Digital Social Hour
How Social Media Is Changing Tennis Forever | Sam Querrey DSH #1250
Thu, 20 Mar 2025
🎾 How is social media changing tennis forever? 📱 Find out in this fascinating episode of the Digital Social Hour with Sean Kelly, featuring former tennis pro and pickleball star, Sam Querrey! 🚀 From thrilling Grand Slam moments to the rise of pickleball, Sam shares his journey, insider stories, and how platforms like Instagram and TikTok are transforming the sports world. 🌍 Discover what it's like to face legends like Federer, Djokovic, and Nadal, and hear Sam's take on why pickleball is exploding in popularity across the U.S. 🇺🇸 Plus, we dive into the business side of tennis, how sponsorships have evolved with social media, and why Wimbledon remains the holy grail for players. 🏆 Packed with valuable insights, this episode is a must-watch for sports fans and anyone curious about the impact of digital media on athletics. Don't miss out—watch now and subscribe for more insider secrets! 📺 Hit that subscribe button and stay tuned for more eye-opening stories and exclusive interviews on the Digital Social Hour with Sean Kelly! 🎙️🔥 CHAPTERS: 00:00 - Sam Querrey on Wimbledon vs US Open 00:30 - Transitioning from Tennis to Pickleball 03:14 - ROI in Tennis Journey 08:29 - Accomplishing Tennis Goals 08:56 - Importance of ATP Ranking 10:18 - Beating Djokovic at Wimbledon 13:44 - Match Fatigue and Endurance 15:26 - On-Court Coaching Insights 16:07 - The State of American Tennis 20:00 - Different Court Surfaces Explained 21:40 - Roger Federer Influence 23:20 - Best Tennis Player of All Time 24:10 - ATP Master 1000 Tournaments Overview 27:05 - Earnings in Pickleball 28:43 - Introduction to Padel 29:46 - Watching Pickleball: Is It Fun? 30:46 - Singles vs Doubles in Pickleball 33:17 - Nick Kyrgios Controversy 35:30 - Launching a Podcast 37:09 - Where to Find Sam Querrey APPLY TO BE ON THE PODCAST: https://www.digitalsocialhour.com/application BUSINESS INQUIRIES/SPONSORS: jenna@digitalsocialhour.com GUEST: Sam Querrey https://www.instagram.com/samquerrey SPONSORS: SPECIALIZED RECRUITING GROUP: https://www.srgpros.com/ LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digital-social-hour/id1676846015 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Jn7LXarRlI8Hc0GtTn759 Sean Kelly Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmikekelly/ #pickleball #pickleballdrills #pickleballlob #sportsmarketing #socialmediatennis
Chapter 1: Why is Wimbledon considered the most prestigious Grand Slam?
If you took a poll of all the guys in the top 100, which major would you want to win the most? I think Wimbledon would win. I think worldwide Wimbledon's known more amongst non-sports fans. If you say Wimbledon, people know that it's tennis. Right. Or U.S. Open, French Open, you kind of have to specify. You're talking about the tennis French Open or the tennis U.S. Open.
Chapter 2: How does transitioning from Tennis to Pickleball work?
All right, guys, we got Sam here, former tennis pro, now pickleball pro. Thanks for coming on, man. Yeah, thanks for having me. Yeah, what a transition.
Yeah. I mean, if you're playing tennis, going into pickleball, it's not like the toughest transition. Right. It's a transition. There's harder ones, I'd imagine. Definitely. And with pickleball, you could probably play into your later years, right? Yes.
I kind of say like if you are playing tennis and you're going to pickleball, pickleball, it's easy to get good, hard to get great, like anything, especially coming from tennis. You pick it up quick, but if you want it, that first 90% is easy. That last 10%, you got to put in the work like anything and practice all day, every day to get to the top.
Interesting. Would you say it's harder to get to the top of pickleball or tennis? Tennis. Really? Yeah.
I mean, I'm not to the top of pickleball. I kind of got to the top of tennis. I was much better. Tennis, you have to put in a little more work physically. It's a global sport. There's better athletes around the world vying for those top spots. As of right now, tennis is definitely more difficult to get to the top. That's a good point because pickleball is really only big here right now, right?
Only here, yeah. It's starting to branch out in other parts of the world, but for the most part, it's only in the U.S.
How did the pickleball community embrace tennis players coming over?
I think early on, it's, you know, pickleball has been popular, let's say, for two years, two, three years, really. And so I think early on, the pickleball community, and by community, I'm saying like the other pickleball pros, right?
were a little apprehensive, a little jealous maybe of some of the tennis pros coming over just because they were kind of stealing some of the thunder, some of the recognition, some of the fame. But now it's great. There's a handful of other tennis pros, Jack Sock, Jeannie Bouchard, Donald Young, that have come over to Pickleball. And everyone's getting along. Everyone's friendly with each other.
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Chapter 3: What is the business side of a Tennis career like?
I was fortunate to have parents that could get me junior lessons. I was able to travel to tournaments. I was gonna go play in college at USC. I turned pro about two, three months before college started. And so if you're a top junior in the world, which I was at the time, I was maybe like seven, eight in the world, You get lucrative clothing contracts.
So I got a clothing contract at the time from Adidas. Wow. I got a racket contract from Prince Rackets. And then I also did this... kind of situation that my dad set up, I got five investors to all give me a hundred grand. So I got 500 grand up front and then they got a percentage of my prize money over the next, I think it was seven years. Wow. Yeah.
So I was fortunate that right away, um, got that. And then in tennis too, if you're top hundred, which I was pretty soon after that, if you're in the main draw of the grand slams, yeah. You know, at the time, your check was probably $40,000 to lose first round. Now it's $100,000 just to lose first round. Really? The US Open, Wimbledon, French Open, things like that. That's not bad at all. No.
Because you can do that four times a year. Exactly. Now you've done a bunch of work to get yourself into that situation, that ranking. Right. It's not like they just randomly picked 100 people. You've worked really hard to get your ranking from 1,000 up to top 100 to earn the right to play in those four majors. Mm-hmm. So is that how it works?
Is each round, like as you progress, you make more money? Is that how the majors work? Exactly. That's how every tournament works.
But yeah, majors, I'm kind of spitballing here and guessing, but right now, the Australian Open that just happened. First round would be about $100,000. Second round, maybe $160,000. Third round...
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Chapter 4: How do sponsorships and social media influence Tennis today?
That's surprising because you were really up there in the rankings at certain points in your career. Yeah, I got to 11 in the world. But yeah, never. It's all right. I wonder how they base hit you. No, you're 11. You got to be top 10, actually. Yeah.
I think different companies base it on ranking, but some, all right, you're ranked 20 in the world, but you have a personality and you've got a big following. So it's a lot of tennis where you're getting your endorsement deals from kind of depends on personality or where you're from in the world. Someone from...
from America or Australia or Italy might be more valuable to a brand than someone maybe from a smaller Eastern European country, just because they've got more people from America and Italy and things like that.
That makes sense. Yeah. Some of those, most of those watch brands are more internationally based. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. That makes total sense. Yeah. And you were before the NIL money too. So it was a lot tougher to source deals, I'd imagine.
Yeah. And that's a better question for my agent or tennis agents. I think if you're a tennis agent right now, not necessarily saying it's easier to get deals, but I feel like there's more opportunity. There's more little one-off brand deals through social media than there was 15 years ago. For sure. Did you want to accomplish every goal you had for your tennis career? You know, I don't know.
I didn't really, going back 20 years, I didn't sit down and say, hey, these are all my tennis goals. I never was really like a person that set out each year or big picture to have like five goals I wanted to reach. If I played well, tried hard, had good tennis results, my ranking kept going up, life was good.
And that's kind of how I looked at it. Were you tying your identity to your ranking? Like, did that have a lot of importance for you?
It didn't. Life was definitely more fun when you're ranked higher. When you're ranked like 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 20, you're playing in bigger moments. You're playing in semifinals of Wimbledon or quarterfinals of the US Open or Wimbledon, things like that.
um you're making more money you're you're on espn and tennis channel more often you know when when you're ranked 80 still fun you're still playing the tournaments but you're not getting that recognition that you that you like and so i would i would kind of say it's just way more fun when you're ranked higher right yeah because you get the televised matches you get the better courts totally you're making more money from sponsors just life's more fun yeah did the bigger stages frighten you like playing in front of huge audiences
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Chapter 5: What was it like for Sam Querrey to beat Djokovic at Wimbledon?
There was a few other guys like that, but he was at the top.
That's impressive. How common was it for you to get tired mid-match, like super burnt out, like third, fourth, fifth set?
It happened at times. There was times like, you know, I'd get tired or you'd cramp. I had a few times where like my legs cramped or like an arm cramped and I had to retire from a match. Damn, from a cramp? Yeah. You know, sometimes like, you know, I remember once my hand cramped and it just kind of went down like this and I couldn't pry my hand back up.
Holy crap. I've never had my hand cramped before. Yeah, tennis you're holding a... Yeah, that makes sense.
But yeah, occasionally the Australian Open or the US Open, it's 100 degrees and you're three, three and a half hours into a match. Yeah. And yeah, at times I had to kind of tap out. Didn't happen too often, maybe four or five times.
Yeah. I saw when Djokovic just retired, the fans were upset. But at the same time, like he's injured, like what do you want him to do?
Yeah, and his was more of like a groin injury. His wasn't like, oh, we're four hours in and I'm cramping. That was like a legit... I pulled something in his groin. He, on Twitter later that day, put out the image showing like, hey, this is the actual injury.
That's why I like him because he's so raw. He'll call out what he doesn't believe. Like that one reporter. Yep.
No, absolutely. Look, Novak, I know he's polarizing like him or not like him. He gives incredible answers. He gives real raw answers and they're... They're answers that are well thought out. They're in depth. He's a very bright guy. Absolutely. He's a... He's an awesome guy to interview. I love after his matches when they go on the court and interview him.
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Chapter 6: How do match fatigue and endurance affect Tennis players?
I think he lost to Federer in three Wimbledon finals. Oh, was it three? He's been to three. One of them was five sets, but I'm saying three times he made the final.
I think I'm talking about the last one.
The last one. Because he was retiring soon. He lost a brutal one to Roger at the finals of Wimbledon, like a 16-14 in the fifth set. I think that's the one I'm talking about. Yeah, I think, I mean, Andy was great on grass, great at Wimbledon. I... I don't know if he would trade a US Open trophy for a Wimbledon trophy, but I think he would.
Yeah. Yeah. Do each ones have different values, I guess, for players? Or are they all kind of seen as the same?
I think they have different values for different players. If you ask me, I would rather win Wimbledon, then the US Open, then the French Open, then the Australian Open. Really? If you asked a French player, they'd probably do French Open. Oh, yeah. You know, if you ask, a lot of Americans would maybe rather win the US Open first than Wimbledon second.
Generally speaking, I think if you took a poll of all the guys in the top 100, which major would you want to win the most? I think Wimbledon would win. I think worldwide, Wimbledon's known more amongst non-sports fans. If you say Wimbledon, people know that it's tennis. Right. Or U.S. Open, French Open. You kind of have to specify. You're talking about the tennis French Open or the tennis U.S.
Open? Yeah, because of golf, right? Yeah. Which court did tennis start on? Was it Grasse?
Probably. I honestly don't know. Tennis has been around forever. If you go back 50, 60 years, there was a lot more tournaments on grass. It's kind of flipped now. Now there's Wimbledon on grass and a few tournaments before Wimbledon that are on grass, and that's it. The grass court season is one month long. Everything else is on a hard court or a clay court.
I feel like grass probably isn't as hard on your joints, right? Right, yeah. It's soft. It feels good. It's hard to maintain grass. If you have a club that has grass courts, you're mowing it every day. You're rolling it. It's just so much upkeep. It's so expensive. If you have a tennis club and you have five grass courts, you have someone tending and caring for them multiple times a day. And
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Chapter 7: What are the new changes in on-court coaching in Tennis?
are your best four, five, or six. And those are played all over the world. If you're a top player, they'll pay you to come play them. You usually would play the ones that are in your region, if so. This week, for example, there's tournaments in America, in South America, in Europe. As an American, I'm probably going to play the ones in America.
South Americans, a lot of them will play the ones in South America. So you kind of go on what's convenient to where you live. And like, where am I going to get an appearance fee is what they call it. Where can they going to pay me the most to go play those tournaments? Appearance fees are usually given to guys top 25 in the world. Got it. So similar to track and field. Yes.
I know absolutely nothing about field, but yes, you know, these Fedor Nadal Djokovic at the majors and those master series, you cannot get paid to play them. Got it. Any other tournament, you know, those guys are getting a million dollars to show up. And appearance fees can go all the way down to here's $5,000 and two free hotel rooms.
Anywhere in between that, that's how players determine where else they would go.
Yeah, tennis, the business side is fascinating to me because most players do not make enough to live off of tennis, right? You're saying basically top 100?
Top 100 is making a lot. I mean, I don't have the list of prize money in front of me, but I think the guy last year that ended the year 100 in the world probably made $800,000. Oh, wow. Yeah. Your expenses are high, though. That's what people don't realize as a tennis player. When I went somewhere, I paid for a coach. I paid for a physiotherapist. I split with another player.
I had myself and my wife, so... getting four airline tickets every week somewhere. And you're paying a coach's salary and a physiotherapist salary and hotels and food. So, you know, that, that guy who's 800 or who's a hundred in the world that made 800,000, he's got 300,000 in expenses for the year. Wow. But yeah, top 100, top 150, top 175, you're making a good living.
I think now it's more like 200 in the world that you would make the argument of you're making a tough living. Go back 15 years ago, you would have said 100 in the world, you're good. Anything outside of that, you're struggling. The prize money has gone up a ton in the last decade. That makes sense. Is pickleball similar where it's like the top 100? No. No.
Pickleball is, I'm still new to pickleball. So pickleball basically, there is prize money at these tournaments. And pickleball, because it's so new, the rules and the structure and everything has been changed. Every three months, there's something, a breakthrough, a different league structure. They're figuring it out.
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