USPTA Pro Reviews: TopCourt vs TheSkills vs MasterClass vs Udemdy

Watching Tennis Lessons from Tennis Legends

Online and streaming entertainment may become the super glue that holds tennis fans over this long Winter. The Australian Open and ATP Cup have been pushed back to Feb. Indian Wells has postponed after March. Will we see Top 10 Tennis in the USA before Miami?

After spending many hours over several weeks watching the latest online streaming tennis, here's this month's breakdown for each platform's pros and cons below. Opinions expressed are purely that of this site alone - which do not necessarily reflect those of the USPTA.


Even with inflation, TopCourt is still only $15/month. Now it has over 50 pro players.

The depth of the academy grows as they add more star-studded talents each month. Filming for the next season has recently wrapped in Florida.

My Favorite Streaming List and Favorite Shows:
  • Disney+ (The Mandalorian)
  • Netflix (Queen's Gambit)
  • CBS (Young Sheldon, Amazing Race)
When it comes to the "Marvel Universe vs DC Comics debate" - we're a solid Marvel fan, so your miles may vary with your superstars. Fans should compare TopCourt for free then you be the final judge!

Tennis Streaming Showdown Competition - Round 2

To give our tennis fans a full comparison, we reviewed nearly all the other major online platforms each month that feature tennis video packages. Some legends who have a large fan base created their own video products. Free previews with a money-back guarantee.

TheSkills - Maria Sharapova

Topics: Warmups, Drills, and Mental Toughness
Length: 20 chapter lessons, 1.5 hours
Skill Level: Intermediate (3.0-3.5+)
Coach's Rating: B+

Pros: You learn a lot about Maria and her life, mindset, and strategies. Solid warm-up routines. Good suggestions for tweaking certain shots and key focus points. Her monologues are clear.

Cons: Costs more ($69?) for just her one course alone?! Wait for a sale or promo. Players must have all core shots in their bag to get the most out of this series. The vast majority of the videos feature her personal reflections on her own career.

We recommend Maria fans to try the 7-day free trial offer with the All-Access package. Try the other sports stars' commentary. The multi-sport pros give good pep talks to motivate home athletes. For me, it's still too new and needs more talent in the lineup to compete effectively at this price.

MasterClass - Serena Williams

Topics: Fundamentals and Technique
Length: 9 chapter lessons, 2 hours
Skill Level: Beginner to intermediate (2.5-3.0+)
Coach's Rating: B

Pros: Great Filming, lighting; In-depth narrative; Beginner-friendly. MasterClass packages a wide range of (non-tennis) topics and subjects with gurus of their own craft.

Cons: Focuses heavily on one stroke - the serve. Basic tennis advice.
The student's ability to get video critique and peer review period is over;

Note: We found TopCourt's Gold membership has many interactive features. Gold students get access to many more tennis pros for Q&A, plus even a chance to attend future live filming events.

Udemy - Andre Agassi Academy

Topics: All Strokes and Player's Mindset
Length: 10 chapters, 1 hour
Skill Level: Intermediate to advance (4.0+)
Coach's Rating: A-

Pros: Love Agassi's lectures; great stories and clean format. Invaluable tips for the tournament players; Udemy certificate included; lifetime access for review. Only ~$15 on sale. I support his efforts as a proponent of education and would recommend his course.

Agassi's bestseller autobiography "Open" is my definitive must-read. Vital if you want to deeply understand the life of any tennis pro.

Cons: Limited angles; the video quality is limited to only 1080p. Students should be familiar with tennis basics and fundamentals before starting. About one hour's worth of content - I really wish there was a sequel.


TopCourt gets A-Team with their Champions and Coaches 

ATP and WTA heroes are joining the TopCourt team lineup for 2021 including Karen Khachanov, Madison Keys, and Kyle Edmund.


WTA Triple Threat of Former World #1's:
Venus Williams, Chris Evert, and Arantxa Sanchez Vicario.
Each with at least two dozen grand slams in their careers
.


Hall of Famer Nick Bollettieri (coach of Agassi, Courier, and Seles) joins the ranks with Paul Annacone and Brad Gilbert. Stacking a century's worth of tennis wisdom, they have guided several strong talents into the path to becoming future world champions.

TopCourt Revisited, 6 months later - areas for improvement?

Perhaps they now have too much content?!

Like Netflix, you won't be able to easily digest it in just a few sessions.

It now has a library of over a hundred episodes, while revealing about two more players each month.

Narrowing the field might have to come in the future. In some episodes and interviews, I skipped over because of my difficulty with a few player's accents. Currently, it has a large Pickleball library of players, another sport added to the fray.

TopCourt recently added new sections called "Top Picks" (recommendations) and "Trending" (popular). Here is what I recommend as our starter video pack of episode picks from TopCourt.

Our Wish List features for tennis enthusiasts:
  • A voice-over replay explaining a player's technique while he/she is hitting in slow motion.
  • Pros rallying full speed against each other in live points. Play analysis by TopCourt coaches.
  • Visual cues to pick out the one truly excellent shot example from all the other good ones.
  • Feedback Mechanism: a rating system to allow fans to give "likes" at favorite video keyframes.
TopCourt's growth is the most comprehensive and promising out of all the platforms screened to date. There is a lot of value to a solid team and building a strong, well-balanced group of players. It's the chance to display the player's own authentic self while offering budding talent the opportunity to build a bigger fan base online.

Best of all, TopCourt still offers our free 14-day trial to test it out, so try it today!
We're eager to see new upcoming updates, and players, and share our opinion here in the next round.

Honorable Mentions

YouTube Tennis Channels

YouTube is great for watching highlights and replays. But it's a mixed bag when it comes to quality lessons and developing your own tennis game properly.

Some YouTube channels I enjoyed:
The Wild West of tennis content.
Everyone has their own ideas and style. There is a lot plenty of "click-bait," and often lessons are over-simplified into single 3-5 min videos with flashy titles. Still, the quality of content has a very wide gap and some ideas need to be more concise.

The negative is that you might learn the wrong technique or make bad assumptions if you try to learn purely from YouTube. Recording yourself and doing a visual comparison with a pro is recommended.

TopCourt Membership plus our Sign-up Bonus

Get our special TopCourt - US Open Offers

Each year, we give out Amazon e-Gift cards for those who sign up below.

Sign Up for TopCourt with us and earn an Amazon e-Gift card 

Options:

  • $20 gift cards for basic members
  • Autographed Tennis Ball from a TopCourt Star
  • $60 gift cards for VIP Gold memberships

We also provide signed Tennis Balls to lucky fans who sign up. Only a few balls remaining.





TopCourt - the Netflix of Tennis

As a member using TopCourt for a few months now, I'm pretty sure you will enjoy it too as a tennis fan. It is instructional while entertaining. Makes for a great documentary about the sport of tennis.

Recently we watched our retired heroes the Bryan Brothers and Lindsay Davenport sharing their digital memoirs and American tennis memories over the years - from the Olympics to the Grand Slams.

Each month, they reward the top customer referral with a bonus. So as a thank you for all the support, I'm just spreading the love and reinvesting it back to our fans with my own Amazon e-Gift cards. The goal is to grow and improve this platform and become the on-demand Netflix of Tennis.


Bring the US Open drills, stories, and pros to you.

Motto: Stay home, be safe, and enjoy TopCourt.


Register with our Free 14-day Trial of TopCourt


60+ Pros teaching the game. Many of them you've seen play. A few you will hear about later!

  • Break free and enjoy some great lessons, insightful stories, and high-quality videos
  • Now is the chance to stretch those legs and bring out your tennis racket again.
  • A fantastic cast of professional players is here to guide and inspire you right from home.
  • Learn and practice tennis safely for kids, juniors, and adults.
  • Help Stop the Spread of COVID-19 with every minute you watch.
Learn each Pro's skill shots with instruction (mini-courses):

TopCourt August Updates

- Closed Captioning now available
- 4K Streaming of entire chapters from any device.
- Coaches of former #1 players team up with the young guns (Brad Gilbert with Genie Bouchard)
- Bring the pro drills onto your home court via iPad or Tablet.


Price: $180 / year for the Basic Membership.

You get hours of tennis content with one full year of access.
This is cheaper than 3 hours of private lessons.

Quick comparison, I charge $65/hr as a tennis teacher. Simply learning and practicing how to serve alone can take longer than 3 hours. The vast library of pros is outstanding. Watch as little or as much as you want. Watch it when you want, where you want. Pause, play, repeat.


Check out the Pro Tennis community support behind TopCourt!


TopCourt Academy is loaded with tennis pros, lined up to teach you 1on1 on TopCourt...

Summer is here. Tennis is back for 2020.

ATP 2020 revised calendar


8/14 Update:
Rome is shifted earlier one week. European season starts immediately after US Open. Asian tour events have been canceled. French Open for allowing fans will be pending.

7/21 Update:
Citi Open in DC has announced it has to cancel. Just one week after the WTA decided it had to split from the main event location. All eyes are now on NYC and the US Open. Will new global travel restrictions and recent spikes of COVID-19 cases hamper efforts with 1 month to go?

--

Welcome back. It's now officially the Summer of 2020. What a strange time these last 3 months!


The (Tennis) World has been in a cryogenic state of suspended animation. It has been a very tough time and I am sure we're all excited to know when we can thaw out (safely and fully, of course)!

Our last grand slam of the year, the US Open, is now going to be the second calendar grand slam with the French Open happening afterward in the Autumn. Each day/week, the Tournament Plans and Procedures are still in flux as we count down towards 2 months before our beloved US Open.

Breaking News about US Open
We are receiving news every week about how the US Open will be special this year for both the players and the event.

Please subscribe for 2020 US Open news about the latest news, unique VIP fan experience offers and discounts for fans spectating this year's US Open! 

The new, abbreviated US Open Series calendar is now:
  • 3 Weeks of tennis on hard courts with both Men and Women completing:
    • Citi Open at Washington DC on Aug 13-21
    • Cincy Open relocated to NYC on Aug 22-29
    • US Open happening Aug 31-Sept 13.
For now, there will be a "no fans" plan in place for these tournaments.
The Citi Open in DC has said that as conditions evolve in Washington, they may allow for "limited fans" to attend. The events in Europe are also in a wait-and-see mode to follow their local safety guidelines.

Citi Open - 1st Pro Tennis Officially Restarts in 2020
Since many ATP/WTA players have not played a single professional match in over 3-4 months, there is a higher chance that some higher ranked players who are serious about winning a US Open title will be in attendance at this warmup event. This would be just 2 weeks before the US Open grand slam starts and it is more likely this year that we will see a first-time grand slam champion crowned.

Please subscribe to our DC Citi Open email newsletter if you want inside info about our US Open 2020 preview and on how to get VIP tickets (if and when they become first available).

The Top 3 - missing or postponing?
Roger Federer had another knee surgery and will be out for the rest of 2020. Rafael Nadal might be hesitant to play on the hard courts if the clay-court season is starting immediately after the US Open in Europe. Novak Djokovic has expressed his reluctance to attend. He recently had to end the Adria Tour (the event's Final was canceled and the last 2 stops were canceled). Several players, including Novak were diagnosed with Covid-19. A lack of social distancing and safety protocols during the event were blamed for the spread.

Safety questions on how to create a "Tier 1 inner bubble" at the "US Open World"
In order to make up for over 50% of the annual budget income missing for having live fans at the US Open with tickets, the USTA will need to be very creative about how it generates revenue. New US Open changes have been explained in last week's video but updates will be in flux. It sounds like mandatory testing will be conducted for anyone prior to entering the US Open grounds.

Updates will be posted here as more tennis news comes in over the next couple of months. Please subscribe for 2020 US Open news updates here.

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