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Welcome to the Atlanta Tennis Podcast.

Every episode is titled "It starts with tennis" and goes from there.

We talk with coaches, club managers, industry business professionals,

technology experts, and anyone else we find interesting.

We want to have a conversation as long as it starts with tennis.

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

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and the other racket sports enthusiasts in your life.

And now let's get into our recent conversation with Andrew Herring and Kevin Ye.

They have four Padel courts at the ITA facility in Atlanta,

three more at the Good Bounce Pickleball Yard in Louisville, Kentucky,

and definitely more to come.

Have a listen and let us know what you think.

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Let's start with Kevin, because we know Kevin, we've met him personally.

Andrew will definitely want to hear from you as well.

But Kevin, do me a favor.

Tell me a little bit about who you are,

and then specifically we want to jump into your involvement

in the sport of Padel.

And I have only recently been convinced that that's how I have to pronounce it.

So I have to say Padel, it isn't just Paddle, right?

There's long going debate about that.

So I think at this point we'll go with whatever works for people.

So yeah, I'm Kevin.

I started the world tennis in a coach last 15 years.

I was a director of junior development at Ace Tennis Academy,

as well as director of one of our other satellite clubs.

Last 10 years or so, I've been working with Emory University as well.

My last two years, my two full-time years with the university,

with the women's tennis team.

And I was the assistant coach there.

I've gotten into Padel in the recent years.

Just the first time I heard about it was on Instagram.

So you know how fun it was.

It looked awesome.

Andrew was up in New York at the time, and they have a lot of Padel up there.

I always force him to play with me,

even though he was a lot better me at the time.

Now, now it might be debatable, we'll see.

But we've been talking about doing something for a little bit,

and we started about a year and a half ago.

It was kind of when the first idea of this sprouted

won't get too much in that backstory.

Maybe a story for another time on that.

But Andrew's a pretty avid paddle player,

and was ranked at the top.

Top 20, top 30 in the US at one point if I'm not mistaken.

And so, you know, he's got a big love for the game,

and me being a rack guy as well.

It's just another thing to get addicted to.

Another rack is important to get addicted to.

So, you know, it's been, it's a good, good community that we've seen grow here in Atlanta,

and kind of just around the US.

So, it's definitely a fun sport that we've got into,

and luckily we've got on the business side of things.

You know, we were looking for a location for several months last year,

we went in at ITA in Chambley and we've been able to park with them to build four courts over there,

and has grown ever since.

So, we started construction about late summertime.

We ended construction around November and really started business December timeframe.

And first, you know, now it's been around six months or so,

and definitely seeing a big uptick in the community and involvement.

And so, the one big thing that Andrew not focused a lot on is community engagement.

You know, being able to draw people in from all different types of rack and sports background,

and we have a lot of different people from different countries that are coming on and playing as well,

just because it is quite popular overseas.

But the biggest thing for us is just being able to, you know,

be able to attack things different, different groups and different communities within Atlanta.

And I like that. That's bringing everybody together.

We talk about community a lot.

We talk about the connectivity of what sport does for us,

and bringing everybody in. Bobby made a comment the other day.

He says, "Sean, I said, "we're going to talk to the paddle guys with the pedal guys."

Which I wanted to... And this is going to be fun.

And we're going to talk pickleball.

And I said, "But what are we going to do? This is go tennis."

He says, "Sean, it's all tennis."

Just a slightly different version here and there,

especially when the tennis guys like us can jump in and feel like we can figure it out.

You know, even Kevin over here thinks he can hang with Andrew at this point.

And Andrew sounds like he's actually a really good player.

So, Andrew, tell me a little bit of how you got stuck working with Kevin.

So, I have known Kevin for, I guess, almost 10 years now.

We were college teammates played tennis together at Kenyan.

And so, after I graduated, I kept with tennis pretty heavily.

I worked a job in finance, but was still playing tennis like five days a week in New York,

where I lived now. I live in Brooklyn.

And then I had seen the Instagram videos, same way as Kevin, for the paddle stuff

and heard rumors of a club opening in New York.

So, I just waited and waited and waited for the club to actually open.

And then as soon as the club opened, joined and started playing.

And then started traveling all over the US to play.

And so, Kevin and I were at my 30th birthday and just talking.

We're like, "Man, it'd be so cool to open a club in Atlanta because the tennis community is so strong there."

And such a good opportunity to get in and do something and be on the forefront of all this.

And then Kevin and I a couple weeks later followed up with each other.

They were like, "I was kind of serious if you were."

And we started looking and now we've got the club at ITA.

And then last month, we just opened another location in Kentucky,

where I'm originally from at Louisville.

So, we have another three-core facility there.

So, it's just been a lot of fun.

And juggling everything with both of us having full-time jobs and doing this massive project on the side.

It was something, but I think we've done a very good job with Kevin's at the community side of it.

And just building really good relationships with the people that are there, which is the most fun part.

And then from a tennis perspective, like to your point, all of this is tennis we come from heavy tennis backgrounds.

And so many of the people who are playing at ITA are old tennis players who are performer tennis players

who don't necessarily want to play tennis anymore, but they want another sport where they can chase a ball for two hours.

Yeah, I'm going to Bobby, I'm sure I'm going to steal your question,

which is, "Are you drawing from mostly tennis people?"

Is this a conversion scenario similar to people aging out into pickleball where there's a conversion?

You have to say, "Okay, well, I can go do that and it's a little bit easier than tennis."

And that's good because the barrier to entry is easier.

And in that case, I can kind of age out into pickleball fairly easy.

How, Kevin, how do you guys bring in the tennis players?

Because there's a physicality to Patel that's different.

I mean, it's the opposite of pickleball, in my opinion.

Yeah, that's a good question.

I mean, just being in the community here with tennis, it's been a little bit easier to try to get

these are my buddies out there and playing and then go from there.

You know, we found that the pickleball market, as I spoke to about the other day,

it's a little bit different. It's a little bit different of a crowd.

You have some crossovers where, you know, former tennis players play,

and then a lot of former athletes that are played at a decent level or in college or in high school.

And they find that they want something possibly a little bit more physical than some other sports.

They'll come home and play Patel or Patel.

They can still have fun.

You know, it's a very social sport, just kind of how the pickleball is.

You know, it doubles.

Typically, you come hang up before, you come, you have a drink or hang out after the fact as well too.

But it's been fun to see, kind of see who all has been coming out and who has been really enjoying sports.

Yeah, we can focus on like, who's coming out? What's, we have all the demographic questions.

Who's it going to be and all that? But I know before I steal all of the time because I'm capable

of doing that, I'm sure Bobby's got some more business related questions because Bobby,

you were down there at their opening event, correct?

I was, my first question, however, has to do with where are you in Brooklyn that you have that kind of

backdrop? I grew up in New York and never did I look out a window that looked like that. So where are you?

Well, I live in Fort Green in Brooklyn, but I'm actually in Atlanta right now.

We have a tournament this weekend. So I'm in Atlanta for the next few days and then I'll go back

up to Kentucky to run the show with our club in Kentucky for a little bit before I go back to

Brooklyn and visit my family up there with it. But that makes me feel that.

Be living the highlight of that was what I had.

I was like, my dad was a long Sherman on the Docks in Brooklyn. I never saw that view on my whole life.

What is the name of the gentleman who's the peddahl guru in Florida?

Then I mean, this is Marco Stelpolar. Marco's, yes, Stelpolar. Yes. Okay. He's been, I spoke to him years ago

and he was such an advocate and then seeing, I think, really to appreciate it, you have to go see it.

A, the courts really look cool. You know, there you can see through. So it just, like Sean said,

it's not for, to me, the older. It's definitely for the younger. And I think it, you know, it's

going to catch on in the company that bought courts. It was a huge, their reservation system court

was designed for peddahl in Spain. So there's, it's coming. They thought they were going to make an

impact in tennis because the answer to a great background with peddahl in Spain. It had a couple

bumps, but definitely this, what has been buzzing around for some time. You guys rent the space,

the lease agreement, looking to expand if somebody else has room for you guys.

Yeah, I think we took a similar model like the sub lease type arrangement that we've got with

ITA. It's the same thing we're doing in Kentucky, but we also planned to open up our own clubs as well

and just do like where we're running the show ourselves and have our own space. The nice thing about

going in as a sub lease or in these arrangements is we just get to skip a lot of the ticker tape

that's required to get up and running because, you know, there's a lot of permitting and different

things like that. If you go to a club that already has the land, there are these I own to build courts.

So you just have to worry about, is there any height restrictions or things like that you go into?

So I think like we started talking with ITA last year in like July and we had courts in

November, built up and we started talking with the place in Kentucky in I think like December or

January and we have courts as of this month and so talking to the people who we bought our courts

from that did the distribution, everything from Spain. They were like it's really cool to see what

you and Kevin have done because we get so many people reaching out to us like, "Hey, I'm thinking

about doing this. Can you quote me on courts?" And then we don't hear from them again for three years.

You guys have two clubs open within, you know, nine months of contact with us and like that just

doesn't happen. So I think we've been very fortunate and then we've found really good partners who

share the vision of what we're trying to do and are willing to let us come in and you know, operate

with a lot of range to do what we want to do to help grow how we want because the toughest thing with

this has just been, you know, okay great, we're doing this new thing in Atlanta, you know, in Louisville.

We're introducing an entirely new sport. So it's not even like, okay, we build these courts and we've

got to grow the business to attract people to come play at our site. We have to teach everybody how

to do what they're doing. And so I think that's the really important thing where you want to make

people really enjoy themselves. Want to come back, the communities apart of that, but also just

helping them understand that the barrier to entry for this sport is not as crazy high as it seems.

Because a lot of people are very intimidated by, oh, there's this wall that I've got to do. And like

every time somebody comes to us, you know, they're talking about, oh, I got to do this on the wall.

And if you spend 45 minutes with somebody, you can get them on the wall and playing a game.

At the end of 45 minutes, my girlfriend who has no background in racket sports,

she's like tennis paddle is so much easier than tennis. And it was cool to hear that because it just

means you just have to show people that it is much, much easier to pick up.

How do you deal with Atlanta where tennis is free? What is your price point? I mean, obviously this

is a business. Atlanta unfortunately, tennis is free. We had an opportunity with Pickleball that

tried to change the paradigm and wasn't real successful there. And it's going down the free avenue as

well, this has to be a fee associated with playing. What is an hourly court time for Padao?

Our hourly rate is $60 an hour for the court in the current prime time hours. To give you a

comparison, we are one of the cheapest options in the entire US. I would say the average hourly

cost for Padao in the US right now is around 100 an hour. If you go to New York, it can be as high as

300 an hour. Miami is in like a 120 to 150 range. And then you have cheaper places like San

Diego's a little bit cheaper, Texas is a little bit cheaper. But we tried to be on the

lower end of everything because of that exact issue where we knew people are going to look at this

and be like, okay, I can play tennis for free. I can play Pickleball for free. Why am I paying even if

it's $15 a person, which is what $60 an hour is. Why am I going to spend $15? But if you can get somebody

on a court for two hours and they like it, it doesn't matter what the price is, they're going to come back.

I mean, within reason, obviously, you can't charge $500 an hour. But as long as they don't feel like

they're getting highway robbed, the retention rate of somebody who plays Padao for two hours

is very, very high. But getting them to that two hours is the tough thing that you have to do and

figuring out what the easiest way to do. That is whether it's promotional clinics and free nights and

open houses or just coming out for a clinic and having them do that piece. And I think that's been

something Kevin and I have really focused on is how do we get people out there for that first time

and make them have such a positive experience that they want to come back for the second time,

because if we can get them back to that second time, we likely have them and they're a client for

the foreseeable future. Very good, very good. That's my big curiosity. There just anything in

Atlanta introducing with the finances is difficult. And it's an absolute, it's a grand, I mean,

why was there for the opening? If the people couldn't jump on quick enough, they'd look like they

were having a blast. It looks cool, aesthetically pleasing, blended in really well with the ITI.

I always tell Sean that the pickleball courts were filled, the Padao courts were full, the tennis courts

were empty. And that's going to be their issue there. But I think obviously having you guys there,

something novel that draws traffic will help in the lead to the curiosity. If they finish the

construction on that temporary housing that used to be the hotel, that would be a big

boom as well for the establishment. Where are we next concentrating for the next location? Are you

looking for partners? You looking for what's next for you guys to continue your growth?

So we're trying to lock down our situation in West Midtown to open our own club in West Midtown

is the goal for the end of this year. And then we're just kind of always looking to see,

because real estate is the toughest challenge in all this and finding the space you can do it.

And you just have to keep yourself open to opportunities is what we found. I don't think either of us

planned to be in Kentucky as quickly as we were. But like that opportunity just came up. We were

looking at real estate casually. We found a partner who has a great location right on the Ohio River

in Louisville. And we were able to build three courts there and just kind of operate as our own. And so

it was like, okay, that's a great opportunity. We can't turn that down and it's a good way for us to

expand. And so similarly, we'll keep our ears out for opportunities. And I think the bigger goal

for us is we want to really dominate the Atlanta area. So not only in Atlanta proper, but get to

some of the suburbs and go north, go south and take advantage of the fact we have a great Atlanta

name with the P.A.T.L. stuff and make ourselves the brand in Atlanta for paddle and

take advantage of how vibrant the tennis community is and how well spread it is.

What's your demographic of the typical pedal player if there is one?

20s to 50s. Former tennis player is ideal. Right now, I mean, we've really leaned into the

Latin population in Atlanta. I would say like the majority of the people who are playing right now

are people from various countries in South America or Spain who have some previous exposure to it,

but we're starting to get a lot of former college tennis players as well that are playing.

I think one thing in Kevin may be able to talk this a little bit better since he's here full time

and seeing it is we've just learned that we're not going to convert a lot of pickleball players.

So we've really decreased prioritizing like, oh, we're right by all these pickleball courts. Let's

try and sell some pickleball players on coming over and trying this because it's just a totally

different market. If you can find a pickleball player that comes from a tennis background and

switch to pickleball because they didn't want to or couldn't play tennis for some reason any longer,

then those are really good people. But if you're looking at somebody who like just plays pickleball

and has only played pickleball, the chances that person converts the paddle are almost not.

They may try it for once but oh, this is cool. I'm going to go back and play pickleball. So we've

really deprioritized that type of person and we're really focused on tennis players, especially those

20s, 30s, 40s that want to do something different. I think the tagline that I heard from somebody is

about paddle, which is very true, is that the barrier to entry is very low, but it's also an incredibly

difficult sport to master. So you get a lot of people who come in and they can start playing really

quickly, but the idea of them getting very good is hard and requires a lot of work and that's why it

keeps a lot of these super talented tennis players interested is because it gives them something to

get better at versus tennis where they really play top and they're only going to get worse.

I feel like you're talking about me right there, Andrew. You're just saying I plateaued in my tennis game

and I don't think it worse from here. I feel like I took that personally.

I'm talking about you, me, Bobby, Kevin, everybody. I'm not picking on any one person.

You're not talking about me. I'm so old that I'm out of your demographic.

Well, but Bobby, I was talking to Kevin previously and he was talking about how interesting it is as a

sport in and of itself and that if you're really looking for the physicality of playing and where

you and I might not be of the typical age of that, I can only guess a lot of Kevin's friends,

a lot of those local guys played college tennis at Georgia Tech. That kind of guy is really going

to enjoy the day. They're really going to like that because I like what Andrew said. We've, however

good we are and however old we are, tennis you get to a point and then you realize that's as good as

I was ever going to be and that's probably it and you're on your way down at some level. You can

maintain it. That's great. But pickleball, we all go play it. It's fun. We figured out, whack, whack,

whack, we beat all our friends. It takes us about 12 minutes to figure it out. And then we're like, well,

okay, well, that was easy. What's next? But I think Patel, Kevin, would you agree that they

would the Andrew statement that there's much further to go on that higher end? Yeah, I think with

kind of the love of the shots that are added back in from, you know, comparison with

pickleball, you know, the lobs are a huge play. You know, you're having a little bit more touch and

a little bit more feel and not just all power. You know, learning some more of the strategies and angles

and core positioning, you know, that dynamicness of the game. The key to people interested and

you know, like I said, like you said, it takes a little bit of time to master that part of the

you know, you get to a certain level where you know, a lot of players have good, good racket skills.

So that makes it a little bit more fun competing against some of those guys too.

But, you know, I think, you know, adding that physicality plus, you know, the number of shots that you

can hit keeps a lot of which and playing and still trying to continue to grow and try to improve as

well. All right, so Bobby, what we have to do is you and I are going to be the team. We'll have a

go tennis event down at the Patel facility and I at IGA. You and I will be the team. Anybody that

gets to beat us can can stay and keep the court. That way we'll only have to play one game.

Go chat with somebody else. Give us a chance to kind of figure it out and have some fun. But

it does look like a lot of fun. I love the fact that it's a heavily, heavily Latin as well because

that would make sense that especially in Europe that it's fairly popular. So the people that

have come from that from those spaces from those countries would say, oh, well, I actually

recognize this and the transition into tennis is difficult. I was doing some keyword searching and

some technical stuff with our website guys. And one of the most common searches right now is

rakete de teni. So I'm like, wait a minute. In Spanish people are searching for tennis rackets.

And I went, okay, what does this tell me is that even in Atlanta or especially in Atlanta,

especially in the US, that there's a heavily Spanish speaking movement, a heavy Spanish speaking

movement into racket sports. And we see that a lot in our areas. I would guess in that

shambler area, the kind of underneath spaghetti junction space where the demographic is there

in Atlanta that's also where you are, right? Andrew is Kentucky different or do you also see

this Spanish speaking demographic there, heavily? I mean, I think it's there. We're pretty early

with what we're doing in Kentucky. So I mean, there's a lot of our audience there has been like my

network from all my family's exposure there. A lot of squash people and everything from that

community. I would say like a lot of squash players in Kentucky are who are coming out to the courts

now. But I mean, it's really an interesting place to be because my family's super involved in

USDA. So I hear all the tennis stats and pickleball stats and everything is they go head to head. And

I mean, I think a lot of people, you know, in paddle, we hear they just talk so much trash about pickleball

and like they're like pickleball is going to die. And I think what they don't realize is there's

there's room for all three of these sports and all of them are growing at such a high rate. I mean,

tennis is doing better than it's ever done, right? COVID like was the best thing that could have ever

happened for tennis because it drew new people into it. The game is growing so much. The same thing with

pickleball and the same thing with paddle now is the fastest growing sport in the world, right? With

this, it's the second most popular sport in fact in Spain behind soccer is paddle. And you see a

lot of that. So it's really cool, you know, as a former tennis player to see just racket sports in

general doing so well. And I think you're seeing that and we we're leaning into that, right? Where

we want to get all these players involved and just ride the wave. It's super exciting to be

early into paddle. We want to get into the Latin community at Louisville. So that's our

that's our focus now is to to get into that. And my Spanish is getting impeccable. I was getting

messages last night in Spanish and come away through it. So that's a few of them going like crazy to

be able to engage with the Spanish community. That's smart. I like that. We met a tennis

director of men's programming. I think in that Latin athletic club, the other day, he was talking

about his duo, Lingo and and I do the same thing. My wife's Ecuadorian. So I'm trying to catch up on my

Spanish as quickly as possible. And maybe that'll be good. That'll work out. That'll help my my entry

into Padel. I've already got already already able to to to work my way in. Bobby, what else you got?

Because I've I've talked to Kevin quite a bit. I'm caught up. What are we what do we want to share? What's

the what's that are there any burning questions? Are we a little early with this? Well, what can we do to

you know, help drive some people down there? You know, what what? Perfect example since we have

limited space. It's not like you know, when you do a tennis show, you can still have on two people,

14 courts. You have limited space with the doubt. What would what is a good drill if we were to do

an introduction to Padel sport? What how many people would you look would you consider successful?

As far as clinics go, I mean, typically we limit a clinic to four people just from a space

standpoint to your points tough. You can do some of the same cardio paddle all type things and merge

people on. But I think what we really focus on is making sure that we have four people on the court.

So private lessons. We do them, but we try and encourage you know, because it's a team doubles only

sport. So we encourage getting as many people out there as we can from that perspective to really work

and do group oriented events. What's done the best for us and been our most successful

event that we run is we do something on a two or three times a week basis called Americanos,

which is we get all of our courts and this is I mean Kevin and I send out the notification

on Mondays for our Thursday and it's I think the last three weeks has been filled within five minutes,

16 spots. But we get four courts going out. Everybody rotates around, plays tie breakers with each other

and you play with every single person like all other 15 people in the event and it goes back to the

whole you know, the level of play. We've verified everybody to make sure they're at the right level and

they can mix and match and it's super social very low key but still competitive where you can play

points and do things like that. And I think those are the things that are the best way to get in there

is maybe an intro clinic just to get your bearings and know the rules and everything but

the Americanos where you get to mix and match and really lean into that social aspect of the sport

because similar to Pickleball where it's very social I mean paddle is inherently social because you

are playing doubles all the time. You need four people to play and you're constantly talking and

you know hanging out and it's almost rude not to have a beer at the end of your match if you're

hanging out with people especially when you're you know hanging out with a primarily Latin audience

or European audience. I learned that early on. It was been nice about the Americanos is that

as the sports growing as you know finding more people in the community it's really fun about

meeting people to play with too. You know you had good group of friends that you have maybe a few

but if you can't fill out four you guys aren't going to play. So I think a lot of people

didn't able to meet others to play with through the Americanos and being able to just kind of get

games outside of just you know those set hours during the weekend during the weekend as well.

All right so Bobby we're doing it we're gonna try to add more it sounds like they're full so

they don't really need me help. We'll see if we can see we can get involved for sure. Bobby last question

because then I was gonna ask them if they've got anything they've got coming up. Tell us let's

hear what they have going on. All right Kevin you're in well I guess by the background if you're

watching the video we can tell that Andrew is not in New York at the time but what do you guys have

coming up at ITA anything interesting you've got this kind of system I think you do a lot of what's

that messaging how can we get people and I'll put everything in the show notes as well so you

don't have to spell it out but how do we how do we get everybody to get in touch with you if they

want to go play some pedale and what's coming up. Sure yeah I mean you know where what's our community

group is this is this huge all that stuff that's also on our websites as well you know we run clinics

these open plays lessons every week so there's a lot of opportunities through that in the fall time

we probably throw out a few events you know try to talk a little bit about something possibly

the fall time as well but as we're going into

come up we have some social events some one day tournaments we've been running about a

lot one day showdown tournament where you know we get a group of 20 people out there so we have two

group stages and if you make it out by group stage you play for the finals bracket and we bring some

you know food drinks out there too so just kind of a good time as well so we'll run some of those

events in the fall time too and possibly some bigger tournaments as well so that lot a lot coming up

nice Bobby I heard if we show up with a sponsor they'll run the event so I think I think we can definitely

get together on this one so what we like to do in the end gentlemen number one thank you so much I

appreciate it Kevin we love that you're playing on our pro league team this summer that's been a lot

of fun to watch and we've got a big week the next week coming up I guess say next week I'm dating our

conversation here but this summer we're playing in the pro league Kevin's playing Andrew sounds like

you can play some tennis too next time you're in Atlanta we'll have to get together to hit some balls but

what I want to finish with is what we always ask and Andrew will start with you we always ask at the

end we're gonna bring it back to tennis because we always do bring it back to tennis Bobby always says

you know we we start with tennis and we can have any conversation we want it goes from there but

in my case I like to bring it back to tennis at the end if I can so Andrew our king of tennis question

so you got to take off your padell hat or maybe it could be get everybody into padell I don't want to

give you any ideas there but if you were king of tennis and you could do or change anything at any

level professional social junior any level for any period of time if you were king of tennis is there

anything you would do or change yes this is something we did when we were in college my freshman year

and I think it was something that our coach at the time learned from the Columbia team but during our

challenge matches we were given one over rule a match if we thought our opponent made a questionable

call and obviously at the pro level you have lines people or you know virtual line callers so it's

not a big of an issue but basically any level down from that I would love to see a rule like that

implemented so you get rid of a bad call impacting a match like even I was playing in a USDA match

this past weekend and I the 50 match you know somebody hooked me and I was just like we're in our

30s you know playing a match on a Sunday night at 8 p.m. like why why do we need to do this it doesn't

mean that much it would have been nice just to be like I'm gonna take that ball that ball is clearly

in like we're taking the point so I think something like that would be really cool to see and also

to deter a lot of the youth cheating that you see I mean I was always taught in the south you know

when you grow up playing in your traveling to I think we were playing a bull frog at the point that

I was doing it but I'll play one of those bull frogs or something if you hit it by the line just

expect that it's gonna get called out which is a terrible place to be yeah we learned that in college

winning doubt call it out but that's uh the out teams the USDA teams the league players social players

they all know it you know it's it's in during the clinic but it's out on Thursday morning and we all

probably used to that and I think a lot of the technology that's coming out recently has been

focused on helping with line calls and my theory is I agree with you it makes the world a better place

and in this case tennis you say hey this is gonna make tennis better I think it makes the world better

because we're all a little bit happier at the end of the day we're happy to get into her line calls

I love that answer I appreciate that Andrew Gavin your next king of tennis what do you do or change?

yeah there's something I've got to some people belt before in the past you know I think I'll be on the

topic with um you know lymphics coming out here right and how the tennis is formatted during the

Olympics I would love to see them do a little bit more of a Davis Cup style where you know you have

a few players for country playing a group stage against other other countries like Davis Cup or like

even like a World Cup style and then you know you get out of your group stage to go into

into a bracket or knockout stage I think how it's set up right now it just seems like just another

professional tennis tournament where you're kind of playing as singles or doubles and yeah you get

you tack on the the country flag to it but I think to get a little bit more kind of like that team

atmosphere that that country spirit I love to see that as more of a team event versus a individual

events okay I haven't heard it before I like it and also it's what three sets only so clearly

as Barrett's gonna win again right? sorry putting the red book correct out Sean predicts Barrett

only three sets and in the Olympics but the team atmosphere makes me think of the what is it

the labor cup? one team might have you know you got Novak Roger and Rafa but that doesn't mean your

team's gonna actually win it isn't just another professional event at the Davis Cup brings some

excitement to it now Kevin you're I don't know this Bobby does anybody Andrew do you know are

there more individual events than team events in the Olympics overall does anybody know the answer

to that? I would say there's probably more individual events when you think of track and field

and swimming track and field does the dominant so yeah that's what we did that would guess that's

how it started yeah because in that case especially if there are more individual events I agree with

Kevin in that case that bringing the bringing the group team event would be a lot of fun for the

country well guys I love it I love that we've got I say a new sport I hadn't heard of it for

maybe a couple years ago can I ask one more question Sean? Oh yeah we're talking Tia especially

with Pidel the idea that you have to have at least two but what about having a team of three where

you could sub in? That's one thing I love to see in tennis as a coach a high school coach especially

when the kid consistently blows you know makes bad decisions in basketball if you miss five bad shots

where in tennis we have to sit there and go oh god you know so if somebody's gonna take the lead

there and say okay come here come sit out a second when you every time you take that shot you're

gonna come sit right here it would it would be interesting I just was at they're trying to do

something like that with squash so I just went to like they're calling it the national squash league

and I went to a match when I was in Louisville a few weeks back and they do instead of playing scored

games for squash they do squash on a clock with three guys going head to head on each team and they

sub out and they have like power plays like hockey and they just see who has the most points one after

I think like 10 or 11 there in a period and it was pretty cool so like to your point yeah it'd

be awesome you said like one guy getting tired you bring in your ringer and then you bring it

another guy and then you bring back the first guy once he's got his win back that would be that

would be pretty awesome so what do you think about tennis on a clock I don't like I don't know I

think it would take away the creativity you hear like Nadal and Federer talk about how redundant the

game has gotten because it's just such brute force and I think if you put tennis on a clock and you

did something similar like that for tennis you would just get these guys who come in and swing for

winners for you know this they're points to try and get quick points because there's no risk

like I think that you miss it a lot where you saw Federer or like Nadal they would play with great

point construction and now it's just okay who can hit the biggest cross-court ball to set up an

inside out winner or inside in winner you know for 30 minutes hey come on Emilio Sanchez has been a

lot of money with that theory so come on yeah not that not that anybody can't make money doing

something well and yeah I agree with Andrew there that's an interesting scenario realizing it will

change the mindset of the player if you change how the sport is played and I think that's some of

the things we like to talk about that's why I like the King of tennis question because it's I would

personally like to change some things I'd say you know what baseball I think you have to win an

inning as opposed to hitting a hole hitting a run or in the other sports where we have a period we

tell you look at hockey you know what I think you need to win two out of three periods would be

kind of an interesting scenario because it would change more like tennis and maybe it's just my

appreciation for tennis scoring because I think it's elegant I think it's brilliant and it changes

the momentum and I can lose a set I can take a deep breath and how many all the time we're up a set

and down a break or we lose the first set and we break early in the second the momentum swings

are completely different in tennis than other sports and I think those some adjusting some of those

things could be a lot of fun and Bobby asked about the the time in tennis because we might have

something coming up here soon that could be an interesting version of tennis and I guess to Bobby's

point maybe he's right it is everything's all just tennis but in this case but Dale is a really cool

version and for anybody listening check it out I will put all the links in the show notes I will

make sure you guys know where to go it's at the ITA facility which basically if you know where

spaghetti junction is go there you'll find it and we're gonna try to do some events we'll have some

fun and I wish you guys both lots of luck love that you got to done quickly what in the same year

I mean that's that we're within a year that's fantastic and let's talk about your your midtown

ideas too because maybe we can have a little gopedal we can change the logo and we're gonna be a part of

stuff we love running events we love the community outreach we love the community where we bring it in

what's the opposite of outreach right the community we bring everybody in and we can do more than

just tests we're gonna have tennis and pickleball and pedale and I think there's beach tennis down there

at ITA as well across the street so there's not going on but gentlemen I appreciate it we will make

time to follow up and like I said everybody listening we've got all the all the links everything you

need in the show notes and how to get in touch with everybody and where you need to go and we will be

in touch so Kevin Andrew of play paddle I love the name by the way PATL sounds like paddle that was

I figured that out my brain went I get it that's awesome great name but gentlemen thank you so much

I appreciate your time thanks guys thank you guys appreciate it well there you have it we want to

thank rejGeovinate.com for use of the studio and signature tennis for their support and be sure to

hit that follow button for more racket sports content you can go to letsgotennis.com and while

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