Episodes

Up until the 2021 US Open, Alastair Filmer was known as one of Great Britain´s leading performance coaches. He´s now more commonly referred to as Emma Raducanu´s former coach. The 18-year-old has been in the spotlight since she stormed to the women´s title as a qualifier earlier this month. Alistair coached Emma between the ages of 11 - 14, guiding her to her first ITF title at 13, and 3rd place at the U14 Orange Bowl. He was Head of Performance at Bromley Tennis Centre for 7 years, bef...

In this bonus episode, we speak to Alexa Guarachi who is currently World Number 12 in Womens´doubles. Alexa has just reached the Semi-Final of the Women´s Doubles at the US Open with partner Desirae Krawczyk. The pair previously reached the final at Roland Garros in 2020. The daughter of an American mother and a Chilean Father, the 30-year-old has represented Chile since 2015. She has 5 WTA and 20 ITF Doubles titles to her name and is currently coached by GB´s Craig Veal. Listen t...

It´s not been a bad few weeks for GB´s Joe Salisbury. In fact, it´s not been a bad year! The 29-year-old completed a US Open double at the weekend, winning the Men´s Doubles with partner Rajeev Ram on Friday, followed by the Mixed Doubles title with Desirae Krawczyk the next day. Joe has now reached 5 Grand Slam doubles finals in 2021, winning 3 of them. He´s now world number 4 and a 4-time Grand Slam Champion. In this episode, Joe talks to CTC Host Dan Kiernan about his amazing f...

Facundo Lugones has been Cameron Norrie´s coach since 2017. The pair played together on the Mens Tennis Team at Texas Christian University for 12 months, before Facu became a Graduate Coach for the team. The 28-year-old Argentinian has guided Norrie to 3 ATP Challenger Tour titles, and 2 ATP Tour Doubles Titles. In June, Norrie reached the final at Queens, before winning his first ATP title in July in Los Cabos, breaking into the top 30 for the first time. In this episode, CTC Hos...

If you watched any of the 2021 Australian Open in January, you wouldn´t have missed Craig Tiley. The Director of the Aussie Open was on our screens throughout the tournament as he dealt with tennis players and officials in hotel quarantine for 14 days, and a local lockdown in Melbourne. In this episode, Craig talks to CTC Host Dan Kiernan about the difficulties of running a Grand Slam during the pandemic, and shares all the latest of what the 2022 Australian Open will look like. C...

We´ve kept you waiting for this episode, but it´s worth the wait! Listen to our review of the 2021 Wimbledon Championships with this year´s Mixed Doubles Champions Neal Skupski & Desirae Krawczyk. Neil has recently reached a career high of 14 in the world in doubles. The Brit teamed up with Desirae for the first time at Wimbledon, fresh off the back of her French Open Mixed doubles title with GB´s Joe Salisbury. Also joining the review is Desirae´s coach Craig Veal. They chat to C...

Maik Burlage is a former professional tennis player, and now the founder and CEO of Wingfield. The 30-year-old German played professionally for nearly 3 years, before moving into Coaching and then tech innovation. He set up Wingfield with the aim to bring affordable smart match and performance analysis to the wider tennis community. Wingfield´s technology gives players the opportunity to receive instant video and data from their practise session or match at their local club. The d...

Dr Jim Loehr is a world-renowned performance psychologist. He´s worked with hundreds of top athletes including Olympic Gold medalists and tennis players Jim Courier, Monica Seles & Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario. During his career he´s also worked with military Special Forces, Hostage Rescue teams, surgeons and Fortune 500 CEOs to achieve sustained high performance. Listen to Dr Loehr talk to CTC Host Dan Kiernan about:- How he started working with his first tennis player, Tom Gul...

In this episode we speak to British youngster Arthur Fery. The 19-year-old came within 1 match of making the main draw at Wimbledon this year, beating former top 40 player Matthew Ebden in the Qualifying at Roehampton. Arthur has recently hit a career high world ranking of 840. He had a successful junior career reaching world junior number 12, and made the semi-finals of the boys doubles at both Wimbledon and the Australian Open. He´s now studying at California´s Stanford University, si...

We´ve had to wait two years, but we´re now just a few days away from watching the green grass of Wimbledon on our screens! To celebrate the return of SW19, we´ve brought together a group of 10 former and current British Tennis players to talk about the highs and lows of being a British tennis player during the grass court season! And what a line-up it is... Kyle Edmund Harriet Dart Katie O´Brien Lucie Ahl Chris Wilkinson Danny Sapsford Claire Ta...

As the grass court season moves into its second week, our Grand Slam panellists are back! Former Belgium number 1 Xavier Mallise, and GB Coach Mark Hilton join host Dan Kiernan to review the French Open and preview Wimbledon. Hear their thoughts on all the action at Roland Garros, and what the short transition from clay to grass is like for the players. Can Roger lift that Wimbledon trophy one more time? Will Serena be able to clinch her 24th Grand Slam? The panellists give their ...

If you were a tennis fan in the 80´s and 90´s, you wouldn´t have missed the Jensen Brothers! The original American doubles brothers, Luke & Murphy Jensen were known for their high energy on court, chest bumping and high fives, as well as their long hair and bandanas. Nicknamed the Rock n Roll tennis brothers, they won the mens doubles title at Roland Garros in 1993. Product endorsements poured in and the pair went onto appear on the cover of Rolling Stone and People magazines, increasin...

Mike Digby has been a hitting partner to some of the biggest names in tennis. A late-comer to the game, the 23-year-old Brit played tennis to US College level. He´s since travelled to some of the biggest tournaments in the game, practising with and warming up players like Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, Simona Halep and Coco Gauff. He´s currently a coach at SotoTennis Academy, and has recently returned from hitting with ATP & WTA players at the Madrid Masters. Not an easy job...

Naomi Osaka´s withdrawal from the French Open this week has called attention to the mental health of professional tennis players. The world number 2 was fined $15,000 for not taking part in a post-match press conference, and threatened with expulsion if she continued to not talk to the media. She pulled out of the tournament on Monday. In this bonus episode we speak to Daria Abramowicz, the sports psychologist of defending French Open Champion Iga Swiatek. A former competitive sai...

Marcus Daniell is not your ordinary professional tennis player. The 31-year-old from New Zealand has reached as high as 34 in the world in Doubles and has 5 ATP doubles titles to his name, but he´s also known for his work off the court. Since 2015 Marcus has donated a percentage of his earnings to charity, and in December 2020 he launched High Impact Athletes. The organisation channels charitable donations to the most effective evidence-based charities in the word, including extreme pov...

With less that 24 hours to go until Roland Garros gets underway in Paris, we´ve brought our panel of former and current pros back together to preview the French Open. Our panellists are:- GB´s Billy Jean King Cup Captain and former British number 1 Anne Keothavong 2012 Wimbledon mens doubles champion and former Denmark number 1 Freddie Nielsen GB Coach Mark Hilton Hear their picks for the mens and women´s title at this years event, as well as their ‘outsiders to watch’. ...

Alex Ward is a British tennis coach and former player. He reached a career high ATP ranking of 242, winning 14 Futures titles. Alex was part of the 2010 GB Davis Cup squad and played Wimbledon in 2016 & 2017. He came through Qualifying in 2017, losing to fellow Brit Kyle Edmund in the first round. He retired from professional tennis in 2018, moving into coaching, and has most recently been working with Heather Watson. In this episode you´ll hear Alex talk to Dan about:- ...

Paul Annacone is one of the world´s leading coaches. He´s worked with some of the greats including Pete Sampras, Roger Federer and Tim Henman. Annacone guided Sampras to nine of his 14 Grand Slam Titles, leading to Sports Illustrated calling him “the court whisperer”. He helped GB´s Tim Henman rise from number 41 in the world to a career high of 4. He also led Roger Federer back to World number 1 and his 7th Wimbledon title in 2012. In between this, Annacone was also Managing Director o...

In this episode, we´re talking all things data with ATP/WTA tennis analyst Mike James. Mike is a former UK tennis coach who moved into the world of tennis data analysis in 2014. Since then he´s worked with many top players and coaches like Stan Wawrinka and Misha Kecmanovic and is now the data analyst for the 2020 French Open Champion Iga Swiatek. He has also set up his own company, Sport Analytics. Mike tells us how he fits into a pro players team, and what information they will ...

Iga Swiatek is the 2020 French Open Champion and world number 17. At just 19 years of age, she became the lowest-ranked woman to reach the final at Roland Garros since rankings began. She also became the first Polish tennis player ever to win a Grand Slam singles title. Not only that, but Iga didn´t drop a set along the way. Iga talks to Control the Controllables about her incredible journey from a young tennis player to becoming a Grand Slam champion as a teenager. She reveals how she ...

Tennis fans will know Lewis Burton as a former British tennis player who reached the final of the Wimbledon boys doubles in 2010. Non-tennis fans will know Lewis as the boyfriend of TV presenter Caroline Flack when she tragically died in February 2020 at the age of 40. In this episode of Control the Controllables, Lewis looks back on his tennis career which saw him reach a high of 218 in doubles and 626 in singles. He won 26 ITF pro circuit doubles titles and qualified for the Wimbledon...

Dan Evans & Neal Skupski speak to Control the Controllables fresh from their amazing run at the Miami & Monte Carlo ATP 1000 events. Dan made his way to his first ever ATP 1000 semi-final including a stunning victory over world number 1 Novak Djokovic at the Monte Carlo Masters. Up until last week, Dan had only won 4 career clay court matches. Dan and Neal paired up 2 weeks ago after Neal´s regular partner and brother, Ken Skupski returned home from their ATP 500 victory in Acapulco wit...

In this week´s episode we speak to GB´s Jonny O´Mara and his coach Toby Smith. Jonny O´Mara is a doubles specialist from Scotland who has reached a career high ATP doubles ranking of 44. He´s been working with fellow Scot Toby Smith for more than two years. Toby is the former Head Coach of Tennis Scotland, as well as working with many top British Players to the highest level of the Junior Game. He is also the big brother of GB Davis Cup Captain, Leon Smith. They have a wonderful player/...

If you´re a fan of McEnroe, Borg, Sampras, Agassi or Courier, this is a must-listen episode! Tom Gullikson reached as high as 34 in the world in singles and 4 in doubles. He is a 2-time Grand Slam finalist, winning the Mixed Doubles at the US Open in 1983. Also known as Gully, Tom was the US Davis Cup Captain between 1994 and 1999, leading the US team of Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi, Jim Courier and Michael Chang to victory in 1995. As Team USA's coach, Tom also helped Agassi win a gold m...