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Hey, hey, this is Shaun with the GoTennis Podcast, powered by Signature Tennis.

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And now let's get into our recent conversation with Elijah Melendez.

Elijah started the Live Tennis League in 2024 for the highest level players in the area

and you get to go watch in your neighborhood or at your club.

Have a listen and let us know what you think.

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Who are you and why do we care?

Yeah, yeah, thanks for having me on. Appreciate you fitting me in on the on the podcast.

Yep, like you said, I'm Elijah Melendez. I am a local here in Atlanta.

I moved here from Mobile, Alabama when I was about eight years old.

Played tennis and juniors all growing up and the predominantly in the Georgia southeast area

was fortunate enough to play at Georgia Tech from 2014 to 2018.

And somewhat hung up the rackets after college moved into my professional career.

Post-college did not pursue professional tennis but went into the business field now and sales.

But have also started getting the itch back right into tennis.

I think you take a little bit of a break after college and then you start coming back.

And it's like, oh dang, I actually really enjoyed this sport again.

And so now I've started up a tennis league and still play Alta.

Still play a lot of things around with some of my friends.

Yeah, so main reason we want to talk today is about that league.

Because we assume Alta, we all enjoy it. We play in the leagues.

We like to still play. I don't think Bobby plays ever anymore.

I have pretty much hit that point where I don't know if I'll ever actually play in a league again,

but you never know. But in this case, you've got a fairly unique leagues.

You've got especially the you invented and it's only a couple of years old, right?

Yeah, yeah. So kind of the objective behind it was I knew there were, I say,

handful. There's probably over a hundred of me in Atlanta. And when I say me, it's your

X D1 players, pretty high level players, X pro teaching pros now or at some club or whatever,

that still can compete at a high level and quite frankly want to compete at a high level.

But there wasn't really an avenue for us to compete in, right?

Double A1 Alta is great. I played it for many years. I still play Alta, but it wasn't drawing

everyone. And I was like, what is going to get players to get out on the court? And for me,

I enjoy playing poker. I enjoy putting money on golf, right? Like, hey, 20 bucks on a round,

right? Like, let's figure it out how to make it competitive. And I was like,

there needs to be a money component to it. Guys will show up if they get paid, right?

And so that's kind of spawn the idea. And I was, I've been waiting a couple of years for someone

to do it. I thought, maybe Alta would reconfigure some double A1 stuff. And I've talked to them

about that on ways to kind of incorporate it. But, but then I was like, all right, I guess I'm the one

who needs to do it. Like, no one's doing it. So I guess I have to do it. And so the idea came up

last summer, or about this time last year is when I was like, all right, I've got a couple clubs who

want to do it. We're going to run with it. And it ended up being a much bigger success than I thought.

I could have ever thought it would have been. I thought it would have been something I tried and

maybe hand it off to someone to run or do. But at this point, it's it's almost getting to a point

to where it's really sustained. I've got a couple of clubs that are very, very, you know, bought into

this to the idea. They like having a team. They're really bought into, you know, kind of sponsoring

their team and housing the matches. And it's been, it's been a really, really big success for me.

And so in this case, this is different. There are two leagues. They're high, I say, higher level than

a AA1, right? So you got AA1 guys, usually former college players, maybe a guy like me played NAIA.

I'm pretty good, but I'm not a don't put me in a AA1 line one. It's just not, it's not going to work for me.

But you're a different kind of player because you're a AA1 and you're like, well, who's next? Like,

what's after this? So there are a couple of leagues that offer something similar to this. Marcus

Rucci at Atlanta Athletic Club runs the Atlanta Pro League, which coincidentally was reestablished

last year also. So we have questions all the time. So we are at which pro league? That's called pro league.

You've renamed yours in, I would say an attempt. I would say in success of branding it differently

and targeting different kinds of players. Yeah, yeah, no, me and Marcus, it was fun. We actually, when

when I started talking about the league, everyone was like, you need to talk to Marcus, talk to Marcus.

And Marcus and I have actually, we coordinate very, very closely when the seasons come around.

I actually originally was going to run my matches on Friday nights as well. And I shifted to Thursday

nights so that we both, it didn't, our leagues are achieving different results at the end of it.

Like we both said, hey, like they are similar, but they're different. So there's not really a need

for us to bring them together, maybe yet or ever. Like we're, we talk, we coordinate, we make sure

we're running things cohesively with each other and making sure there are success.

But I actually ended up changing mine to Thursday nights, which I believe ended up

for the demographic and for the players that are in my league. It ended up working really,

really well in the summers because I last summer, we had some college guys that were, you know,

playing. It is a good way for, you know, guys to be playing some doubles in the summers when they're

between seasons. And with me moving it to Thursdays, they're actually able still to travel and play

their, you know, normal tournaments that they're going to play on the weekends. And if I had played

Fridays, I would have been conflicting with, you know, summer, summer schedules in the weekends.

And Thursday, it's actually a great warm up, right? Thursday nights playing a fun doubles match,

makes some money. Like why not? You know? Exactly. And that's a great thing because you do

target different player demographics with two different leagues. And we're happy to be a part of

both of them because we'd love to say, look, if you're this type, then you need to talk to these

guys. If you're this other type, come over here. And there's a reason to be a part of each of them.

And we've got a few guys that are actually one of the players on our go tennis team last season,

also played in your league. So there's some that play in both. Yeah. I don't know how you take a

Friday night off and a Thursday night off if you're a teaching pro, but I guess they can. Yeah. No,

super big, big dedication there, for sure. I'm on trying to play both. But yeah, like you have

the nail ahead, they are different demographics, different goals, right? I think for mine, it was

definitely to get the highest possible level that I could find, right? And get those guys there.

And Marcus is, you know, is catering to a different in a different way. And so we both,

we both just kind of talk, communicate in Thursday nights and end up being a great night for the clubs,

for the players. And I did, I also, I also even changed the name at first. I did it at Atlanta team tennis,

which was the first season. And then I was, it was funny. I was going to do Atlanta pro league,

but then that's when Marcus and I talked and it was like, hey, that's probably wouldn't be

advisable or possible. And it wouldn't have been a good thing. So then I spun off and I was like,

what, what could I do to, you know, because I want, I've wanted it to be fun. I've wanted it to be

interactive, you know, with the players, you know, engaging with the members during matches,

like having fun. Not, I mean, they're playing for money. So they're out there to win. But be fun,

be interactive. Like there's, I didn't really want there to be like these crazy confined rules,

because that's something that I loved about college tennis is you can talk with your teammates,

you can talk with your coaches on changeovers and between points and it's this like team environment.

And there, Alta is a team environment, but there's not like, I don't know, it's just when you play

college tennis, it's just different, right? There's a, there's that team dynamic that I, that I missed,

right? That's, I think in my mind, I know this is a question later, but like what would I change

about tennis? But the team aspect of tennis to me is the peak of tennis. If you can find a way to

perfect that format, then I think thing go really, really well for the player and also the spectators.

Enough. I think a lot of those that experience that all agree with you. I don't know that anybody

else that didn't experience it can, can really understand that. Now Bobby, you, you run a very team

like atmosphere at your club, even though only a few of them end up going to play high level tennis.

Yes. And I think just through the podcast, we've heard it repeatedly. You know, we want the team

aspect and, you know, just using Elijah as an example that the majority of D1 players quit

after they stopped, you know, when they graduate from college, you know, it's frightening that 70%

never pick up a racket again. And you said something that's so dominated your life that you just

put completely aside. But the people that we have heard from that continue to play, they all go

back to that team environment and that feeling. And I think it's great. And Elijah, we did it

probably 20 years ago. We had what I guess there was the more competitive version. TJ Middleton

was still in town. You know, Andre Janisac, Paul Mancini, all those guys aged out, unfortunately.

So it kind of laid dormant for a while. So it's exciting. Because, and as you said, you know,

we get jazzed up and yes, you're doing it for your ego. The people go to these when they watch

the biggest kick they got out of the fact is that nobody misses. You know, we grow amps and we just

rally back and forth. That's enough for most people because they can't do it. So just, you know,

on a whole nother level and then see young guys doing it where you don't worry about whether or not

there's going to be a tragic injury that comes out bad of this. It's got to be a more relaxing

environment. Yeah. Oh, yeah, for sure. And yeah, the environment is the key there, right? Like, I

think it's intense. It's high level, but also at the same time, like, I wanted to remove that barrier

of even, like you said, like people watching and being like, they're not being a, there's a bit of

a disconnect of like spectator to player. And I was wanting to try to create an environment of like,

hey, talk to the members. Like if you go sliding into a forehand and hit something, like give someone

a high five, like I've tried to encourage captains to like have the players engage, talk to them before,

talk to them after, right? Especially from a, from a sponsor standpoint, because of a big part of

how this league even runs. Like I could not run the league without the help and sponsorship from

the members at each of the clubs. That's how I am able to pay the players. What we pay them is,

is from the sponsorships from the clubs. And I've told the guys, I'm like, hey, the only reason you're

out here getting paid playing is because those people sitting over there paying to have you come play.

So you better go shake their hands, let them talk to you, like let them get to know you, because that's

the only way this is running. And so the guys have done a really good job. I've gotten good feedback from

the clubs of, you know, wow, like I've never been able to interact with these guys as much as we

normally have been with stuff like this. This is a lot of fun. Like I love coming out and they

bring out, you know, beer and alcohol and drinks and stuff. And it's a really good environment. And they

really enjoy it. Obviously guys like me love, we play better with people watching. You just

brings out the competitive spirit. And it's a fun time. Well, I think you nailed it too. And this

is something a big ride by have with professional tennis is accessibility of the players. I've

went to her getting my master's degree at Georgia State. We did a trip to Talladega. Hershey's wanted

us to come out and do a survey. And I was from New York. I didn't know much about NASCAR for sure.

And part of it was funny is that yes, a lot of the fans were what you expected. But the amazing part

to me from a sponsor's perspective was if you said you were Terry LaBonte and I use him because he

wasn't one of the top, let's say five drivers at the time. You knew he was sugar frosted flake. You

know, the his fans would name 10 of his sponsors. And he was accessible to them. And I always feel like

tennis is such a great sport. If you ever made the players more accessible, you go all know the

level because then there's there's more that personal connection. Like I said, listen, you know,

you guys are all too young. You remember Jimmy Connors. Jimmy Connors made it a science to go into

the stands and high five people and you know, use the crowd to his advantage. So I think that just

it helps everybody's player experience watching the experience and it just, you know, and I don't

know enough about the bones. I'd love to how big are your teams? How many people playing on a given

night? So the teams are we draft. So I'm actually increasing the teams this season because it's gotten so

I've I left out a lot of players this last the last two seasons. And so I'm actually going to extend

it to 12 people are drafted on the teams. And we're going to play four lines. So eight guys will

start out of 12. And so the how the draft goes. It's kind of it's like a fantasy football draft. So I

have a we have our league on UTR. So I built out they built out this league software. And I believe

I was one of the one of the beginning leagues on there from this especially from this standpoint

to kind of try out this league software. It's been it's been a big big success and I'm going to

run it on there pretty much indefinitely. But how we run it is I have the sign up it's it's free

to sign up. So anyone anyone can sign up. So the accessibility I'm like, Hey, anyone sign up so you

can get drafted, right? So I've got six clubs. So six captains will draft and we basically just create

like a snake draft like a like a fantasy football. So if there's like six captains like it'll go one,

two, three, four, five, six, six, five, four, three, two, one, one, two, three, and it will just go down.

So that if you're on the sixth pick, you get the sixth person and the seventh person. So in theory,

you're getting the worst first person, but the best second person. So that's where it kind of

evens out. And honestly, we've had we've done a pretty darn good job of having a good distribution

of players level wise. Like we have some really, really good matches that come out of that come out

of the league, which has been a lot of fun. So that's how we kind of draft. So this season, the captains will

draft 11 players, you know, they're one so they'll draft 11 additional players on their team.

Four lines of doubles will be played. And then those are best two out of three like normal,

normal matches and that we four lines. And then going into playoffs, we're going to reduce that

down to three lines because obviously if you do four lines, if you go two, two, I'd have to either do

like a 10 point break or something like that. That's a little too when guys are playing for a couple

thousand bucks. Like that's a little too high stakes for a 10 point breaker for a tie breaker. So

I'm going to reduce it down to three lines. So it's just that's what we've been doing is three lines

of doubles. So the guys are used to that. So and what clubs are you playing at right now?

Yeah. So my clubs, I'm still confirming a few. I'm trying to, I have, I have a good bit of

interest. So I'm trying to figure out that the what I want in a club is really good member engagement.

Right. I really want and I want it to be seen as a value ad. Some clubs are like, hey, guest fees

for courts. This is that like I get I get they've got to they've got to do what's best for their club.

But a lot of my clubs see it as a value ad. They get the sponsors involved. They love, you know,

Thursday nights are a free night for them. They love having it out there. Their members love it.

They raise the sponsors. So right now my my my core clubs right that I call them are you've got

Old Town Athletic Club. You've got Martins Landing. You've got Vickery. You've got Marietta Country Club

is an awesome one. And then what's my fifth one? Shoot. I forgot. I'm blanking on my fifth line.

But basically those last one or two I am I'm going to fill and so I'll have six clubs total.

And you said spot you keep saying sponsors. Tell me because I just guessing it's not what my

idea of a traditional sponsor is what what are your sponsors? Who are your spot? They individuals

just die hard fans because obviously you're talking about a good deal of that sounds like there's a

decent amount of prize money associated with it. So where is you know, where's the money coming from?

Yeah I Country Club of Rosswell's the other club. Sorry they have housed the team. The last

season. Do what? You have to forget Harris. I know. Yeah. So yeah and then Laurel's

Laurel Springs housed the team as well. This was their first season this last season. They

actually won it. So they got the trophy. I did a big trophy. Yeah, I did a big trophy and they've

got it during the season so they'll be trying to bring the trophy back. But that didn't go

over well at Martin's Landing because I'm pretty sure Marcus Hertig is fairly competitive.

Yes, yes, very competitive. But yeah so last season two it was roughly about a nine week season.

The year five weeks during the season one week off then I did one week each a playoff. So there

was like three weeks of playoff. Did that the last two seasons and realized it's just a little long.

There's a good bit of time commitment. And so what we're actually going to do is we're going to

shorten it down to actually a five week season which is going to be great. So you do your five

weeks of playoffs. So you'll play that Thursday and then that following week and that following Saturday

and Sunday we're doing quarter finals, semi finals on Saturday and everyone's at the same

courts. So all matches are going to be there. So oh no if it's confirmed yet so I don't want to save

the place it's going to be at. But it will be all matches playing at one facility for quarter

finals and semi finals and on finals and Sunday. So it'll be great because that was the other thing is

there was never a time. This is also a good thing about me learning. I'm learning right because it's

literally a one man show. I mean I know I say that lightly because I would not be able to do it

without a ton of people but on the back end it is a one man show and I can iterate pretty quickly as

much as I want to. And I think this is going to be a really good iteration to bring all my teams

together in one spot and have everybody playing together one spot. It's good for the players to

all be together. But it's good for the spectators as well to be able to have multiple matches that

they can go and see and watch and from a sponsor standpoint too. It's a good place to garner a lot of

eyeballs on something. But to your question about the from the sponsor side my goal is to raise about

two to three thousand dollars per club to sponsor their team. And so a couple of different avenues I've

thought of raising a sponsorship is you know we've done logos on the shirts. So I put logos up on

the website. Social media awareness I do as much as I can on that piece on that side.

We'll do which was a this was a big hit this last season was I basically ran I call it a pro am but

it's just a tennis night where the teams are drafted and then we do a tennis night with the the players

and any of the members that want to come play and just have a fun tennis night we can do round robins.

You can do a you know a player per tennis court you can do a serve court. I basically just left it

open to the clubs to decide how they wanted to structure the night but the goal of the night was hey

let's raise let's do a fun raising night for the team and let's let's all try to band together do a

little bit more of a crowdsource model. Hey if you want to support the team like come join a fun

tennis night and support any and all support is is needed and appreciated so.

I smell a real gambling component to this that is that yes. Oh yeah. No I need I that that is trust me I've

had a lot of people come up and ask me when I can do that and I personally am not the like

the most knowledgeable about that stuff so so I just haven't looked into but I do know I do know

like there could be there could be an avenue there and and people would definitely get involved

on that. Yes we did a little Calcutta back in the day when I said white columns due to two years

running and I think the second year and this was all just players in the neighborhood there was

close to $10,000 going back and forth and I was like this is you know I couldn't be associated with it

from that perspective because I was like oh great but yeah I I think Trevor short would really

be interested in this is his his his components he likes a good gambling event as well. Oh yeah yeah

I could talk to him I know Trevor well so I need to get pick his brain on that side. He'll be back

soon I think he's in Indian Wells or wherever he's at now but he'll be back soon yeah that's interesting

that's good good for you guys but yeah that's always it's great that the clubs are taking ownership

and as you said when you're talking about that level club there's somebody in there that has a position

that this could work for them and it's a matter of just getting it out there shaking the trees

and like I said especially let me know I have somebody that might be very interested especially

now that you're doing an end of the sea with your end of the season last year how many eyeballs did

you get just a curiosity. Oh like on on social media or how many people showed up for the event itself.

Oh yeah our final was at Martin's Landing and that last I mean we took a picture with all the people

I mean there was I won't say a couple of hundred but there was upwards of a hundred people

at that last match and it was not planned to be there either and so that's my point is like if I can

if I can facilitate like everyone knowing that the finals going to be at this facility and like on

Saturday and Sunday there's three matches and there's that structure I mean I could see it being

you know a couple hundred if not like a thousand over the weekend.

So moving in you know we lost the Atlanta open there's a dearth to see at that high level

and then give make it interactive I think you could potentially really have something that's

exciting for you guys. Yeah for sure and through solutions like swing vision I've thought about trying

to get into a streaming component of it to stream the matches as well that's a whole other piece

I want to figure it I want to bite I don't want to bite off more than I can chew right there's endless

things that I could do and I want to make sure that I the number one goal is to quite frankly is to

raise as get the level as high as it physically can and pay the players as much physical money as I can.

I'm not doing this to make a ton of money off of it I want to make it worth my time but I've

got my day job I'm doing this you know respectfully I want to go make my money from the matches I

win right like I want to make it worth it for me too like I want it I want to put something on it for me

and so I'm trying to make this the structure as much given back to the players as possible because

that brings the members to watch the level and that and as much money as I can get I can get the

high level players to come. Wow that's that's against everything my mentor in sports marketing

told me about pay the players as little as you have to. He's exactly yeah right think of

Raul hey what do I mean because I saw you I guess the first time I became acquainted with your face

was at the antennas exhibition what do you do you look at them as a competitor because they're

going to have a team here in that time seems like you're going after pretty much the same player how's

that working out. Yeah no Andrew and I have we actually just did another expedition down at

Georgia Tech what two weeks ago yeah and that one that one was a great success and I'm actually trying

to garner more interest with intense because I think intense one thing is they've got the backing

to run to run something like this and so him and I have we've we've talked we've been in conversations

on a couple of different avenues of working together and so I love it I'd say the first time I

played it it was a little hard to navigate a little bit as a player I would say the second but

the first time I played it it was a it was a broken down version of it and the second time I played

it it was much much better and so that's what I would say is don't don't hate on it till you try it

a couple times because I definitely I would I'll I'll say it I wasn't like I was like hey I don't

think I don't think this is going to work and then I play it the second time and I'm like hey

this is a lot of fun it was a lot of fun I really enjoyed it and I think it could

garner a lot of interest especially from the players like I think that the accessibility

from a pay standpoint I think they are if ATP is here I think intense is here and then live as a step

below intense because intense is looking to get you know someone who's on season like on salary

right like there's a much higher area to have a line to entry for that like I don't think I would

even make it on intense like from from their pro league right and so I definitely do think that

there is a limit from crossover I would say from live and intense but we've talked about it they've

wanted to do a format of kind of like a formula one format and potentially my league being the

league right below it right and and it'd be kind of like a feeder league to his league and so we've

talked about some some neat ideas of how we could how we could work together in that because it is

very similar from the you know fan integration like wanting to get that engagement from you know

player to fan up there's a lot of a lot of crossover with it and so we both we both enjoy we talk a good

bit about it and you know it's had some success I mean real team tennis it was here we were heavily

involved with it back in the day I used to do the sideline announcing for them and it was you

know it was a party you know we brought the Jensen brothers out to and we brought the Atlanta thunder

out to AC DC's thunder so it was meant to be that up but from a business standpoint oh my god there were

so many rules that got its way from success that I don't think it ever reached any obviously you have

a very limited window when you're talking about that level player you had four weeks in August maybe

you're to be able to capitalize using them but there is an interest in in the team aspect of it

it's just not getting in your own way and a lot of things they did they got in their own way with

the way this guy couldn't play against this guy because of for business reasons he got expensive I

get it but you know this this is a real opportunity because I do especially think here without the

Atlanta open there's a lot of great tennis here I always go back to the story I think the year

I wasn't Ken Flake it was Doug Flake beat Andre Aguicy at Wimbleton he came back and played

out to here and had or played the pro league and had a losing record so you know it's like wow the

level of tennis is is pretty crazy here when you when you get to it so it's exciting that you guys

the younger guys Marcus's guys are a little older the younger guys are going to get out there where

the people can see just that level yeah yeah definitely I'm done Sean I know I monopolized this

Hey Bobby what do you got for him you exhausted yourself I know when you're done so to end up and

one I appreciate your time we appreciate your time Elijah but I do want to ask my favorite question

and see what you've got for us here is we always ask if you were the king of tennis whether any scale

just Atlanta the whole world any level you were the king of tennis is there anything you would do or change

what would I do or change I need to be like it's along the same vein of what I'm what I'm doing

and what I created but that the team aspect of tennis I think needs to improve substantially even

at the alto level and it almost seems like the lower level you go down the worst the team

aspect and dynamic gets tennis is at its best format when it's in the team format and I think

I'm trying to do my part and create a league and and and bring that up and show people kind of

model it hey even at the highest level I were not pros but we've played in you know D1 or college

and this is how a team environment should look and this is how people you know talk to each other

this out it works and talk to your teams be encouraging stay for all matches like do all these things

and so I would say I would I would I would love to see a higher integration of team tennis in a

healthy way well there you have it we want to thank reGeovinate.com for use of the studio and

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