Tennis Influence

We’ve all dreamed about it as kids, and maybe even adults. But how would you actually come into contact with them? Here are a couple ways that you might find useful. Using Their Agency I know of 1 particular agency that represents a couple of big players like Djokovic and Nadal. They offer lots of different opportunities to contact their players. You can book a hitting session with them or have lunch with them, imagine finding out what Nadal orders at restaurants! You can get a private meet and greet with the player of your choice I’m not too sure but you could probably also do it for an organization too. Although this isn’t with a player you can get a “backstage tour” of an ATP or WTA tournament of your choice. Or something every single tennis fan has dreamed of sitting in a player’s private box and having cameras shine on them. Just think about sitting next to Jelena or Xisca and talking to them about their boyfriend/husband’s game. Or you can sit on the court during a p

Martina Hingis has announced her retirement from tennis (again.) Effective from after the year-end tournament in Singapore. She has won 68 singles titles and 26 doubles titles, she has won 102 matches against top 10 players and has won 2-year end tournaments in singles and 3-year end tournaments in doubles and has won millions of tennis fans’ hearts across the globe. But what about the rest of her story? This definitely isn’t the first time that Martina Hingis retired from tennis, in fact, she did it twice. Once in 2003 and again in 2007, but why did it happen? Well in 2003 she retired after having multiple recent injuries. She claimed that she was in pain and it was too much for her. In her press conferences, she said that she wanted to “focus” on her studies. She claimed she was only going to play tennis recreationally she also wanted to go horseback riding more and she could do that with a more open schedule. She returned in 2005 after a short-lived retirement. Her first p

Junior tennis is almost as old as normal tennis but how did it come to be and should your kids be playing competitive tournaments? The biggest junior tour, the ITF junior tour was founded in 1977 and has grown since. During the year of its foundation, the tour only included 9 tournaments compared to its 350 tournaments in 2001. In the latest release of rankings, the ITF included 2563 boys players and 2542 girls contestants. Some of the top players on the tour have already established a presence on the pro circuit. The Serbian Olga Danilovic has won the doubles tournament at the age of 16 in the most recent edition of The Wimbledon Championships. ITF junior world number 1 Yibing Wu has an ATP ranking of 329. On top of his rank, he has also earned 80,000 dollars and has achieved a career-high ranking of 320. Miomir Kecmanovic, the ITF junior world number 5 and former world number 1 has a ranking of 294. He finished 2016 with a year-end world number 1 title on the ITF junior tour h

Z verev has had an amazing run in his dream 2017 season and was showing no signs of stopping ahead of this year’s US Open. Last night something unpredictable happened. He lost to his fellow next gen contender, the Croatian Borna Coric 6-3, 5-7, 6-7, 6-7. Zverev at the 2015 US Open Zverev started off his year with an impressive run to the round of 32 in the Australian Open until he got shut down by Nadal 6-2, 6-3, 6-4. Later he exited a tournament due to Kyrgios on 2 straight occasions. Which was then followed up by another defeat to Nadal in the round of 16 in Monte-Carlo. 8 days before his first round match he beat Raonic and Djokovic to get his first Masters title. Following that achievement he suffered a first round exit to Verdasco in 4 sets, 4-6, 6-3, 4-6, 2-6. Maybe his curse is real! A little later, he reached a round of 16 match. Then he fell to Milos Raonic 6-4, 5-7, 6-4, 5-7, 6-1. I’m sure he and the majority of his fans hoped and believed he could’ve do

Federer and Nadal did not have the easiest matches during this Us Open’s first round. The Swiss maestro had to go the distance with the young 19 year old American talent eventually taking the match. Nadal also had a shaky start by trailing a break to Dusan Lajovic. Both players probably hoped for better first round matches. Federer outnumbered Tiafoe in unforced errors 56-49 but made up for it in the winners section 41-23. Nadal won in aces 5-1 but paid for it in double faults 5-2. Can Nadal and Federer prove they’re back in this US Open by meeting in the semis? Or will there be upsets in this year’s edition of the US Open? Both players have unseeded players in the next round. Nadal has drawn Japanese representative Daniel who shouldn’t be much of a problem. Meanwhile, Federer is not having such an easy time, facing Youzhny who has proven to be a challenging and unpredictable opponent. Both players will have to find ways to control their nerves, which almost got the

Tennis goes big! A new app has been released that helps you find the hitting partner of your dreams. It is dubbed “The Tinder of Tennis,” and is officially known as “ Tennis Buddy .” It has taken the tennis world by surprise and hasn’t stopped growing! The app lets you find hitting partners based on location and skill level. The owner made a public statement claiming that they do not believe in finding partners based on gender and age. N great for publicity and has only helped its growth. The app has gotten 10,000-50,000 downloads on the google play store since its release. Many believe that this app has the potential to take the tennis world and become a really great resource for tennis players of all ages and levels. In order to do that it would have to rack up a lot more downloads. Its average rating on google play is 4.1 having had 1,049 reviews. 523 5-star ratings, 315 4-star ratings, 101 3-star ratings, 33 2-star ratings and 77 1-star ratings. Its 4.1 rating m

Zverev managed to stop Federer from tying for second most titles in the Open Era, looks like most grand slams, most ATP Final events, most masters 1000 event finals, most 500 tournaments, most 250 tournament finals and most match wins is enough. Zverev is definitely happy for his second masters' event and for the check that says $894,585. There is no doubt that Zverev dominated in most aspects of the game. , but which of those stats were the most key? For starters Zverev’s serve was way more effective than Federer’s serve in every way possible average serve speed, 1st serve in %, 1st serve and second serve points won and double faults. Now, one of the biggest reasons for any win lies in there, but which one. The answer is 2nd serve points won, yes the mere three percent may have won Zverev the match (Zverev 61%, Federer 58%.) My theory is that if that stat is significantly under 50% you’re already 50% closer to losing that match. Another very important statistic lying in

Haase has been another player turning heads at this year’s edition of the Rogers Cup. Sadly, he is not a next gen player but he is a djoker just not the djoker. In his semifinals clash with Federer he earned himself fans by making a mid-match joke. When the Dutchman was preparing to serve a fan shouted “Come on Roger!” Robin quickly came up with a humorous response “my name is Robin!” It didn’t take long for the crowd to burst into tears after that. It helped him grow since then, in the days since he has gotten 50 more followers total compared to his daily average of 10. The tennis veteran has had an admirable 12 year career. He has managed  to put two 250 events on his resume both tournaments being Kitzbuhel from 2015 and 2011. His career high ranking is 33. As a junior, Robin Haase was showing signs of stardom, his highest rank as a junior was world number 3! Up until today the dutchman has won 13 ATP challenger events and isn’t showing signs of stopping anytime

Denis Shapovalov has certainly been turning heads lately during this year’s edition of the Rogers C up With a shocking defeat over Nadal. He was accepted as a wildcard into the tournament, but the tennis world didn’t think much of it, he was just another normal wildcard accepted into the tournament because he’s from the same country. All that changed after a triumph over Del Potro in the round of 32. It was a nice surprise for all Canadians watching for home or from the stands. The real shock came after he battled it out with Nadal in three sets and won 3-6,6-4,7-6(4) in two hours and forty five minute’s time. His next challenge is Zverev, will he beat him in the youngest Masters 1000 semifinal ever? The 19 year old prodigy was born in Tel Aviv, Israel and moved to Canada when he was just shy of his first birthday. He grew up with one older brother, Evgeniy and was raised by a Russian Orthodox father and a Jewish mother. Denis took up tennis when h

Mladenovic has been having an amazing run in these last couple of months, is she peaking? Or is this just the beginning? Today, she has just knocked out defending champ of the French Open, Roland Garros. I believe this is just the tip of the iceberg for the young french woman. Born in a town on the coast of northeastern France a tennis prodigy was born to a family of athletes. Her two year younger brother a professional soccer player and her dad a professional handball player, Kristina just had to have the genes of a natural athlete. She had a very successful junior career, the 24 year old won a junior French Open title and fell to Noppawan Lertcheewakarn in the finals of Wimbledon. She was already showing signs of being the most successful pro athlete in her family yet. After her junior days Mladenovic joined the ITF pro circuit and played there for 2 years until she received a wildcard into the prestigious Australian Open in 2009. She ended up losing in the first round t

Since it is Nadal’s 31st birthday I thought about looking back at his benchmarks. The Spaniard has accomplished so many things and deserves the world to celebrate his birthday, but let's start with the tennis world for now. Without further ado, the timeline of Nadal! 2001 Turns pro 2003 Nadal cracks top 100 on April 21st 2004 Nadal’s first title (yes, it was on clay) 2005 First Grand Slam (yes, it was roland garros, which is on clay) Crack top 50 on January 10th Enters top 10 on April 25th 2008 Wins fifth Grand Slam:wimbledon (his first non Roland Garros title) Becomes world number 1 for first time after winning Wimbledon 2010 Rafa wins 5th Roland Garros 2011 Wins 10th grand slam (yes,it’s Roland garros) 2017 31st birthday Starting to see why they call him the king of clay huh? Nadal is only one Roland Garros away from winning ten, will he seize this fortnight’s opportunity or wait until next year? Who knows? Happy Birthday Rafa!😊🎂

We all know we can over train in tennis, but can we over stress? Recently people have been getting more and more worried about mental health, especially about stress. So, when does healthy competition become unhealthy? A study conducted by NCBI had 8 female tennis players and 8 male tennis players tested for stress after their first match at a tournament and both had stress, women had more. Every athlete takes stress differently but they all have one thing in common, they take it badly, nobody has ever benefited from stress ( except from their opponent ;) ). Stress hits you in three different phases phase 1 is when you first recognize you’re suffering from stress, your mind automatically responds with a fight or flight attitude. Now we hit phase 2, the resistance stage this is when your body starts fighting back it will try to enzyme levels to shield itself from stress and to do that it needs rest, you know you’ve hit phase 2 once you start feeling tired. Phase 3 is wher

    Recently more and more parents have been pulling their kids out of tournaments. The reason for this is because they believe it is too much stress for them.    The Williams sisters weren't aloud to play junior tournaments for their whole childhood but Serena still turned up to be the best womens' tennis player of all time. Was that because she didn't play junior tournaments or is it just coincidence. Besides, your success in junior tournaments has nothing to do with whether you're even going to be on the pro tour or how good you're going to be, it's more to have a Gage of where your skill level is. UCLA researchers conducted a study to see how stressful youth sports really are. They gave athletes from ages 9 to 14 questionnaires to fill out and it turns out sports are less stressful then music recitals and solos, wrestling was the only sport more stressful. In fact, sports were found to be less stressful than regular school tests. So there really isn't

A couple of weeks ago Wilson has announced they will be selling limited edition blade and burn rackets. Since they went on sale two days ago I wanted to explain what the difference is. There isn't much of a difference actually, the colors are switched so now there's more green and red instead of mainly black rackets, but other than that are there even any differences? They still feature Wilson's special Countervail technology, and the specs haven't changed. But they DO have Matte finishes, pretty tempting, right? But there is no difference in price or specs so it's just which color scheme you prefer really. Wilson hasn't yet said when they will stop selling them. Link to buy them is here:   limited edition blade and burn

Roger Federer has just announced that he will come back to tennis on June 14th for the Mercedes cup. The return will bring an end to the 10 week break he took from the sport. He avoided the clay court season in hopes of increasing his success on grass. The world number four Swiss tennis player has awoken the tennis world once again. Is he a title contender for Wimbledon? Will he collect his 19th Grand Slam?

When it comes to buying a new racket there are a lot of things to look for, I am here to discuss string pattern with you. Pros and cons of the 18x20 less spin less power more control better feel recommended for advanced tennis players (3.5+) requires more muscle Pros and cons of the 16x19/18 more spin  adequate power less feel less control easier to use and good for intermediate and beginners less muscle What about the 18x16 or other spin patterns? These are less common and harder to find they offer more spin and depth but aren't too offensive, they are more for baseliners. Few players use spin patterns one is Grigor Dimitrov who uses an all out 15x16 spin pattern. The problem with spin patterns are the strings move around a lot and break easier so you have to use either a hybrid pattern or synthetic string so it breaks less.

Recently There have been a lot of new young players making a ruckus on the mens' tour. That is what inspired me to make this article, I will go over my top 3 next gen players. My first big prospect is Zverev he is big and has a style that is a combination of Nadal, Djokovic and Raonic. He would be even deadlier if he used his height to an advantage on his serve and improved his serve.  My next pick is Kyrgios. He is an amazing natural athlete and a great entertainer how can really pound his serve down the T. He needs to work on his endurance and needs to be more active on the tour. My final pick is a more recent one, Karen Khachanov, although I haven't been able to watch him he has been responsible for two upsets in the Roland Garros so far.

     Ever since completing his career Grand Slam Djokovic has been bent out of form. Do his recent actions and performances hint him returning back to his form? He has managed to reach the finals in Rome and has won his first two matches in Roland Garros in straight sets. After being pushed to five by Diego Schwartzman is he ready to face Ramos Vinolas who is also coming in off a five setter? The Djoker has been playing really well but he hasn't been able to keep his consistency and focus up throughout the whole match, something he used to always excel at. Playing a Spaniard on clay is no easy task , especially after a tiring five set match, but Ramos Vinolas also is coming out of one. I believe the next match will be a battle of who can endure longer physically and mentally.