Sebastián Varela: Winning the Tom Perrotta Prize, CLAY & Telling Tennis’ Untold Stories

In this episode, Sam Jacot and Jerome Coombe sit down with Sebastián Varela, co-founder of CLAY and winner of the 2025 Tom Perrotta Prize for Tennis Journalism.Sebastián takes us inside the stories that earned him one of tennis journalism's leading young-writer awards, including his extraordinary feature on a man who escaped drug trafficking and went on to transform lives through tennis. We also discuss his approach to open, ambitious journalism and why some of the most interesting stories in tennis exist away from the scoreline.Sebastián shares his experiences speaking with players including Eva Lys, Stefanos Tsitsipas and Taylor Fritz, and explains why openness from players can completely change the conversations journalists are able to have.We also get into the story behind CLAY, the bilingual tennis publication Sebastián co-founded in 2020, and his mission to bring greater attention to South American and Spanish-speaking tennis. With South American tennis producing an exciting generation of players and growing in influence across the sport, Sebastián explains why he believes the region deserves greater coverage and a bigger voice.Read Sebastián's work discussed in the episode:https://www.claytenis.com/features/escaping-drug-trafficking-to-transform-lives-with-tennis/https://www.claytenis.com/cov/director-netflix-nadal-documentary-in-the-us-there-arent-many-rafa-fans/https://www.claytenis.com/home-en/🎙️ Our background episode & our special in-focus 20th episode are in this feed if you’d like to learn more about who we are and why we created Tales from Tennis.Episodes every Wednesday. 🚨 Coming up next time, Sam and Jerome speak with the Tennis Director of the Rafa Nadal Academy. Subscribe now. 📲Follow us on social media:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/talesfromtennis/X: https://x.com/TalesFromTennisThe podcast is independently produced and not affiliated with or endorsed by the ATP.