Quick Guide to 2023
Merry Christmas to all!
As my gift to you, this is just a short email with a couple of tennis account links that may be of interest/help you consume more tennis in 2023. Whether you’re interested in improving your game, gaining news or insights, or just watching more tennis, the below accounts are all worthy.
How to Watch
For ATP events: TennisTV is ~$120/year and gives you coverage of most singles matches at the ATP 250/500/1000 level. It offers highlights, condensed and full replays and they also have a huge selection of matches from the past ~10-ish years.
Grand Slams: ExpressVPN (no official endorsement from me) will allow you to access most streaming services that are often required for Grand Slam coverage without the hassle of geoblocking.
There is a Tennis documentary coming out on Netflix (following in the footsteps of the wildly successful Drive to Survive F1 series) that is airing around mid-January. I don’t expect you’ll learn anything of substance technically or tactically, but if it garners some new tennis fans then it will be good for tennis.
Who to Follow?
Instagram: Joel Myers is excellent for short clips on tennis technique as well as drills that can help your game. Danilo Pizzorno is a hidden gem of an account. He offers a lot of unique clips from past and present players, often slow-motion close-ups that highlight the technique of players.
Twitter: Matthew Willis (who used to write The Racquet newsletter on Substack) still chimes in with some great observations that cover strategy, tennis governance, as well as data analysis/trends. Andy Roddick is one of the few former top pros who is pretty active. A lot of his stuff can get political but around big tournaments he often gives his two cents and will reply to some comments. Gill Gross always has a stat or retweet around tennis. He’s a full-time dedicated tennis journo and does some match recaps on YouTube. Craig O-Shannessy is the founder of Brain Game Tennis and has been part of Djokovic’s team. He was one of the first to use data as a means to determine strategy (there’s a whole little industry for this now). He often gives a good breakdown backed by numbers.
YouTube: Intuitive Tennis, 2 Minute Tennis, and Top Tennis Training are all really good channels that provide clear and in-depth technical advice (Joel Myers also puts some of his clips from Instagram on YouTube as well). Forget Patrick Mouratoglou and Rick Macci. Their videos lack the clarity and passion of the three others.
Substack: The Racquet has a great back catalog of pieces ranging from tennis governance, strategy, match analyses, and more.
The 2023 season is just over a week away. If you know someone who might enjoy this newsletter, don’t hesitate to share it with them.
Wishing you all a happy, healthy, and technically sound forehand and backhand for 2023.