Meet Marcelo Ferreira of Universal Tennis Academy in Buckhead, Midtown, Washington Park

Marcelo, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I grew up in São Paulo, Brazil in a very 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 that is responsible for the quality control of the water and air in the city of São Paulo. I had a great childhood but we didn’t have a lot of money to do what a bunch of other kids WERE doing such as traveling to a bunch of different places, WEAR NICE brand clothes and shoes or have 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. No internet, no social media, no cell phones. I just wanted to be outside barefoot, play soccer and hang out with my friends. 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 tennis even though we had no racquets or balls. We figured we could just borrow that from someone at the park. We got to the site and a few very nice gentleman, really old school, all dressed in white, saw 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 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 HOW I WAS ABLE  to pick up on the little 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 couldn’t afford it. Tennis is an elite sport and extremely expensive in Brazil. I was super disappointed but understood that my parents worked really hard to provide for us but giving up wasn’t part of my makeup. I had to figure something out.

I decided to call up a bunch of tennis academies in the region to inquire about ball-boy positions that could potentially be opening SOON. Most tennis academies in Brazil employ young kids to be ball boys AND GIVE THEM THE OPPORTUNITY TO earn an income to help their families. No positive answer came back until about three weeks later when I got a call from a tennis academy about 10 minutes away from my house saying that the afternoon-shift ball-boy had just quit and that if I wanted the job I had to make the decision right there and then and come to work. I briefly talked to my mom while keeping the secretary on hold, got her approval, accepted the job and joyfully jumped on my beat up bike to start an adventure that I could never fathom at that time would bring me to where I am today.

The days were long working from 1 pm until 11 pm. 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 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 getting every ball back pretty fast .

I kept working on my game over and over again AND MY DESIRE TO BECOME GOOD AT THE GAME GREW STRONGER. Hitting against the wall became boring and dull so the morning ball-boy and myself 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 figuring out my grip and my brain was making the adjustments necessary in order for me to make the shots I WANTED TO EXECUTE.

My improvement didn’t go unnoticed and the owner of the academy, MAURO MENEZES, 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 AND COMPETE IN TOURNAMENTS, wearing the academy’s name on my chest and represent the team with honor and pride. I was speechless and super motivated to make him proud. At this point, I was already 16 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 my class very fast. Within one year I was the number 1 player in the state in 16s and also got moved up from 6th class to 5th. In São Paulo, the tournaments were age or level based. I was so excited and motivated with my performances and my parents were excited as well and saw potential in me. So they decided to make the financial effort and sign 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 kids taking lessons and some of them were a lot better than me but I loved the challenge and saw it as an opportunity to get outside of my comfort zone and improve. At that time, I had already been moved up to 4th class and I kept moving up in the rankings every month.

By age 18, I had made my way up to 1st class and decided I really wanted to coach tennis 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 college IN BRAZIL 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 town or 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 highly competitive 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 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 were interested in playing college tennis in America. It 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 so I decided to talk to my parents. They were super 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, SATs 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 1, so they started searching for a bunch of division two schools, where I would have four years of eligibility, AND THE POSSIBILITY TO RECEIVE a good scholarship since I couldn’t afford much money. After a few months of searching, we got the amazing news that the Head Coach from Georgia College & State University 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&SU 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 this foreign land, attend college classes in a different language. But all of the things mentioned above really helped mold my character and 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 assistant coaching job. I was super scared because I felt so comfortable in Milledgeville but growth only comes from getting out of your comfort zone. 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 so much as a coach and he gave me many duties that most assistant COACHES didn’t take on. 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 50 in the country to top 15 and many new doors started opening.

Coach Siegel wanted to reward my hard work and promoted me to Associate Head Coach. 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. Wins versus Texas, Texas A&M, Baylor, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, TCU and so many other top programs. Winning the Blue Gray Classic in Montgomery in 2010. I can write all day about the great memories I have about my time in Lubbock, Texas.

But life is all about growing, changing, reinventing yourself and challenges.

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 the 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 left. Of course, uncertainty set in because I didn’t know what the future held for me at that time. Am I going to work for another head coach? Am I going to be let go? Well, my athletic director walked into my office and asked me if I were 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 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 would see THE applicants come and go for the on-campus interview and I knew most of them. It was a weird situation.

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 get 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. I probably didn’t say a word for 10 seconds while he was on the phone because I was punching the air in my living room celebrating this amazing accomplishment in my career.

So in July of 2014, I took over at Pepperdine University 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 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. We realized that we wanted to be close to family and wanted to start our own family.

My wife’s family lives in Auburn 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 felt like my life would be going full circle. It’s where this entire adventure started. As that lost skinny kid showed up in Milledgeville back in 2003 not knowing how life would turn out.

As I studied my options and did my research, the name Universal Tennis Academy just kept coming up. One of my best friends and former teammate AT GC&SU was a player at UTA and reached out to THEM TO TELL THEM ABOUT ME. He told me amazing things about the business and the leaders that run THE COMPANY and put me in touch WITH them. I started conversations with David Drew, Tim Noonan and David Stolle regarding the possibility of coming to Atlanta to work with them and from the get-go, I realized THAT those WERE the kind of people I wanted to work for.

My wife and I made the move to Atlanta in November of last year and it has been such a fulfilling adventure.

Working for Universal Tennis Academy and for its six amazing partners has been one of the best experiences of my life. I have grown so much as a coach in these past six months and keep learning more and more every day. Their passion for mentoring kids and developing people is so contagious that makes you want to improve every day so you can impact the kids as much as the owners do. I feel extremely blessed to have the opportunity to work with young kids from ages 4 to 17. To mentor them and teach them about life and the challenges that come with it. And I feel just as blessed working with our amazing adults who are always so hungry to learn and compete.

Universal Tennis Academy is one of the best environments I’ve been part of. I am surrounded by great coaches, incredible people and outstanding leaders that care so much about the community and the growth of our sport everywhere.

I currently work at the two sites we have in Buckhead, Bitsy Grant Tennis Center and Chastain Park Tennis Center.

Life has come full circle. I love Atlanta. I love Georgia. I love America. My wife and I are blessed and I can’t wait to become more entrenched in the community.

Come out to one of our many Universal Tennis Academy sites for a lesson or a clinic. I can guarantee you will love it.

Has it been a 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 with the challenges that laid in front of me. As I arrived here, 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, completely out 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 words and I was able to get a part-time gig to wash dishes and clean tables at night.

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, construction worker. I cleaned houses and churches and helped people move from a house to another. 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 couldnt 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 started 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 that for anything. I’m grateful for the challenges and see them as a true blessing.

So, as you know, we’re impressed with Universal Tennis Academy – tell our readers more, for example, what you’re most proud of and what sets you apart from others.
I have been coaching tennis for years and I have been extremely blessed to be around many great coaches and players. I traveled the world and all over the US visiting academies to look for talent to recruit for my teams at Texas Tech and Pepperdine. There are many great academies out there but I am proud and honored to say that I am part of the Universal Tennis Academy family. Tennis is a sport for a lifetime. Our company has a passion for the game and is committed to teaching it to players of all ages and abilities. Tennis provides a wonderful means to meet new people,  exercise with friends, compete with team members, improve athletic skills, socialize with the community, and UTA really wants to share the enthusiasm that all owners, coaches, and staff have towards the game and mentoring people with all of our clients.

Being successful in the tennis academy world is so tough. It’s extremely competitive and many think they can do the job well. What UTA has achieved over 20 years in Atlanta RARELY AND HARDLY ACHIEVED. They have been thriving and growing every year going from one site to over 10 sites now. We have sent over 200 players to over 100 colleges. Not many academies can pride themselves with such an accomplishment. Our coaches understand that tennis a tool that we use to develop people. To instill good values and principles in our kids. We are all about mentoring and teaching our kids and adults that there is a process for everything and we won’t take shortcuts in order to get immediate satisfaction. We will do things right and develop athletes and people the proper way.

We have all kinds of programs FOR all levels and ages. From 6 and under, to 10 and under, junior competitive, adults leagues, clinics, and private lessons.

The one thing that sets UTA apart from everyone else is its philanthropic mission. UTA has donated thousands of hours to inner city programs and hundreds of summer camps to help kids that are not privileged  ENOUGH TO play tennis and enjoy this amazing sport. We are all about the people and are here to serve Atlanta.

I have worked with some amazing players of the highest caliber. I had the opportunity to hang out with some of the top players in the world today. Tennis has brought so many blessings into my life and I am so thankful for all the jobs I had and all the bosses I worked for. However, working for UTA has definitely been the best experience of my life. I have grown so much as a coach and truly developed as a human being. I can’t imagine being part of a more united, more generous and more loving family.

Let’s touch on your thoughts about our city – what do you like the most and least?
Atlanta is such an amazing city. It offers everything one needs. It has variety and diversity. You can drive five miles and be in a completely different neighborhood with completely different STYLES AND TRENDS . I love the people here. Southern HOSPITALITY IS A REAL THING. It is definitely a great place to raise your kids and settle down.