Doubles Only Tennis Podcast

ATX Open Preview, Recruiting Venus Williams, & Doubles Tips from Christo van Rensburg

• Will Boucek • Episode 274

Share episode

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 35:35

Former world No. 5 and ATX Open tournament director, Christo van Rensburg, joins the show again to preview a star-packed field for his upcoming tournament, led by Venus Williams.

Christo shares how he recruits players, changes coming in 2026, including a huge announcement for 2027, and the player field this year. We also dig into practical doubles strategies you can use.

  • How Venus Williams’ wildcard came together and what it means for fans
  • Behind-the-scenes recruiting with agents and player relationships
  • Headliners returning and rising names to watch across singles and doubles
  • Taylor Townsend's relationship with a fan from Austin
  • Fan experience upgrades, including suites, activations, and the players’ party (which fans can buy tickets to)
  • Modern doubles vs Christo's era
  • Why you need to make your weaknesses "presentable"
  • The new Austin 125 event details and timing during Indian Wells
  • Where to get tickets and when Venus is most likely to play

Links:

-----

**Join the #1 Doubles Strategy Newsletter for Club Tennis Players** 


**Become a Tennis Tribe Member**
Tennis Tribe Members get access to premium video lessons, a monthly member-only webinar, doubles strategy Ebooks & Courses, exclusive discounts on tennis gear, and more.


**Other Free Doubles Content**

SPEAKER_00

You're about to hear my conversation with former world number five doubles player Christo Van Rensberg. Christo was a doubles partner of Paul Anakone back in the day, and they were together the number one doubles team on the ATP tour. And today, Christo runs the ATX Open. He is the tournament director there. And this is the third or fourth year I've had him on to preview the ATX Open, which I attend at least for a couple of days every year. It's a really nice event. It's a nice time of the year down in Austin, and I highly recommend attending if you can. In this conversation, we preview this year's tournament, including his recruiting of the new wild card, which was just announced a couple of weeks ago. Venus Williams will be playing in the ATX Open. I am not clear if she's going to be playing doubles yet, but she'll definitely be playing singles, hopefully some doubles as well. I asked him how he goes about recruiting players. He has a really impressive player field, especially for a 250 level tournament. We talk briefly about the doubles field, which includes Grand Slam champions uh Taylor Townsend and Storm Hunter, as well as Grand Slam finalists in a Shibihara and Shuko Aoyama and a number of other doubles specialists. From there, we uh share actually an announcement that Christo uh has not announced publicly for the first time on the podcast uh about the ATX Open. So a big announcement uh that he shares in terms of the venue. He talks about changes for 2026. And then after that, we dive into some double strategy. I always try to end these conversations that aren't as strategy focused with a little bit of things that you can take away for your own game. And Christo is a great uh tennis coach. Obviously, he was a fantastic player, being top five in the world in doubles, and he shares uh some tips on strengths and weaknesses, and I really liked the way he described how to think about strengths and weaknesses. It was he articulated it in a way that I had never heard before. Um, and it got me really thinking about how I'm gonna coach this going forward. Uh, he also talks a little bit about the Servant Volley uh and a few other doubles tips as well. So without further delay, enjoy this always fun conversation with ATX Open Tournament Director, Christo Van Rensburg. Hey everybody, welcome to the show. Today we have on again the ATX Open Tournament Director, Christo Van Rensburg. Christo, welcome back.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, I've got my badge on for you. Can you see ATX Open?

SPEAKER_00

I do have that on.

SPEAKER_01

Well always always fun to talk to you, and thanks for having me on the show again. And like you say, it's around the corner, less than two weeks.

How Venus Williams Joined The Field

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it's coming up soon. And um, I always love chatting with you because you have the obviously tournament director background, but you were also top five in the world in doubles, um, which we uh I'll link for people who want to listen to our very first conversation where we dove into strategy and um all of the accomplishments that you had in your career. But today I want to focus a little bit more on the ATX Open uh and then we'll we'll also dive dive into a little bit of uh strategy and doubles talk as well. So to start, um I wanted to start with last week. I asked you to come on the show, and I we were texting back and forth, and I said the player field is looking really good, and you said, Oh, just wait. And then two days later, this lady named Venus Williams gets a wild card. How did you get Venus Williams to come to Austin, Texas?

SPEAKER_01

They actually reached out to me and uh they said that she was interested to play the tournament. I think she probably just misses me because my last match at Wommelin in '97 when I retired was mixed doubles with her when she used to have the white little thing. So obviously, I'm very excited to see my old partner from 1997 coming to Austin. And when someone like that actually ends up signing the contact and come and you can actually release it, you really appreciate the impact that makes. Your phone goes off the wall, Brian Sheffield's phone, everyone. So I think to have her walk on the grounds at Westwood is gonna be super excited. And the other sad thing is obviously this is our last year at Westwood, so we can delve into that. But having her come to my tournament, uh it's gonna be so much fun and not taking away from everyone else, but the goal is always to have new faces, new icons to keep everything always fresh for the fans.

SPEAKER_00

So, how did the uh mixed doubles in '97 go with Venus? I I didn't know you all had played together.

SPEAKER_01

So the draw came out, and I we first round against the defending champions that won the French Open three weeks before that. So obviously a tough draw, and uh they're always gonna say it was my fault, and I would admit it probably was my fault, and we lost first round, but it wasn't a bad loss on paper, but it still hurt up to now that I could not win a mixed match with Venus Williams. I'm gonna have to live my life like that.

SPEAKER_00

That's so funny. It's crazy that now you are a tournament director and she's still playing and going to play in your tournament. Who would have been?

SPEAKER_01

One of us is getting older. I don't know which one it is.

SPEAKER_00

That's so funny. Um, let's talk about the the rest of the player field. Um, before we get to specific players, share with people how you recruit players. Are you like talking on the phone with agents during the year? Are you texting with players and trying to get them to come to the tournament? How does that process work?

SPEAKER_01

I think it works two ways. Sometimes, you know, Brian Sheffield and myself sit down. Uh Brian Sheffield is the promoter, owner of Drop Shot series of we run five events during the year, all professional in Austin, Texas. And then we sit down and we kind of look at which players do you think fans would like to see? And then those ones we reach out to the agents, and then they come back and we start a process, and then agents will also reach out to us because their players hear about the previous events we've run. So two sides of the coin, and that's kind of the process.

SPEAKER_00

And in Venus's case, they reached out to you because she was looking to come to Austin.

SPEAKER_01

Yes. Uh Carlos uh Fleming, who's an agent, very nice person, reached out and says uh Venus is interested to come and play your tournament because he's got a wild card in Indian Walls the week after mine and in Miami, and she would like to have some matches. And obviously, you can imagine this was uh the easiest decision I've ever made since 2019. I just had to run it by Brian Sheffield that we might have some serious uh ticket sales going up quickly.

SPEAKER_00

So after the announcement, is that what happened? The ticket sales the next day just went through the roof.

SPEAKER_01

So a lot of interesting things happened.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

Ticket Demand And Scheduling Realities

SPEAKER_01

People want to buy tickets, so they come and they said, No, it's sold out on the weekend for finals. But we're always selling out Friday, Saturday, Sunday, in about the end of last year. We always sold out, so now they're mad. So I kind of want to say, Well, you can also buy Tuesday or Wednesday when she would play, you know. Uh, so just go back to where you can get tickets, but you can't just answer everyone, and then when is she gonna play? Now I know when I want her to play, and we're gonna have to play that wellness. But weather permits, and let's say for instance, I was gonna say that I wanted to play on Monday. If she plays a qualifier that will only know one o'clock on Saturday, the 21st of February, they don't play the qualifiers on a Monday. Now, what do you tell your fans? So you kind of rumors we rumor Tuesday afternoon, Wednesday night doubles, but weather can change things, you know. And the last thing you want is your fans to say, you said she's gonna play that time and that time, but that's the hardest question because some people want to watch her first match, and now what do you tell them? Going by for three days, it's it's tough. You feel you feel sad for your fans, but it's just how it is. So she's not playing Monday. 100%. I've got a function organized for her for Monday, so that is a definite yes. No, she doesn't play Monday, but come watch her practice.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, so possibly Tuesday, possibly Wednesday.

SPEAKER_01

Uh, I would say weather now, one match on Tuesday daytime, and one match on Wednesday night time to give the fans who are working, but weather permitted, draw we'll only know that by Saturday afternoon.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, no guarantees at all. Um, it's the unfortunate thing about tennis, right? Other sports you can you can buy the ticket to see LeBron James, and you'll get to see LeBron James unless he's injured. But yeah, um, that's the reality of the sport. Uh, so talk about the rest of the player field. We've got Jessica Pagula coming back, who um won the tournament last year. Uh, who else do you have coming this year?

Headliners Beyond Venus

SPEAKER_01

Well, we got two quarterfinals from the Australian Open, Jessica Pagula and Eva Jovic. So that was pretty cool, you know. Uh, we talked about investing a little bit more in Jovich when I talked to Brian and obviously uh young girl, not a lot of people know her, but quickly rising to the top to be in the quarterfinals already of the Australian, and then Pagula's just I mean, a super a super humbled, nice person. Saw this year at uh the US Open last year, and she recognized me right away, came over, gave me a hug. And those are all nice things, and then defending champion uh McCartney Kessler that uh defend is uh finalist of singles and doubles, he's coming back, and then we signed uh Yelena Ostupenka. We need a little bit of feistiness coming to the tournament, and uh looking forward to show her to the fans in Austin. And I know her agent really well, it was so easy to deal with him, and you know, uh then we're also bringing in the uh winner of the US Open, Bianca Andruscu from Canada, who's making a comeback and already has won two tournaments this year by just uh getting back in after injury. So very happy to actually host uh some Grand Slam winners coming to Austin. Always makes a nice story. What do you think, Will? Nice story.

SPEAKER_00

That's awesome. Yeah, I mean, those are all super entertaining players. I love watching Asta Pinko play, it's always entertaining on the singles and doubles court. Um, I mostly watch her on the doubles court. Uh, and then I I remember watching Kessler play some doubles last year when I was there. And I didn't know a whole lot about her. I know she was still kind of on the rise earlier in the year, and um, obviously she had a lot of success last year and is now you know in well inside the top 50 in singles, but she hits the ball so hard. Um, so she's really fun to watch. Um, her and Asta Pinka both hit the ball really hard. So uh yeah, it'll be fun to watch all of these players. And then on the double side, um, it looks like you've got Taylor Townsend, the top American uh player, as well as Storm Hunter um teaming up, both Grand Slam champions as well.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, we're very excited that Taylor's coming back because she made off the court such a big impact two years ago here at she went to the Dell Children's Hospital, and it was an amazing story. She met this little kid in the hospital that was there, and then when she kind of I think the two of them just bonded, and then about three months later, she's in the final of Womblden, and we had the kid made her a little video to say, Taylor, I heard you're playing in a big tournament tomorrow, and good luck, I'm rooting for you. It was so cute. Even I got the video before I send it, and you get so emotional, and then Taylor sent it back quickly, and and she said, I'm crying looking at the VN. You see one woman. So we're gonna connect her again with the kit when she comes in, and she's just an amazing person. Uh, with sponsors and everyone can't be more happier to have a yeah, yeah, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_00

And uh, yeah, a lot of the um doubles players. So you've got Inashibihara and Chuko Ayama. Looks like they're the second seeded team, is at least as of now. I know this could change. Um, so they made the Australian Open final uh several years back. Looks like Katie McNally, who's a really fun doubles player to watch. Alexa Garachi, I was surprised to see her after she had retired, I believe, a couple of years ago. So I guess she's she's coming back as well. So it's gonna be a fun um tournament, both on the singles and doubles side. Um, as far as the the venue and everything, you mentioned this is the last year at Westwood. Um, I want to get into uh what the process is like for finding a new venue, but before we get to that, what is going to be different this year for fans who have been uh in years past? Is there anything new kind of on the grounds?

Doubles Stars And Human Stories

SPEAKER_01

Well, definitely the field. This is gonna be our best field ever. So what a great way of you know uh finishing up at Westwood. And obviously, that's our goal. We have included a center court suite for 16 people to rent out by the day for day and night, everything inclusive. So we're very excited. We've sold already half of those days, and then what we're doing is you know, we've added a big players party at the Driscoll Hotel that's gonna be high level with a lot of gifts. Players are gonna get cowboy hats, they're gonna get engraved uh suitcase leather things, guests will get uh perks and everything when they come there. We're selling some tickets now for the players' party, so obviously all these things for the players with up, and then fans now can actually buy into all these extras, and we have brought in a company that will elevate the fan experience where during the day there'll be activities that you can do, you know, if you've watched a three-hour match and says, I want to go and eat with some jumbo rackets on the court and just have fun, and then we're gonna have a little South African section in the food court that would sell South African food that I'm obviously very excited because I'm from South Africa. Elna Reina, who was a top 10 doubles player and 26 in the world, she's uh player services, so she's from South Africa. My wife played Wommelin with me, and she's doing contention. So we have a little South African community, and we want to share that with the people. And you, when you arrive, I'm gonna take you there and I'm gonna make sure you show the people on your podcast how it you and me at doubles team eat South African food.

SPEAKER_00

We'll get some photos of that. I'm looking forward to it. Yeah. Um, so what about searching for a new venue? Have you started on that? What does that kind of process look like?

SPEAKER_01

Uh, that is it's always a process because remember, uh, you when you are looking, you are disturbing the venue that you renting from because the setup takes about four weeks and then also tearing down. So you disrupting this new place for probably six weeks, and uh you know, then you have to figure out who's willing to do that. So we are in some talks and looking around, but uh it's gonna be sad, but unfortunately, uh the fee has just been raised by doubling, and we cannot afford to be there. So uh sure it's sad. We had a great run with Westwood, and we'll move on. You know, we'll we'll we'll make it nice for the players wherever we go.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah. Austin's got a lot of uh yeah, a lot of infrastructure, so I'm I'm sure you'll be able to find something.

SPEAKER_01

You can help me, you know, all these doubles people on your database. You know, ask them where we can go and host it, uh, you know, and you never know when icons and people like Bagula can walk on your courts or Venus or local Peyton Stern, who's always one of my big seller in tickets locally.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_01

We we are good company, we do good for this.

SPEAKER_00

We'll talk off the air about some uh potential venues and uh try to try to come up with something. Okay. Um, so last couple questions here, and then I know you need to run because uh you're in Dallas uh going to the Dallas Open today. Um I want to talk about kind of doubles when you played versus doubles now. So if we took, I looked up your career high ranking, number five in the world, and it looked like you were 25 years old at the time.

SPEAKER_01

So if we took 25-year-old Christo versus 63, how many years are we counting?

SPEAKER_00

25-year-old Christo versus today's say top five, top ten ATP doubles player with your rackets that you played with, who wins the match?

SPEAKER_01

Okay, rephrase that. You give them our rackets.

SPEAKER_00

I give them your racket that you played with back when you were number five in the world. So they don't get to play with the rackets today. So we're taking a time machine and we're taking 25-year-old Christo to today, and you're bringing your rackets with you, and you hand uh you hand Christian Harrison one of your rackets, and you'll play against each other in doubles. How do you think you stack up?

Final Year At Westwood

SPEAKER_01

I will go behind the scenes and say, How much money would you want to give me a point? No, listen, uh all the players now, and erotic is actually in his podcast, you can listen to him, and he's very good in answering these questions. You can never compare us to the new level of playing because physically they just stronger, they are great athletes, you know, and they have different weapons that we never had. And all you could do is kind of say, okay, what was your level in your era? So if you say I was five in the world and Anakon and I were as a team number one in the world, then I sometimes would watch the players now and I'll say, Okay, let me look at a guy like number five in the world, or let me look at the team that's number one in the world now and says, I guess if I was born much later and I'm in this era now, maybe I would have fitted there, and you kind of watch what they do, and then it's kind of you're not just watching you, you you like analyzing, and you like thinking if I was now on the court and playing them, what would I have done? Instead of sometimes just go and enjoy the match. But listen, uh, that's they are so good now, man. And the power, and the other day I was at the net and I was volleying a little bit, and this was just someone hitting the ball quite hard, and you just you look at this ball and it just feels like it's coming a million miles an hour at you. But uh, I looking back now, it's kind of interesting. I think if you give And you play an hour, old racket, and they play for hours. One day their arms aren't going to be a little bit sore because it's a completely different feel, you know, to it. But yeah, anyway, it would be kind of interesting to see the new people play, you know, like the one-point slam or whatever.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Have something like that with old rackets, but you can't let them play more than five or ten minutes, so they're gonna get maybe some. But that'll be interesting. A one-point slam with an old racket might be fun to watch.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, that wouldn't be fun to watch. Yeah, it is, it is tough to compare. I mean, one thing that I feel like people say, and this is partly due to the technology change, is the this serve and volley, especially on the single side, has kind of gone away, right? Um, and then even on the double side, like a lot of the men, um Neil Skupsky and Christian Harrison, who just won the Australian Open, um, serve and stay back a lot, um, more than they serve in volley. Um, but when you played, when you were number five in the world, everybody was serving and volleying, right? Um why how do you view that? Why do you feel like the serve in volley has kind of gone away a lot? And then also, how do you teach that? A lot of people ask me, like, I want to get better at getting to the net. Um, how do you go about teaching that to someone?

Fan Experience Upgrades

SPEAKER_01

I think the biggest or the easiest for me to answer this question is two things. Do you is it important for you to enjoy doubles? Or are you going on the court and you want to win? I ask this whenever I'm at a club and I talk, whether I talk to a 3-0 lady or a five-point, you know, obviously, if you go to the pro level, you play to win because your life depends on it, because that's how you're gonna make money. If you just want to have fun and play, you do whatever you want because you get exercise, you love the game, it's great to get out there. It's you know, you have a moving ball, you have to run, your heart rate, you're gonna get nervous. There's a lot of uh things happening to you that's good for your health. If you play to win, you have to figure out what your weapons are. I'm gonna give you a simple explanation now. If you need to play, let's just go not dull, and you have to play one shot at him. Would you like him to be at the baseline or you would like him to be at the net? And I would help you out here. Probably if he's at the back, you're gonna be a lot more tougher to win the point because he's got time. So putting him at the net, you should have a little bit more confidence. He's still very good, but going over now to the explanation is are you better at the baseline or better at the net? And then find yourself in that position in doubles more often, and definitely when the point is available that you definitely need to win. You rank these as one of the top 10 points in the match. Make sure you're in a position where you have the most confidence, you feel the most comfortable. You cannot guarantee win or lose it, but you at least hit much better shot from that position. Now you always want to add value to to improve your game. And I live by this rule is if you have something that's very good now and you work on that, it will become excellent. If you have something that is just good, you know, you're kind of trying to hide this because everyone, even the top of the world, don't have every shot great. If you want to work on your weaknesses, just remember that will become good. It will never become excellent. So work on your good stuff to make it excellent, and the other stuff make it presentable. The same now with doubles, and then I learned this thing from Lendell when we trained together for a long time. Create little games in competition in practices where you add, for instance, if I want to, for instance, work on my net game, get a short ball, come in first to ten, play the point out. Just put yourself there for 10-15 minutes of the practices, but bring it into a little game, and that's how you add value or make your you know, make you better.

SPEAKER_00

I love that advice. Yeah, I've been recently I've been having uh people, a lot of my audience do like these challenges. So people tell me they want to improve in the transition zone, right? They want to get better at getting from the baseline to the net. And I'll do that. I'll tell them, you know, play against your doubles partner to 10, feed from the baseline, and you have to move forward after you feed. And you just play a few games. And yeah, all it takes is, like you said, 10-15 minutes every practice of working on that specific game, that specific thing. Uh, and then the the idea of making your weaknesses good and then making your strengths excellent. Uh, I love that too, because it can a lot of the issue with weaknesses, I find is people if they're weak and they show that to the opponent early, the opponent can pick up on it quickly, right? But if you can make it, like you said, respectable, the opponent's gonna have a little more difficulty finding that weakness, and they may not be able to pick on it as easily.

SPEAKER_01

So I would really that's where the strategy comes in. Where you know that's why coaches come in and they analyze players and said if I eat the ball there, I potentially get 75% more of the shot that I want. And uh listen, the the saddest thing for me is when I go sometimes and walk in the club and I see they doing the clinics with everyone, and they all do the same clinics. You're gonna go to the net, you're gonna do this, or you do that, but you have eight players there. If it was for the players who it's their strength, that's great, they're gonna become excellent. The other people are just gonna get good, but they do this a whole hour or they do this 45 minutes, and they don't change it because they believe this is how we should play doubles. So you actually could hurt one or two or three people in that group because that's not really how they're gonna get better. So I always said, listen, that's why I only coach a maximum of two people if I ever do, don't do it anymore. But a lot of respect for I have a lot of respect for these people who coach eight or ten people in an hour, which is hard.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, but it is hard, you know.

Searching For The Next Venue

SPEAKER_01

Uh I have another tip that I would uh add is if you have a strength, let's just say you have a strength in the forehand and the back end knot. Don't try and hit the back end like your forehand. Don't try and hit the same shot. Make your weaker shot maybe a little bit bigger targets where you can make more of that and then take your shot off your weapon side. Well, I see a lot of people play and they want to eat this great shot. And I'm looking at them and said, That's your weaker side. You're gonna miss more if you be that aggressive and think you want to eat it the same as your, let's say your font was your strength. Same with volleys, the shot you're comfortable with, you can pull the trigger more often. The other shot, make it a little bit more, they'll never be the same. So figure that out.

SPEAKER_00

That's really really good advice for people to think about. Um, all right, so let's hop off here. Last thing uh, what else do you want to share about the tournament and where can people find tickets?

SPEAKER_01

They are they can go uh atxopen.com. That is where the WTA 250 is, and then you know that starts on the 21st of February, and the main draw starts on Monday the 23rd, Sunday final around noon. We've moved the final up an hour because of we would like to help the players get to Miami, uh get to Indian Walls, Indian sorry, a late afternoon flight, and then we never uh we should touch quickly that we actually added a new tournament on the 9th of March, eight days after the ATX open. We have the Austin 125, brand new one, second week of Indian Walls. And well, you and I looked at it. The worst player in that draw. What did we see? 89 in the world already.

SPEAKER_00

I think eight, I think 83.

SPEAKER_01

I think it was uh and what the last person in the ATX Open that's twice the size is 99.

SPEAKER_00

I think.

SPEAKER_01

So we are gonna right now.

SPEAKER_00

The draw is better.

SPEAKER_01

Back hosting that at the courtyard, and uh I know Venus said I should keep at a wild card for that tournament. What an amazing thing to see. Uh Peyton Stern, all these players coming back eight days later. We don't want to see them in a nice way because that means they're winning in Indian Wells, right? But players who are losing in Indian Wells in the first two rounds would be able to come to Austin and play. So we're very busy here. We are growing, and we call ourselves now Tennis in Austin. We have five events. So the web pages atxopen.com, Austin125.com, and drop shotseries.com for the itx.

SPEAKER_00

Awesome. We'll link to all that in the show notes. Um, and I'll link to where people can get tickets and try to watch uh Venus Williams on either Tuesday or Wednesday.

SPEAKER_01

And the players party. They can be the players party Sunday night at the Driscoll, six o'clock till nine o'clock. The players will all be there. It's gonna be exciting. Awesome.

SPEAKER_00

All right, well, thanks, Christo. I will certainly see you down in Austin, maybe even uh later today in Dallas.

SPEAKER_01

I look forward. We'll have uh we'll have uh a water for the we'll just tell the audience we're gonna have a water.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, we'll share water uh before we uh before we depart. Thanks, Christo.

SPEAKER_01

Bye. Thanks for talking, and uh always you're always welcome at my tournaments.