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Gill Gross was 15 years old when he was selected to be a ball boy for the U.S. Open. After a tryout that included chasing tennis balls and throwing them to a line judge, Gross was the youngest of 70 ball boys chosen out of 400 people. He called his experience at the Open “the greatest three weeks of my life.” 

Later in high school, he combined his passion for tennis with his talent in broadcast journalism and got an internship with a radio station in high school. The radio station eventually shut down, and he created a YouTube channel called Monday Match Analysis, providing analysis and commentary on tennis matches from the day before. 

Gross, now a senior at Syracuse University, has over 8,000 subscribers, but that’s not his greatest accomplishment. In 2020, his tennis podcast, “Three — A Tennis Show,” was picked up by the Tennis Channel. 

“If (the radio station) kept running, I would never have felt a need to start a YouTube channel,” Gross said. “None of this would have happened without that negative.” 

His YouTube show originally covered every sport that interested Gross, such as football and basketball. But as he gained a following, he realized that most of his subscribers watched him for his tennis content, and he started to direct his attention solely toward the sport. In addition to analysis of matches, Gross also interviewed people from the tennis world that might interest his viewers. 

In July 2020, Gross interviewed Amy Lundy, a tennis analyst for FiveThirtyEight, and Joel Drucker, a longtime tennis journalist on Tennis Channel. Following that, Lundy came to him with an idea of a podcast centered on Tennis’s big three: Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic. 

“Joel and I had been messing around with a podcast idea for a year and had not really gone through with it because we felt that we needed a third person,” said Lundy. “I was so impressed with Gill that I got the idea to have him be kind of our traffic cop as well as a contributor.” 

“Three” became yet another outlet for Gross to showcase his broadcasting talent. After a few months of creating episodes, the Tennis Channel decided to add the show to their podcast network. The process to become affiliated was long, Drucker said. But now, the podcast has a greater platform than it did before — and Gross is making new connections all throughout the journalism world. 

“It’s a great honor to be part of Tennis Channel and part of the podcast network, it says a lot about the quality of the show, and it really speaks a lot to Gill,” Drucker said. “He became the link that Amy and I needed to take it to the next level.”

Gross’ ability to join the team and get the podcast going right away links back to his competitive nature. He decided to come to Syracuse for college because the broadcasting was so competitive. Many people try out, so you have to earn your spot on air, he said.

And Gross did exactly that — after nearly four years at Syracuse, Gross has been involved in numerous media organizations on campus. In addition to work at CitrusTV, Z89 and others, he calls men’s basketball games for WAER and tennis games for the ACC Network.

Even with all of his recent success, Gross continues to grow his YouTube channel. He said tennis is his favorite sport because of the individual competition, and he loves receiving messages from people that started enjoying tennis more because of his show. 

Gross is now just two months away from his college graduation. He doesn’t have a job lined up immediately after college, but he plans on continuing Monday Match Analysis and “Three” in hopes of taking them to the next level. Lundy, who has worked closely with him for several months, knows that he has a future. Not only does he have the talent, but he also has all of the extra skills necessary to make him a great asset. 

“Some of it is innate, but he has that timing, that warmth and that authority that I think will take him far,” Lundy said.

Published on March 16, 2021 at 10:54 pm

Contact: eqgunthe@syr.edu