The Double Bagel Tennis Podcast

Rick Macci is a USPTA Master Professional and seven-time USPTA national coach of the year, he has coached five world number one ranked players: Andy Roddick, Jennifer Capriati, Maria Sharapova, and Venus and Serena Williams. We also talk about the other player he has worked with such as Sofia Kenin and Mary Pierce. We go in-depth about his personal relationship with Donald Trump as well.   We also talk about the "King Richard" movie, the film about young Serena Williams and Venus Williams coached by their father Richard. 

Toni Nadal, speaking at the Rafa Nadal Academy, reminisced the days of coaching a young Rafa Nadal- teaching him discipline, respect, and perseverance. We talked in-depth about why Nadal prefers to play against Roger Federer rather than Novak Djokovic, and the painful defeats in 2009 Roland Garros to Robin Soderling and the 2012 Australian Open defeat to Novak Djokovic.

In 1983, New Zealand tennis legend Chris Lewis reached the Wimbledon Gentlemen's singles final where he played John McEnroe. To date, he is still the last New Zealander to reach the singles final of any Grand Slam tournament. We talked at length about his memories of Wimbledon 1983, his friendships with legends like Bjorn Borg and Ivan Lendl, the ultimate sacrifices he had to make to play professional tennis, his fond memories of Vitas Gerulaitis, and much more.

Paul Annacone rejoins The Double Bagel this week as we chat about his experiences in coaching Roger Federer, Pete Sampras, Sloane Stephens, and currently Taylor Fritz.

Up and coming Belgian tennis star Zizou Bergs is the guest for this episode. We talk about his upbringing, his breakthrough in Antwerp last year, winning two Challenger titles last month, his journey of being a professional tennis player, and more!

Former world no.8 Janko Tipsarevic will be the guest for this episode. We caught up just a few days ago while Janko was in his academy in Belgrade, as expected he was in great form and we talked in depth about many things including his playing career highlights, stories of his teammate Novak Djokovic, his post-retirement life focusing on his Tipsarevic tennis academy, and much more. I hope you enjoy our conversation. 

Current world #23 Alex de Minaur joins the show during his busy pre-season. We talk about his 2020 season, his relationship with Nick Kyrgios, the reality of being a professional tennis player, playing tennis for the first time, his goals for 2021, and much more.

This week former world #4 Robin Soderling joins the show. He was the first player to defeat Rafael Nadal at Roland Garros in 2009.  We talked about his playing career, his post-retirement activities, and his predictions for Roland Garros. 

I'm joined this week by Rennae Stubbs- a former world no.1 in doubles and a six time doubles Grand Slam champion. After retirement, she moved on to a career in broadcasting and is now a full-time commentator for ESPN and channel seven Australia. Throughout our conversation we talked at length about the highlights of both her playing and post-retirement career such as- winning 6 major titles, her personal and professional relationship with her doubles partner Lisa Raymond, what it was like being the coach of players such as Karolina Pliskova and Sam Stosur, and much more. 

Chris Lewis is a former top 20 player from New Zealand and a Wimbledon singles finalist. In 1983, he became the third New Zealander to reach final of a Grand Slam singles tournament and 37 years after his magical run to final at the All England club, he is still the last New Zealander to reach the final of any Grand Slam singles tournament.  

I'm joined this week by Jonas Bjorkman- a former world #1 in doubles and #4 in singles. He is a multiple doubles Grand Slam champion- 9 to be exact and is one of the few players to have won all four doubles Grand Slam tournaments. He was part of that golden era of Swedish tennis in the 90's and won three Davis Cups for Sweden in his career, and he reached the singles semifinals of both the US Open and Wimbledon in his career. 

Welcome to another special episode of The Double Bagel. Joining me for this episode to preview the US Open is fellow tennis writer and editor Jim Smith. 

Welcome to a special episode of The Double Bagel.  It is a special episode as we are here to preview the Cincinnati Masters held in New York. Joining me for this episode to preview Cincinnati is fellow tennis writer and editor Jim Smith. 

This week we have an hour long special episode with former ATP top 20 player in the world- Dmitry Tursunov. He achieved a singles career high ranking of #20 in the world in 2006 and won a total of 7 singles career titles, but still in his own words he tells me he considers himself an underachiever and he'll discuss why. We dive deep into his story, moving to the US from Moscow, Russia at 12 years old for tennis, the ups and downs of his playing career, his post-retirement activities such as coaching, why he thinks he can relate to Nick Kyrgios, and his thoughts on Russian tennis.

This week I'm joined by Ashley Harkleroad- a WTA former top 40 player in the world and the first ever professional tennis player to feature on the Playboy magazine. She reached a career high of 39 in the world when she was just 18 years old and was dubbed the 'American Kournikova' at one point in her career. We discussed many things- what she's been up to post-retirement, what it was like growing up in a small town in Georgia, her experience posing for the Playboy magazine, and balancing the roles of being a full-time mother and a professional tennis player.

Patrick Mouratoglou is the current coach of Serena Williams, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Coco Gauff, and many other players.    Patrick's most famous partnership is arguably with Serena Williams, who he started working with in 2012. Since then, Patrick has coached Williams to a total of ten Grand Slam singles titles, three WTA Championship titles, and helped her regain the world no.1 ranking on the WTA Tour. 

This week, I'm joined by New Zealand professional doubles player Artem Sitak. Artem is currently ranked 73 in the world in doubles, but only two years ago he reached a career high of 32 and the quarterfinals of Wimbledon around the same time.   Throughout our chat we talked at length about being born and starting tennis in Russia, moving to Europe and Florida where he won the Orange Bowl at 14 years old, and the ups and downs he's gone through being a professional tennis player. 

This week I'm chatting with the five-time doubles Grand Slam champion, and doubles world no.1 Bethanie Mattek-Sands.  Bethanie and I recorded this over a year ago at the WTA Eastbourne tournament, where she just reached the doubles final with her partner Kirsten Flipkens. At the time of recording this chat, I never thought this would be used in a future podcast episode, hence why the sound quality isn't as good as the previous episodes, but I promise, there's still plenty of gold in here. 

Seb was a former Davis Cup member for New Zealand and a former coach for top 100 ATP/WTA players. When he was 11, he moved to France where he trained at the Mouratoglou Tennis Academy and mentored by Patrick Mouratoglou himself. Seb went on to be New Zealand's top junior, and transitioned into coaching after his professional career ended, and is currently based in New Zealand operating his Lavie Tennis Academy in Central Auckland. 

This week on the show we have Emilio Sanchez. Emilio was a former world no.1 in doubles and world no.7 in singles. He won a total of three doubles Grand Slams, and won silver in the 1988 Olympic Games in doubles.  Since retirement in 1998, Emilio captained the Spanish Davis Cup team to victory and opened the Sanchez-Casal tennis academy where he coached players like Andy Murray, Grigor Dimitrov, and Svetlana Kuznetsova when they were all juniors. 

If we had a debate about who are the greatest doubles teams of all time, I can guarantee that your list would contain the Bryan Brothers. Well, this week's guest is Mike Bryan- one half of the Bryan Brothers. He's won a total of 18 men's doubles grand Slam titles, 16 with his brother Bob, and 2 with his good friend Jack Sock. 

This week's episode will be an interview with the highly touted 17-year-old Holger Rune. Holger is currently the reigning Junior Roland Garros champion, and ended last year as the junior ITF world champion and junior world no.1  

20 years ago, Mary Pierce ended France's 33-year drought at Roland Garros, by becoming the first woman to lift the Suzanne Lenglen trophy since 1967. Since then, despite success in doubles, no French player, male or female, has been able to replicate Pierce's win at the French Open.  www.thedoublebagel.co.uk

Former world #5 Henri Leconte was in good spirits as he spoke to me at his office in Luxembourg. Of course given the current circumstances, we talked virtually via Zoom. It was a fun chat and we covered many topics such as why reaching the 1988 French Open Final was his highest point and also the lowest point of life, ending France's 59 year drought of Davis Cup glory in 1991, the future of French tennis, and more. www.thedoublebagel.co.uk 

Dinara Safina is a Russian former world number 1 and is a three-time Grand Slam finalist with 12 career titles under her belt. She is the younger sister of three-time Grand Slam champion and ATP World number 1, Marat Safin. They are the only brother-sister duo in tennis history to ever achieve this status.

Craig O'Shannessy is arguably one of the best tennis strategists out there. He was the strategist for Dustin Brown when he shocked the tennis world by beating Rafael Nadal at Wimbledon in 2015. Recently he was the strategist for world no.1 Novak Djokovic (2018-2020). He will talk about that experience being part of team Djokovic and what makes him such a special player, what the strategy is to beat Rafael Nadal, and more.  

Former world no.1 and 2003 Roland Garros Champion, Juan Carlos Ferrero, spoke exclusively to The Double Bagel Podcast last week talking about his playing career and what he has been doing post-retirement. The 40-year-old retired in 2012, and has been active in the tennis world by managing two tennis academies in the world- one in Spain and one in China, and has coached Alexander Zverev, and is now coaching 16-year-old Carlos Alcaraz.  

Paul Annacone is the former coach of Pete Sampras and Roger Federer. He is now a full-time analyst for 'Tennis Channel' and the coach for Taylor Fritz.