The GreatBase Tennis Podcast

Steve Smith, Dave Anderson, and Pol Otin O’Callaghan welcome Joel Myers, the Australian tennis director at Coronado Tennis Center and an Instagram coach with over 100,000 followers. Joel tells his story: growing up on welfare with a single mom, moving from Sydney to Melbourne Park, a head pro who took him under his wing, an Aussie football injury, and a move to San Diego with one suitcase. He also talks about Pat Cash, the Nakashima and Svajda families, and his meeting with Aryna Sabalenka’s ...

Steve Smith, Dave Anderson, and Pol O’Callaghan keep things loose on episode 323, with Steve working through a stack of random notes from a weekend at the Battle of Boca. He took a van of Ave Maria players there, including a young player from Madagascar. The group also takes up the future of pro doubles, with Steve and Dave arguing that doubles players should break away and run their own circuit while keeping a place in the majors. From the tournament, Steve pulls out lessons on backboard wor...

Steve Smith and Richard Hernandez welcome former NHL player Dominic Moore to episode 322 of the GreatBase Tennis Podcast for a deep conversation about family, resilience, and the path that took three brothers from a Toronto cul-de-sac to Harvard. Dominic traces his hockey and tennis upbringing alongside brothers Mark and Steve, the adversity his family has weathered, and the role his parents’ sacrifice and structure played in shaping all three into elite athletes and students. The conversatio...

Steve Smith, Dave Anderson, and Pol O'Callaghan welcome content creator and teaching pro Jeff Lewis to the latest episode of the GreatBase Tennis Podcast for a deep dive into grips and stroke production across the history of pro tennis. The group works through the evolution of forehand grips from Eastern to extreme Western, naming benchmark players for each style, from Don Budge and Welby Van Horn's "championship grip" to modern players like Del Potro, Alcaraz, and Swiatek. The conversation m...

Steve Smith, Dave Anderson, and Pol O'Callaghan welcome longtime listener Simon Schlesinger, a teaching pro from Toronto who caught up on nearly 300 episodes of the podcast, to hear his story of falling in and out of love with tennis before finding his way back into coaching. Simon traces his path from childhood tennis in Ottawa, through a detour into arts and creative writing in Montreal, to eventually landing in Toronto and discovering GreatBase through fellow coach Will Resnick. The conver...