Former world tennis champ and co-founder of Viewfi Andy Roddick talks about access to elite athlete healthcare...even if you're not an elite athlete.
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00:00Andy Roddick is the co-founder of ViewFi, the founder of the Andy Roddick Foundation
00:09and the world's former number one men's tennis player, the one and only Andy Roddick.
00:13Thanks a lot for being here.
00:14Yeah, thank you.
00:15Are you getting somewhere?
00:16I know you've just been rifling through interviews.
00:17You doing all right?
00:18I have not slept in a month, but it has been awesome, and it is worth the lack of REM cycles
00:23to sit down with you, man, for sure, so we're grateful for a few minutes of your time.
00:27Your panel here at South By was called Serving Innovation.
00:30Love the pun.
00:31What was it all about?
00:32Yeah, it wasn't my idea on the name.
00:36It was basically a story of how we started ViewFi, which is a diagnostic tool that you
00:42can use through your phone developed by best-in-class surgeons, my doctor for our Davis Cup team
00:49for my entire career, someone I trusted, one of the best surgeons on earth, Josh Dines.
00:54We were finding the bottom of a bottle of wine during COVID on a Zoom with 10 other
00:59people like we all experienced, and I asked the question, what in your given fields, and
01:04everyone did something different, will be expedited by this, and Josh launched into
01:09some story about how he was expected to diagnose orthopedic sports injuries through FaceTime,
01:16and he goes, I spend my entire day telling 45-year-olds to back up, move forward, raise
01:21this arm, and none of it really worked.
01:23I called him the next day, and I said, is anyone doing this?
01:25He goes, no.
01:26I go, will somebody?
01:27He goes, absolutely.
01:28I said, what's missing?
01:29And he goes, connectivity between the medical expertise and the software side.
01:33I happen to know another successful entrepreneur named Michael Williamson, who's now our ViewFi
01:37CEO.
01:38Fast forward any number of years, our experiment is available through Transcarin, through Horizon
01:44Blue Cross, diagnostic tool for musculoskeletal injuries, 500 peer-reviewed tests that you
01:52can go through.
01:53If your arm hurts, through your phone, we'll have you back up.
01:58It'll green light you when you're in the right spot, so Josh doesn't have to yell at you.
02:02Shoulder hurts, series of exercises that are made by Josh Dines, Alex Vaccaro for the back,
02:08best-in-class surgeons from all over the country, Duke, Mayo, Rothman, HSS, and we'll either
02:15tell you what's wrong or what the right first step is for you.
02:17I mean, when you were the world's number one player, US Open champion, in the height of
02:21your career, undoubtedly, and I've heard you say this before, you had access to some of
02:24the world's leading care.
02:25For the rest of us on the outside, talk us through just how good that care is for professional
02:29athletes and how did that inspire you to try and bring more of that to the masses in terms
02:33of accessibility?
02:34Yeah, so the biggest thing is geography often dictates access, cost, and quality, right?
02:41How do we take that out and make sure that you can get the same access and the same programs
02:46that Josh Dines created that I could get as the number one player in the world?
02:49I wish this would have existed when I was playing.
02:52Once a year, I would fly back to Josh at HSS in New York, which is the best orthopedic
02:59hospital in the world, for him to tell me, you're fine, you're okay.
03:05And then I would fly back to France or wherever and continue on with my day and get some treatment
03:09and some Advil.
03:11But having that peace of mind was big.
03:15We took on a big thing.
03:16We said we wanted to try to give that sort of expertise to people at scale while reducing
03:22costs and because of my co-founders, and very little to do with me, besides being able to
03:29sit here and tell you about it, we've been able to do that.
03:32What more needs to be done to better democratize the space of sports medicine, you think?
03:37Access.
03:38I mean, we need best in class without someone having to give up three days of their life,
03:42right?
03:43So you would do the test, it's asynchronous.
03:45So we run you through, you describe your symptoms.
03:47It gets sent in to a sports medicine doc, and then you get it back.
03:51So you don't have to schedule an interface, you don't have to go through all these things.
03:54500 tests, peer-reviewed, two years we spent basically trying to have people poke holes
04:01in it so that we're credible, because it's a weird thing to tell you, we can actually
04:04diagnose a musculoskeletal injury and I'm not going to touch your rotator cuff while
04:09we're doing it.
04:10Have you ever seen those types of injuries increase in frequency for sports athletes,
04:15or I guess for top tennis players, number one, then even for the general public?
04:18I mean, these are serious injuries.
04:19It always changes over time.
04:20Like with tennis players, it used to be backs and shoulders, and then as movement has become
04:24more violent and people have become better athletes, an open stance technique, you're
04:28looking at hips.
04:29You know, I think you see any sport, as people become better, and any athlete who tells you
04:35it was better when they played is a liar.
04:38Everything changes, everything becomes more intense, a little bit more violent, a little
04:41bit faster, therefore injuries happen.
04:44But it doesn't have to be that.
04:45It can be my former PT who traveled me for a million years, works in the Sam Adams Warehouse
04:52in Cincinnati, and he can use it because it takes a hell of a lot of strength to be lifting
04:58stuff all day long.
04:59It doesn't just have to be for athletes, and people need to get over that thing where you
05:04can have best-in-class diagnosis, even if your job is physically laborious, but just
05:12not on TV.
05:13What does 2025 look like for the Andy Roddick Foundation?
05:16What are you working on?
05:17Oh, that's nice of you to ask.
05:18Andy Roddick Foundation, we serve kids out of school time, summer programming.
05:24When underserved kids are most at risk, I think the best thing that we do is add value
05:28to the kids.
05:29Our programs have won a ton of national awards for their delivery, of which I barely graduated
05:34high school.
05:35I'm not the person to be putting those curriculums together, but our staff, our teachers are
05:40great at it.
05:41One unintended consequence that I only fully understood when I was a parent is a single-parent
05:48home not having to leave their job at two-thirds of the afternoon because they're worried about
05:53who their kid's around and if that person is being additive to what they're doing.
05:57I think that's the biggest benefit we can provide for the Andy Roddick Foundation, and
06:01like ViewFi, more.
06:03Let me ask you one tennis question here.
06:05You look at a young guy like Taylor Fritz, you look at Carlos Alcarez, these new guys
06:08in the game, especially Fritz the American, what do you like in their game and have you
06:12seen the game evolve even from when you were there just a few years ago?
06:15Everyone's like a superhero of movement.
06:17Like Alcarez and the way he can, you used to be able to hit shots, be slow, and that
06:21was fine.
06:22Non-negotiable.
06:23You have to be able to move now.
06:24I love what Taylor Fritz is doing.
06:26I think he leaves no stone unturned.
06:29I hope he gets that slam and ends this streak.
06:34I really hope he does it.
06:35I was hoping he was going to do it last year at the US Open, he had a hell of a run.
06:38Alcarez is a painter.
06:40I say center's like an algorithm.
06:42You feel like he just inserts and it outputs kind of a very, very good product.
06:48Alcarez has a paintbrush.
06:49I don't think he knows what he's doing next, but it's art when you watch it.
06:51I love the game and where it's at.
06:53Well, I got to say, this interview was art as our viewers will watch it as well.
06:56The one and only Andy Roddick here at South by Southwest.
06:58Thanks for having me.
06:59Great to have you.
07:00Appreciate it.