, New York played hundreds of...

On the 178th episode, Steve Smith has a tennis conversation with Cris Valverde. Steve's guest is a veteran tennis teaching professional who resides with his wife and their two boys in Portland, Oregon. He has worked at the Irvington Club for the last 21 years. Insiders of the GreatBase will quickly discover by listening that Cris has done his tennis homework. We are confident that Cris's...

On the 177th episode of the GreatBase Tennis (GBTE) podcast, Steve Smith has a conversation with Tomas Placatka. Steve's guest was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia (1972), and grew up in nearby Kladno.  Tomas's primary sport was ice hockey. He played at the professional level in his homeland and in Denmark. Like many of his fellow Czechs, tennis was his sport in the off-season.  Since reti...

On the 176th episode of GreatBase Tennis podcast, Steve Smith has a tennis conversation with Domantas Sadauskas. Domi recently joined Steve to be trained to teach and coach a couple of young tennis hopefuls that Steve and his associates have coached for the last two years. To make an understatement, the Lithuanian is passionate about the game of tennis. Domi studied in Ireland, France, and the US...

On the 175th episode of the GreatBase Tennis podcast, Dave Anderson presents the Do's and Don'ts for Tennis Coaches. Anderson, who literally has developed hundreds of college tennis players, previously shared a similar list for tennis parents. In the future, he will present a list for players and administrators. Thank you for listening to our tennis podcast. The goal is for our audience...

On the 174th episode of the GreatBase Tennis podcast, Steve Smith, Ivan Ozerets, and Dave Anderson review a document pertaining to GBTE (GreatBase Tennis Education). Their discussion should help listeners obtain a more in-depth understanding of the comprehensive curriculum that has been assembled over decades. Based on the contributions of our eight pillars and numerous others, we are confident th...

On the 173rd episode of the GreatBase Tennis podcast, Steve Smith has a conversation with Sujay Lama. Steve's guest was formally educated in his native Nepal, India, and the US. His education in tennis is also very diverse and complete. By listening one will learn of his father's passion for tennis and the influence of his siblings, especially his brother Raj.  Sujay's journey in te...

On the 172nd episode of the GreatBase Tennis podcast, Steve Smith has a conversation with Mark Hamlin. The two are just a few months shy of having known each other for sixty years. They initially talk sports and life but then focus primarily on tennis. Mark was a member of Vic Braden's staff at Coto de Caza in California and at multiple sites in Germany; where he has lived the last forty-two...

On the 171st episode of the GreatBase Tennis podcast, Steve Smith talks tennis with Joel Drucker. To make an understatement, Steve's guest knows tennis backwards, forwards, and upside down. Joel is a walking tennis encyclopedia.  Joel is an author, telecaster, producer, and consultant. As an award-winning writer, he has covered the full gamut. He knows the details of tennis instruction, instr...

On the 170th episode of the GreatBase Tennis podcast, Steve Smith and Alex Terzic talk tennis. Along with a few others, Steve and Alex recently spent a day at a Challenger event. Like always, we hope our listeners will find at least a few golden nuggets for their tennis treasure chest by enduring our long format. Please keep in mind that GreatBase Tennis Education (GBTE) has other platforms that p...

On the 169th episode of the GreatBase Tennis podcast, Steve Smith and Ivan Ozerets talk tennis with Nick Nemerof. He is the Director of Operations for Court 16, Inc. His organization offers all-encompassing instructional programs at multiple sites in New York City. Nick loves tennis, tennis teaching, and studying the Big Three.  If one wants to learn more about Roger Federer, Rafael, Nadal, and No...

On the 168th episode of the GreatBase Tennis podcast, Steve Smith and Alex Terzic assist Dave Anderson. Anderson, a frequent guest on our podcast, presents a list of 10 do's and 10 don'ts for tennis parents. David, a longtime associate of Steve Smith, has had a long and successful career developing tennis players. He and his staff have produced over 500 college players. For an upcoming e...

On the 167th episode of the GreatBase Tennis podcast, Steve Smith interviews Alex Terzic. The native of Belgrade, Serbia talks about the conditions in his homeland during the Bosnian war; the place where his passion for tennis began. He and his family immigrated to Canada when he was a young teenager. He continued to play tennis on a limited basis. His priorities were learning a new language, comp...

Raven Klaasen returns as a guest on the 166th episode of the GreatBase Tennis podcast. Steve Smith congratulates the 40-year-old on his career and discusses the options he can explore now that he has retired from the tour. By listening to Raven, one will discover that the role of a tennis educator is quite apparent. To make an understatement, tennis would greatly benefit from his input.

On the 165th episode of the GreatBase Tennis podcast two senior citizens, Steve Smith and Mark Costello, have a conversation. They have known each other since 1964, so theoretically, they should have some wisdom. When asked, the old tennis coach and the old hockey coach agreed that their chat might be best to hit the editing floor. However, the producer of the GreatBase Tennis podcast (Ivan Ozeret...

On the 164th episode of the GreatBase Tennis podcast, Steve Smith and fellow teaching pro, Ethan Matthews, discuss one of the most revered coaches in all of sport. Ethan is a diehard Green Packer fan and Steve grew up in the '60s when Vince Lombardi's 'Be Brilliant with Basics' approach ruled professional football.  Steve and Ethan review the why's and how's to Mr. Lo...

On the 163rd episode of the GreatBase Tennis podcast, Steve Smith interviews Paul Wardlaw. Paul is a veteran college coach with over 35 years of diversified experience. His teams have won three national titles and produced numerous All-Americans. The author (Tennis Pressure) is best known for his work called Wardlaw Directionals. His contributions to tennis as an educator have helped literally tho...

On the 162nd episode of the GreatBase Tennis podcast, Steve Smith has a conversation with Dave Anderson. Coach Anderson has been associated with Steve since 1985. He is the director of player development and pro-education at the Brookhaven facility in Dallas, Texas, USA. Dave has become a regular guest on our podcast because of his ability to bring clarity to key points pertaining to tennis educat...

On the 161st episode of the GreatBase Tennis podcast, Steve Smith & Ivan Ozerets cover fundraising, their recent broadcasting of the US Open singles finals, simple stats pertaining to the singles finals, and a general review of ten chapters of core subjects for player and coach development. Additionally, Steve makes brief comments about the type of daily text and e-mail messages he receives. O...

On the 160th episode of the GreatBase Tennis podcast, Steve Smith chats with Dave Secker and Spencer Johnson. Dave is the associate head women’s tennis coach at North Carolina State and Spencer is a UCLA-bound tennis player. A highlight of the podcast is the advice the college coach gives the incoming freshman. Of course, there are other nuggets for tennis enthusiasts to add to their tennis treasu...

On the 159th episode of the GreatBase Tennis podcast, Steve Smith has a conversation with Jensen Rideout. Jensen is a twenty-one-year-old tennis teacher from Salt Lake, Utah.  Steve stated that posting Jensen's podcast during the US Open is appropriate and significant. Steve's point is simple, American tennis needs more upcoming young tennis teachers with Jensen's values, knowledge,...