Carl Frankel
Carl Frankel is a writer, serial entrepreneur and skilled tennis player. He first picked up a racket at the age of seven and enjoyed considerable success as a junior player. After graduating from college and law school, he taught tennis in New York City, Westchester County (a NYC suburb), and then in Austria and Germany while in his 20s. Tennis then became a recreational activity for him as he turned his full-time attention to business and entrepreneurship. He won a county championship while in his 40s, but this was very by the way.
From 2000-2015, Frankel didn’t pick up a tennis racket. Arthritis in both knees made it impossible for him to run two steps, never mind scamper around a tennis court. He got both knees replaced in 2013 and started playing again in 2015 at the age of 65. A few years later, a well-known supersenior coach saw a video of him playing in 2017 and commented that he could be a top-ten player in the 70s category when the time came. Thus was a new and entirely unexpected late-in-life career born. Frankel resolved to go for that top-ten ranking, a journey that is recounted in his 2022 book Tennis as a Wisdom Practice: A Story About the Quest for Mastery. The book has gotten rave reviews, including favorable comparisons to tennis and sports classics like Gallwey’s The Inner Game of Tennis, Burwash’s Tennis for Life, and Herrigel’s Zen in the Art of Archery.
It soon became clear to Frankel that a niche in the tennis writing/coaching ecosystem had opened up for him. He launched a Facebook group (“Tennis as a Wisdom Practice”) that soon achieved a global following. This was followed in early 2023 by the publication of his second book about tennis ― Tennis Meditations: 99 Juicy Morsels for Playing the Game of Your Life.
A third book on tennis, Flow State Tennis: How to Hack the Zone on the Court and In Your Life, will be published in 2023. It will also be offered as an online course.
As in prior professional incarnations in sustainability and adult sex education, Frankel has established himself as a thought leader in the world of tennis coaching and writing ― his approach is deeply integral. He is drawn to the psychological aspects of the game, but he also has a fine eye for technique . Tennis is a practice for him, a way to become more self-aware and to get better at the art of life.
