Tennis With An Accent

Nick Nemeroff joins Matt Zemek and Saqib Ali to preview the ATP Finals. Nemeroff talks about all the 8 participants as he fields off questions from the hosts.

Upcoming ATP player Emil Ruusuvuori is the podcast guest this week. Ruusuvuori has broken into the top 100 this year after an immensely successful season at the challenger tour last year. Ruusuvuori talks about growing up in Finland and the transition to the main tour.

Rafael Nadal has won the 20th singles major of his career by winning the Roland Garros title. This was also his most convincing win in a major final over arch rival Novak Djokovic. This win puts Nadal with Roger Federer at the top of the ladder for most singles major titles. Iga Swiatek also made history by becoming the first polish major winner in tennis. Mark Woodforde joins this episode with Matt Zemek and Saqib Ali to breakdown the 2020 edition of RG.

Mert Ertunga and Damian Kust join the show to preview the 2020 edition of the Roland Garros. In a indepth dive into both draws the panelists pick exciting matches and potential upsets and of course the ultimate winners.

Andres Gomez is the podcast guest this week. This year marks the 30th anniversary of his win at Roland Garros. Gomez talks about that run and the final against Agassi. He also talks about his nemesis Ivan Lendl, who had beaten him at Roland Garros on multiple occasions. Gomez unlike most South American players of his time played an aggressive baseline game which was more out of the American tennis template. In a very rich and detailed conversation Gomes reflects on tour lide, locker room environment and compares how the game has changed over the years.

After a weird and wild U.S. Open, which was unlike any other major tournament we have ever witnessed in our lives, Saqib Ali and Matt Zemek try to make sense of everything which happened over the past few weeks in New York. The dramatic Thiem-Zverev men's final, Osaka's brilliant run to the women's championship, the excellent quality of the women's tournament, the Djokovic default, and a whole lot more. It's all part of the U.S. Open review episode of the Tennis With An Accent Podcast. Find us at SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.

Tennis needs a new vision and a fresh imagination. The sport also needs people who care about it to connect, discuss, inspire, and plan ahead. The Between the White Lines virtual tennis summit, which will be held at the end of September, is designed to do just that. Guest host Karen Helf leads this latest "state of tennis" discussion with summit organizer Mark Jeffery and special guest David Fish. It's the new Tennis With An Accent Podcast on the state of tennis in these fluid and uncertain times.

The PTPA drama is flowing through the global tennis community as the U.S. Open begins in a sea of confusion and uncertainty. Tennis With An Accent analysts Andrew Burton and Skip Schwarzman try to make sense of the various tension points, political conflicts, long-term goals, and situational complications of Novak Djokovic's movement to improve tennis governance. Tennis With An Accent responds to the latest headline news in the world of tennis.

On the ever of the US open we get to uncover one of the greatest tennis champions of all time - Pete Sampras. Hall of famer Steve Flink returns to the podcast to talk about his new book - Pete Sampras Greatness Revisited.https://www.amazon.com/Pete-Sampras-Greatness-Steve-Flink/dp/1937559947/ref=asc_df_1937559947/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=459515754640&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=3118407330902076687&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9001898&hvtargid=pla-925947799590&psc=1 The book is a recollection of Sampras's career arc and Flink is very articulate and careful of the 14 time major winner's journey. It is a perfect reading companion for Sampras era fans and at the same time it brings the Sampras Agassi era to full light for a younger tennis fan. A must listen podcast!

The 2020 United States Open will be unlike any other major tennis tournament we have seen in our lifetimes. This is a genuinely unprecedented moment in tennis history, a truly unique occasion with no true basis for historical comparison. What can be said about a tournament which is unknowable and unpredictable in ways we can't fully grasp or imagine? In-house analysts Mert Ertunga and Andrew Burton help host Matt Zemek make sense of a very confusing and complicated time in tennis, as they look forward to the U.S. Open while also charting a possible course for the sport of tennis into January and much of 2021. Where will the sport of tennis go, and how will the sport adjust, next year? What will tennis look like if the pandemic is more successfully contained? How should the two tours restructure themselves to meet the challenges of this extraordinary time? What will Roland Garros look like when the U.S. Open ends and the tours immediately go from North America to Europe? All these uncertain questions and much

World feed commentator Nick Lester returns to the podcast to discuss the resumption of tennis action across all tours. Lester will be doing hs commentary from his base in London without travelling to the tournament sites. He sheds some light on how the pandemic has impacted his industry. Lester highlights the challenges of the new world tennis as the game will resume with no fans and media on site. He also breaks down the action from last week's Lexington WTA event showcasing the talent of the winner Jennifer Brady. Lester gives his shortlist on who can potentially challenge Djokovic in the US Open swing and difficult it will be for the older players to resume after a five month long layoff.

Gene Mayer was a ATP pro who was ranked as high as #4 in the world in 1980. Mayer played in the era when American tennis was considered the standard of the men's game. He looks back at those times and battles with the likes of Bjorn Borg, John McEnroe and Ivan Lendl. Mayer also had a brother who played on the pro tour - Sandy Mayer. In a conversation full of anecdotes he recalls upon the times that he played his brother on the tour. Mayer gives his views on the state of the men's game in the US and why he thinks tennis wise we are a third world country at the moment. He also talks about being from Queens and the thrill to play tennis at the Garden and Flushing Meadows.

In this episode of the podcast I am rejoined by Mert Ertunga as we do a time travel episode and try to review Wimbledon 2006 men's edition in a retro live manner. The championships made the Fedal rivalry official as Nadal had won 6 of the 7 matches against Federer coming into this Wimbledon final. The match had lot of significance for Federer as he defended his prefered turf against his arch rival. Mert Ertunga weighs in on the important aspects of this match from each set. This also happened to be Andre Agassi's last championships. We discuss his Wimbledon career in depth and where does he rank with some of the modern greats of the game. Last but not the least the tour is seeing some new talent on the rise in the form of Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray, Marcos Baghdatis and Tomas Berdych. Along with the already established players like Andy Roddick and Lleyton Hewitt the tour is getting deeper in talent.

Mert Ertunga returns to the Tennis With An Accent Podcast for a review of Wimbledon women's tennis history in the latter part of the 20th century. Mert chronicles women's tennis at Wimbledon from the start of the Open Era in 1968 through the 1990s, with a few additional notes about Venus Williams in the first decade of the 21st century. Playing styles, surface speeds, racquet technology, and other changes over the course of Wimbledon history are weighed and evaluated in this study of women's tennis at the All-England Club. The Martina Navratilova-Chris Evert rivalry is a natural centerpiece of this discussion, but don't forget about Margaret Court versus Billie Jean King in the early 1970s, or Steffi Graf versus multiple challengers in the 1990s. There's no Wimbledon this week, but there is plenty of Wimbledon history to look back on and discuss. Mert Ertunga provides the stories and contextual details on the latest Tennis With An Accent Podcast.

Steve Flink is a hall of famer and a tennis historian. His wimbledon coverage goes back to the early 70's. In this episode of the podcast he discusses many champions and their significant moments from the past. He also talks about some of the greats who did not win the championships but still left their stamp. The conversation is full of rich detail on some of the biggest names in the game. Major talking points include the unique ability of Borg to win on the grass from the baseline. Connors vs McEnroe 1982 final and Sampras Ivanisevic 1998 final get a worthy callout. Was Navratilova the greatest grass court player? Becker or McEnroe - who should have won more than 3 titles? How Sampras overcame a slow start at wimbledon in his early years also gets a detailed explanation among many other topics.

ATP pro Rajeev Ram reacts to the positive COVID-19 test results for Novak Djokovic, Grigor Dimitrov, Borna Coric, and Viktor Troicki. Rajeev explores the various complications connected to the possible staging of the U.S. Open and Roland Garros later this year. How will tennis players work out and prepare before taking the court for a match? Will they have to retrieve their own balls during a match? Will significant scheduling adjustments need to be made? Is it safe for a tennis player to make a trans-continental flight from the United States to France, or vice-versa? Is indoor tennis safe? Rajeev Ram also discusses the changed landscape relative to tennis governance. What are tennis players saying about any changes which need to be made in the sport? Should ranking points be handled differently? All that and more on the latest edition of the Tennis With An Accent Podcast.

Daniel Dobre is a former professional tennis player from Romania. Like many former players he has held may roles in his career in tennis - player, coach, running an academy to tournament director. However his most famous job has been as the coach of Simona Halep. Dobre has had three coaching stints with Halep and the last one was the most beneficial for both as it resulted in a Wimbledon title. Dobre talks about the life as a young tennis teen that needed to come out of the communist Romania and how hard it was to do it without a proper federation that could support its players. He also talks about Gunther Bosch's influence on his tennis coaching career. The conversation also pays a big tribute to the manager player tandem of Virginia Ruzici and Simona Halep. Last but not the least Dobre talks about his working relationship with Darren Cahill when the two men formed a coaching team to manage Halep's tennis.

Matt Zemek and Mert Ertunga join Saqib Ali to relive some of the classic trends from the French Open. The conversation focuses on the type of game that is suited to succeed on the clay of Roland Garros. Mert breaks down the evolution of classic styles from a pure baseliner to attacking players. Seles vs Graf battles from the 90's are used as illustrations on how the playing trends kept evolving even from the baseline. The conversation covers some of the iconic finals like Lendl vs McEnroe, Evert vs Navratilova and also some of the underrated ones like Courier vs Bruguera. A lot of detail packed in here for a nostalgic tennis fan.

Mert Ertunga joins the podcast this week as we kick start our Roland Garros special series. In this week's episode we travel back in time and review the men's edition of the 1991 French open. We talk about Jim Courier's maiden major win over fellow american Andre Agassi. Stefan Edberg, Boris Becker and Ivan Lendl get worthy mentions as they were the top 3 ranked players during that time. The episode is created with lot of details surrounding that time and it's players with no knowledge of the future. Please tune in!

Javier Palengue works as a global consultant in the corporate world. At heart Palenque is a tennis fan first. In this episode he shares his vision on how tennis can work post Covid19. In an extension to the Mark Jefferey conversation - Matt Zemek and Karen Helf drive this conversation to explore fiscal topics which are essential to the health of tennis. Does tennis need a bigger audience? Does tennis a commissioner? You may have heard these notions prior but Palenque comes out with new suggestions on these and many more topics. Tune in to learn more.