About this episode
In this episode, Steve Smith and Andy Fitzell interview South Africa's Raven Klaasen. Raven loves tennis as much as anyone on the planet. His story is remarkable; after his third knee operation, he was starting to think his dream of playing in our sport's biggest stadiums was not going to come true. He made his way to the ATP tour at a relatively late age. He has been a top ten doubles player for several years and was a finalist in two majors, Australia and Wimbledon. In his teenage years, Raven spent almost five years based at Steve's tennis school. He was the top-ranked player in his country but he was advised to rebuild and refine all aspects of his game under Steve's tutelage. He was referred to Steve by Craig Tiley, a fellow South African. Raven and Craig represent the two paths presented by GreatBase Tennis. Raven was trained to be a player and Craig was trained to be a tennis teaching pro-manager. Raven is a dedicated student of the game who always handles himself with class. We are confident that you will enjoy listening to Raven.