Today we’d like to introduce you to Marcelo Ferreira.
Marcelo, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I grew up in São Paulo, Brazil in a hard-working blue-collar family. My mom stayed at home taking care of me and my siblings, and my dad worked at a government-run company. I had a great childhood but we didn’t have a lot of money laying around to do what a bunch of the other kids my age were doing such as traveling to lots of different places, wearing expensive clothes or having the latest video games. As any Brazilian boy, I grew up playing soccer on the streets almost every day. That’s what we did back in the days. Later on, as I improved my skills, I started competing in junior leagues and soccer tournaments. My competitiveness got the best and the worst out of me and losing games when my teammates couldn’t step up started frustrating me at a very young age so I decided to try something else. A different sport. A sport that would give me a little bit more “control” of the outcome.
I invited a friend of mine to go with me to the closest public park that had tennis courts in my city. We took the 20-minute bus ride super excited to “try” to play this new game even though we had no racquets or balls with us. We figured we could just borrow that from someone else at the park. We got to the site and a few very nice gentleman, really old school, all dressed in white, noticed the two 13-Year old boys completely lost and asked us if we needed to borrow some racquets and balls. We were ecstatic with the offer and went out on the court only to realize how tough this game really was. We spent more time going outside of the tennis court to pick up the balls we hit over the fence than actually playing tennis but we had a blast and decided to come back the next day.
We repeated the routine for probably three weekends in a row and I was surprised at how quickly I was able to pick up on the basic technical fundamentals in order to at least make the ball over the net and onto the tennis court. I fell in love with the game and knew I wanted to get better at it.
I decided to ask my parents if I could take some tennis lessons, but as I expected they just couldn’t afford it. Tennis is an elite sport and extremely expensive in Brazil. I was obviously disappointed but understood that my parents worked really hard to provide for us, however; giving up wasn’t part of my makeup and I had to figure something out.
I decided to call up a bunch of tennis academies in the area to inquire about ball-boy positions that could potentially be opening up soon. Most tennis academies in Brazil back in the days used to employ young kids to work as ball-boys/ball-girls to give them the opportunity to earn an income to help their families. I didn’t hear anything back from the academies for about three weeks, when I finally got a call from a tennis academy about 10 minutes away from my house saying that one of the ball-boys had just quit and that if I wanted the job, I had to make the decision right there and then and come to work. Without hesitation I accepted the job, notified my mother, jumped on my beat up bike and started an adventure that at that time I could never fathom would bring me to where I am today.
The days were long working from 1pm until 11pm after going to school from 7am to 12pm. I wanted to play so much but I was mostly just working and trying to absorb whatever I could by listening to the coaches teach their students. I would walk around with my ball tube trying to memorize everything possible. My brain was like a sponge sucking in every bit of information. Whenever I had any breaks between lessons, I would pick up an old aluminum racquet they had at the academy and go hit against the wall and try to apply whatever instructions the coaches had given to their students. Obviously, it was very challenging in the beginning. I didn’t get the number of repetitions necessary to improve quickly and the wall was relentlessness in getting every ball back pretty fast.
I kept working on my game with a lot of drive and hunger. Hitting against the wall eventually became boring and dull so I decided to join forces with another ball boy in the academy and we would go to the academy on Sundays, when it was closed, jump over the fence and play tennis for hours on end without anybody bothering us. We would play a bunch of sets and I could see the improvement really taking place. I was hitting the ball better. I was problem-solving and my brain was making the adjustments necessary in order for me to make the shots I wanted to hit.
My improvement didn’t go unnoticed and the owner of the academy saw me hitting one day and asked me if I would be interested in playing tournaments and representing the academy. I told him that I would love to, but unfortunately, it would be expensive for me to be able to afford all that. He then offered me to pay for the yearly federation membership and pay for two tournaments a month. He just wanted me to go out there, participate in tournaments and represent the academy. I was speechless and super motivated to make him proud. At this point, I was already 15 and had never competed in a tennis tournament before.
My tennis career was about to start and it was certainly a very exciting time for me. I signed up for tournaments as soon as my federation membership got approved and started competing. I was able to move up in the rankings quite fast. The titles were coming in and not only me but my parents got very encouraged by my improvement, so they decided to make the financial effort and signed me up for even more tournaments. I was playing almost every weekend and doing quite well in local tournaments and tournaments in the State of São Paulo.
My boss also realized how much work I was putting into my tennis and promoted me to a hitting partner position. I was now hitting with a lot of the better kids training at the academy but I loved the challenge and saw it as an opportunity to step outside of my comfort zone and improve.
By age 18, I had already made my way up to highest category within the Federation and decided I really wanted to become a tennis coach but also compete on the weekends and see how far I could go. I got my coaching certification from the Brazilian Confederation, signed up for many coaching conferences and symposiums, started my college education with a major in Physical Education and I was ready for the next challenge.
I was coaching a lot of kids, mostly beginners and adults as well. It was such an amazing time for me to be able to learn a lot as a coach and be able to impact my students. At the same time, I was going to college in the morning and also competing every weekend in and out of town. Wherever the tournament schedule took me I just went.
I was improving as a coach and was given the chance to work with the high-performance group in our academy, which was a lot of fun and very motivating for me to be able to work with high-level players so early in my coaching career. My playing ability and my results kept getting better and I decided to venture myself out into some lower-level professional tournaments such as satellites and futures. I had a blast doing that. Traveling all over the country to play these tournaments. Meeting new people and developing a new appreciation for the sport.
It was in 2002 when a new adventure in my life was about to begin. I was playing the qualifying draw of a challenger tournament in São Paulo, and even though I lost my match, my performance was quite impressive and got the attention of some people. As I stepped off the court, this young man walked up to me and asked me if I would be interested in playing college tennis in America. It all sounded to me as if he was speaking Greek. I didn’t know what college tennis was. I had never left the country and my English “proficiency” at that time was limited to counting to ten and naming a few colors.
He explained to me how the process worked and that his agency would take care of everything and make sure that my English was good enough for me to pass the required tests to be admitted into the school.
The challenging idea really got my interest but I knew there was a possibility it wasn’t going to be well received at home. So, I put it off for a while but the idea was gnawing at me and I decided to talk to my parents. They were very encouraging but obviously scared with the idea of sending their son off to a different country and concerned about the financial strain it could put on the family with all the English lessons, SAT fees, flights and everything else. However, they jumped in on this adventure with me and we started the process.
At that time, based on my age I was told by the agency that I would only have one year of eligibility in Division I, so they started searching for a bunch of Division II schools, where I would have four years of eligibility, and the possibility to receive a good scholarship since I couldn’t afford much. After a few months of searching, we got the amazing news that the Head Coach at Georgia College in Milledgeville, Steve Barsby, was super interested in me and was willing to give me a good scholarship. That was the news I was waiting for.
I committed to Georgia College and after many failed SATs and Toefls, I joined the Bobcat Team in August of 2003. Coming to GC was one of the best decisions I’ve made in my life and it turned out to be an incredible experience that really set the path I’m on today. It was, however, the most challenging experience of my life. Being away from my family for the first time. Not being able to communicate at all. Having to take care of myself in a foreign land, attend college classes in a different language. But all of the things mentioned above really molded my character and helped me grow into the man I am today.
My years at Georgia College made me fall in love with this amazing country and I decided that I wanted to stay here and become a college coach. After my graduation, Coach Barsby offered me the assistant coaching job at Georgia College and that’s how I started my college coaching career. I happily took the job and coached at Georgia College from July 2006 until September of 2017.
I was loving life and felt blessed to be coaching at my Alma Mater but God had different plans for me and decided to throw another exciting challenge at me. In July of 2007, Coach Tim Siegel, who was the Men’s Tennis Head Coach at Texas Tech University, heard about me from a friend we had in common and reached out to me to offer me the Associate Head Coaching job. I was super scared because I felt so comfortable in Milledgeville but I knew that it was a unique experience and that I could not pass it up. I jumped on a flight and started my adventure in Lubbock, TX in September of 2007.
We had amazing years at Texas Tech. I was incredibly fortunate to have a boss who wanted me to grow as a coach and gave me many duties that most assistants didn’t take on at all. My brain was absorbing so much in my first two years at Texas Tech. I just wanted to grow and help the team. I was fortunate enough to recruit a great class in 2007 and 2008 and our team went from outside of the top 50 in the country to top 15 and many new doors started opening.
The Intercollegiate Tennis Association also noticed my efforts and achievements and elected me Assistant Coach of the Year in the Texas Region in 2010 and 2012. My best college coaching memories come from the 6+ years I coached at Texas Tech. The unforgettable wins versus top ranked programs like Texas, Texas A&M, Baylor, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, TCU and so many others. The amazing feeling of winning the respected Blue Gray Classic in Montgomery in 2010. I can write all day about the great memories I have about my time in Lubbock.
But life as usual has surprises for us when we least expect. In July of 2013, Adam Steinberg, who was at that time the Men’s Head Tennis Coach at Pepperdine University, called me to ask me if I would be interested in becoming his Associate Head Coach. I was caught by surprise and that fear of change kicked in again. I had been living in Lubbock for so many years. Had so many friends. My fiancee had a good job. But the program at Pepperdine was one of the most prestigious tennis programs in the history of college tennis and being invited to be part of it was a privilege. I decided, one more time, to take the leap of faith and made the move to beautiful Malibu, California.
I had an incredible experience working for Adam who also became my mentor and taught me so much. I was again on this amazing growth path, just absorbing everything possible. Learning different ways to coach, meeting new people and challenging myself as much as possible.
In July of 2014, Adam was offered the head coaching job at the University of Michigan and he made the decision to leave. Of course, uncertainty set in because I didn’t know what the future held for me at that time and a lot of questions ran through my mind. A lot of that uncertainty settled down as Pepperdine’s Athletic Director, Steve Potts, walked into my office and asked me if I would be interested in the job. Obviously, my answer was a very confident YES. He told me that the job was going to be open for applications and that the best candidate would replace Adam. I knew it was going to be challenging because that position was going to be one of the most sought AFTER college coaching jobs in the country.
I tried not to focus on that and just focus on getting ready to take what I felt belonged to me. I had the chance to see all applicants that came on campus for an interview and I knew most of them. It was a weird situation but certainly part of the process. Now it was my turn. I got dialed in and went into the interview ready for the challenge. They interviewed me as if they had never met me which I actually appreciated. I didn’t want to receive any special treatment.
A few days go by and I am anxiously waiting for THE CALL. I finally got a call from my athletic director saying that after going through the candidates thoroughly, he had decided to offer me the position of Men’s Head Tennis Coach at Pepperdine University. So in July of 2014, I took over as the Head Men’s Tennis Coach. I was so honored and humbled to be the leader of a program that had won a national championship in Division 1 in 2006, lost in the finals two other times. A program that had been consistently ranked in the top 5-10 in the country pretty much every year. A program that had developed so many top professional players. What an incredible blessing.
I spent four years holding that position at Pepperdine when I realized that God was again showing me a different path. My wife and I had been away from our families for such a long time. The college job, as rewarding as it was, KEPT ME away from home for so many weekends. Some weeks, I would work 75 to 80 hours not allowing me to have any downtime with my wife. We realized that we wanted to be close to family and wanted to start our own family.
My wife’s family lives in Auburn,AL and we just felt that Atlanta would be a perfect location for us in so many ways. It is close enough to her family. It is a mecca for tennis in America and in the world. And for me, it had a special meaning because coming back to Georgia would feel like my life would be going full circle. It’s where this entire adventure started as the lost skinny kid showed up in Milledgeville back in 2003 not knowing how life would turn out.
As I studied my options in Atlanta and did my research, the name Universal Tennis Academy came up. One of my best friends and former teammate at Georgia College was a player at UTA and reached out to the owners to tell them about me. Within a few days, I started conversations with owners David Drew, Tim Noonan and David Stolle regarding the possibility of me coming to Atlanta to work with them and from the beginning, I realized they were the kind of people I wanted to work for.
My wife and I made the move to Atlanta in November of 2018 and I started my journey as a high-performance tennis director and coach with UTA. I stayed with them from November of 2018 until March of 2021 and my appreciation of my time with them goes beyond words. In the beginning of 2021, I received a call that triggered the beginning of probably the most exciting and rewarding journey of my coaching career. Butch Staples, the National Tennis Director for Midtown Athletic Clubs and Windy Hill’s General Manager Trip Baisden, called me up and asked for a meeting. Out of that meeting, the opportunity to start a high-performance academy at one of the nicest clubs in the South started becoming a reality. After a couple of months, multiple conversations, business plans drawn and some very healthy exchange of ideas, a new tennis academy was born. On March 1st of 2021, I ran my first practice as the High Performance Tennis Manager at Windy Hill Athletic Club.
Since that amazing day, our academy has experienced incredible exponential growth and today we train some of the best players in the country in different age groups and we have a long waitlist of kids that want to work with us. ALTA Magazine even decided to do a feature on us because of the innovation that we have brought into the way we train our juniors. It was a very unique feature and something that is not done often.
The future is bright for Windy Hill High Performance and I am humbled and thrilled to be the leader of such a successful academy.
This job has allowed my wife Jesse and I to finally start our family and in September of this year we were blessed with the birth of our son Leonardo Ferreira.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
It wasn’t a very smooth road but it was for sure a rewarding one. Leaving Brazil was an incredible challenge for me because not only I didn’t speak the language but I also had never left the country or my family behind. I was afraid and uncertain but at the same time extremely excited to take on the challenges that laid in front of me. As I arrived in America, I knew I had to get a job right away regardless of the language barrier since my scholarship did not cover all the costs I was going to have and my parents just couldn’t afford it. So, in the first week living in America, being completely outside of my comfort zone, I walked up to the manager of the cafeteria on campus and asked her for a job with a very broken English and a bunch of jumbled-up words and I was able to get a part-time gig in catering. I would set up tables, serve guests and wash the dishes.
On the weekends, when we didn’t compete, I decided to learn different skills so I could get any jobs that were available. I worked as a gardener, painter, and construction worker. I cleaned houses and churches and also offered moving services. It was an adventure and every day was different for me. Attending classes was a huge challenge because I wasn’t able to be myself. I am a very outgoing person but unfortunately, I couldn’t communicate with people and that got me to become quieter and more isolated. I was falling behind in every class and the emotional toll of being away from my family, not speaking the language and worrying about money was really getting to me. My diet in my first two years of college was COMPRISED OF ramen noodles, boiled eggs, and hot dogs. But I powered through and worked on my English relentlessly. I would literally read the dictionary every day and make a commitment to learn and memorize five new words. As my English improved, I was able to start teaching some tennis lessons which paid a lot more than the other jobs I was doing. I made more friends, started acting like myself once again and I began enjoying my college life. The challenges I faced during that time molded my character and turned me into who I am today. I wouldn’t change it for anything. I’m grateful for the challenges I faced and see them as a true blessing.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
Our High Performance Tennis Program at Windy Hill is totally designed for college preparation. After my years as a college coach and seeing the junior tennis industry from up close, I realized that there was a tremendous need for a truly comprehensive program offering more of a holistic approach in the development of athletes.
We focus thoroughly on discipline, accountability, selflessness, teamwork, professionalism and other values that are extremely important in life but I know firsthand that college coaches want to recruit players that understand the importance of playing for one another, embrace a disciplined approach towards their training and are committed to a high level of excellence.
We have designed a program which is undoubtedly different from what’s being offered out there right now.
With a 4 to 1 (player/coach) ratio, our players get high-quality coaching every day on a semi-private basis when a lot of the other academies have an 8 to 1 and sometimes even 12 to 1 ratio. That high ratio doesn’t really allow for proper technical and strategical work, hand and racquet feeding as well as the building of a strong connection with the players. Our athletes receive that type of coaching on a daily basis because of the low ratio we offer. We also limited the number of participants to only 20 players per program so we can remain super focused on each player and get them to feel part of a big family.
On top of the “boutique style” academy and the 4-1 ratio, we also have a complete fitness & recovery component as part of the program which has made it even more special. Two times a week, our kids have yoga and meditation sessions with one of the best yogis in the country, Andrew Housley, and for the other two days of training they go through a comprehensive strength and conditioning program which is run by our two high-performance fitness coaches Tiago Kulaif and Caroline Hargis. The sessions are extremely tennis specific and take place on our turf, indoor track, indoor and outdoor pool, pilates studio, weight room, bike studio and other amazing areas of the club depending on the focus of the session and the phase of the periodization the players are going through.
On top of our amazing tennis and fitness coaches, we also have in our staff a sports psychologist and mental performance coach, Ally Claytor, who meets with our group once every two weeks to work on their growth mindset, their overall mentality towards the game, ways for them to overcome their negative emotions as well as strategies to be successful in a team environment.
Another member of our staff is Alissa Allen, a top-level sports nutritionist, who brings a wealth of knowledge and experience in the professional tennis world after working closely with Novak Djokovic, Serena Williams, Naomi Osaka and others. Alissa was one of the top sports nutritionists/dieticians at IMG for a long time.
We are also super fortunate to have an awesome partnership with Emory Sports Medicine, athletic trainer Tony Tran and Dr. Neeru Jayanthi who is one of the top tennis medicine doctors in the country. Dr. J works closely with the ATP, WTA and ITF.
Dr. J and Tony come to Windy Hill to visit us once a week to check on our athletes to make sure that they are doing the right things to prevent injuries but also to follow up on the rehab of already injured athletes.
Last but for sure not least, our tennis coaching staff is one of the best in the business. I am fortunate to be able to rely on coaches that have lots of experience coaching in college or at the professional level and have also played on the tour.
Garrett Vinson – top ITF coach, ATP/WTA coach, former assistant coach to Francis Tiafoe (worked on video strategical analysis)
Anthony Lee – former hitting partner/traveling coach to Scoville Jenkins (Top 190 ATP), Assistant Coach at Clemson and George Washington
Kerrie Cartwright – former number 1 player at Florida State, Bahamas Fed Cup Player, coached numerous top junior players and held coaching positions at some of the best high-performance academies in the country.
We offer 4 different high-performance programs at Windy Hill:
HP Home School:
Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday
1:30PM – 3:30PM ON COURT
3:30PM – 4:30PM FITNESS
Junior High Performance:
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday
3:30PM – 5:00PM ON COURT
5:00PM – 5:30PM FITNESS
HP After School:
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday
5:00PM – 7:00PM ON COURT
7:00PM – 8:00PM FITNESS
Full Time Program (Home & After School):
Monday
5:00PM – 7:00PM ON COURT
7:00PM – 8:00PM FITNESS
Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday
1:30PM – 3:30PM ON COURT
3:30PM – 4:30PM FITNESS
5:00PM – 7:00PM ON COURT
In terms of your work and the industry, what are some of the changes you are expecting to see over the next five to ten years?
I feel that the tennis industry is overall in very good shape. Even though the US has gone through a drought a while back in the development of top players, I didn’t see a strong negative impact in the growth of the sport specially in Atlanta which is a mecca for tennis. Now, the US seems to be back on track and we see a lot of players rising to the top which will create an amazing momentum for our game.
The one part of the industry I feel that we need to improve more in order to keep our game growing and relevant is the development of our professionals. Unfortunately, a lot of tennis coaches become complacent and satisfied being stagnant and stop being students of the game. It is important to always pursue growth and edification because our game is in an ever-evolving cycle and if we don’t stay on top of it our coaching becomes obsolete.
Besides the point noted above, I am excited to see where our industry will be ten years from now. I see academies and clubs always full. New players coming through the doors frequently, specially little ones. Leagues keep growing and new leagues are being formed. More tournaments being organized. There should only be excitement about the growth of our game.
Pricing:
- HP Home School – $910/Month + Club Membership
- Junior High Performance -$910/Month + Club Membership
- HP After School – $1,210/Month + Club Membership
- HP Full Time (Home & After School) – $1,750 + Membership
Contact Info:
- Instagram: coachferreiratennis
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/marcelo.ferreira.uta
- Twitter: @FerreiraTennis
- Email: Marcelo.ferreira@
windyhillclub.com
Image Credits
Laura Barnard Kelly Kline
