Fourteen years.
598 conversations.
Where are you in the journey?
Lisa Stone has spent the last fourteen years asking the parents, coaches, and players of junior tennis the questions every family eventually faces. Start where you are.
New to Tennis
Your child just discovered the game. What does the road ahead actually look like?
Club to Competitive
First tournaments, first ratings, first real decisions about academies and coaches.
Junior to College
Recruiting, admissions, the transfer portal — and the families who've already been through it.
College to Pro
The economics of the tour, sponsorships, and what life beyond college tennis really looks like.
Cross-Cutting
Mental game, injury, parent mindset, coaching — the threads that matter at every stage.
Hear them in their own words — fifteen coaches on what makes a great one.
Cross-section reels assemble Lisa's most heavy-hitting guests around a single question. New ones drop with each theme.
The guests who shaped the archive — looking back on what they said.
Past guests revisit the moments that mattered, and tell us where they are today. A living conversation across fourteen years.
"After going through personality profiling, my father apologized to me. 'You know what? I raised you wrong. I tried to make you be like me.' That was the first time he told me he loved me."
"Three years on, I'd push every parent harder on this: your child's wiring is set long before tennis. The job isn't to bend it — it's to read it. The parents who learn to do that early are the ones whose kids are still playing in college."
"It's junior development, not junior final destination. The more you lose, you're going to succeed. When I had Venus on tape, tens of thousands of parents said 'my kid is better than that.' I saw something else."
"Parents still want the result before the work. I tell them — show me your kid in three years, not three weeks. The ones who can wait, win."
"Watch the kid who texts his coach on a Saturday — 'I'm shadow swinging my serve, I don't understand how Djokovic gets to that trophy position.' Almost everyone else? The second I say 'we're done,' they're done."
"Four years later, the test still works. But I'd add this: parents need to be honest about the answer, not engineer around it. Loving the game can't be coached in."
"Most parents listen because they want a roadmap. The deeper reason they stay is that they want to know they're not alone."
About Lisa Stone →