MAY IS NATIONAL TENNIS MONTH
happening around the state
TRI LEVEL AND MIXED DOUBLE LEAGUES stARTING SOON
TRI LEVEL AND MIXED DOUBLE LEAGUES stARTING SOON
TRI LEVEL AND MIXED DOUBLE LEAGUES stARTING SOON
If you want to play with friends at different NTRP levels, or if you are having a hard time getting enough people of the same level to form a team, Tri-Level is for you. This socially competitive league is a great way to enjoy the camaraderie of friends in the ultimate team experience.
USTA Mixed Doubles is similar to USTA League Tennis in that it offers competitive team play for all abilities and experience, except that women and men play together.
JUNIOR TEAM TENNIS (JTT)
TRI LEVEL AND MIXED DOUBLE LEAGUES stARTING SOON
TRI LEVEL AND MIXED DOUBLE LEAGUES stARTING SOON
Baton Rouge area:
USTA Junior Team Tennis, or “JTT”, brings together boys and girls, ages 5 to 18, to play singles, doubles and mixed doubles against other coed teams. USTA Junior Team Tennis is a competitive, level-based environment that promotes individual growth, social development and life skills.
Tennis Apprentice and Step Up League
TRI LEVEL AND MIXED DOUBLE LEAGUES stARTING SOON
Tennis Apprentice and Step Up League
Baton Rouge Area:
Tennis Apprentice is geared for first time players or those wanting a reintroduction to the game. Learn to hit, rally and score with other beginners. After you complete your four weeks of Tennis Apprentice you are given the opportunity to join the Step Up league, for free! This is a mini league with your fellow Tennis Apprentice players where you play matches and learn the foundation of our USTA league programs.
hAPPENING AROUND THE STATE
45TH ANNUAL CONTRABAND tOURNAMENT IN lAKE cHARLES TAKING PLACE SOON
Latest News and Stories
2022 Louisiana tennis hall of fame nominations EXTENDED until JUNE 15TH, 2022
USTA Louisiana award nominations
are open until September 1, 2022.
To nominate please click on the link below.
some of louisianas best
linda tuero - new orleans native
Forty years after retiring from competitive tennis, Tuero’s career accomplishments still resonate at the Hall of Fame level. Six national championships before finishing high school, the first female scholarship athlete at Tulane University, the top-ranked woman in the world under the age of 21, a U.S. Open Clay Court Singles title, a quarterfinalist at the French Open, the Italian Open Singles Champion. From being a prodigy at 10 years old to being ranked No. 10 in the world upon her retirement, Tuero proved herself to be one of the top athletes in New Orleans history.
Although Tuero’s career, at least at the pro level, was relatively brief – she retired prior to her 25th birthday – it was momentous on many levels. As an amateur, she won those six national age-group championships as well as the girls’ National Interscholastic Championship while at St. Martin’s Episcopal School. Her success led legendary Tulane tennis coach Emmett Paré (a 1981 inductee into the Greater New Orleans Sports Hall of Fame) to make her the first female to receive an athletic grant-in-aid to play for the Green Wave.
Both Paré and Tuero were going out onto a limb of sorts as Tulane did not have a women’s varsity tennis program, meaning that Tuero would have to play against men.
Just being on the squad didn’t mean total parity, however. It was decided that Tuero would not accompany her male teammates on road trips, and she would only be matched against a man with a visiting school if the coach and player each consented. Not everyone did, which is why Tuero played a limited college schedule, going 8-1.
“My teammates were great. Real gentlemen,” recalled Tuero, who usually played the No. 5 or No. 6 singles position. “And the guys I played against were very nice, too. I think they understood and appreciated the position I was in. I never had any issues with any of them. There wasn’t any resentment toward me on their part, as far as I could tell. Maybe those were the players who had decided beforehand that they wouldn’t be totally mortified if they lost to a woman.”
More likely, they probably thought that no woman could cope with the advantage in power that members of their gender presumably held in any competitive sport. Tuero admits that the Green Wave’s better players at the time were big serve-and-volley types whose strengths negated her steady baseline game. But she made few mistakes, and tennis people still talk about the one match in which she and her opponent exchanged well-placed strokes on a single point that lasted more than 15 minutes.
After Tulane, she was very successful in the professional ranks, including posting a perfect record – OK, so it’s only 1-0 – against Martina Navratilova, then a Czechoslovakian teenager new to the American tennis scene and the pro tour.
“I played all the top women – Billie Jean, Chrissie (Evert), Evonne Goolagong, Nancy Richey, Margaret Court,” Tuero recalled. “You know, it’s funny. I went to dinner with Martina in Aspen (Colorado) back in, I’m guessing, 1995. I couldn’t believe she still remembered our match. She even remembered the score. I didn’t remember it, and I won.”
Though at the top of her game following the Italian Open Championship in 1972, Tuero’s passion for the game was waning, leading to her early retirement.
“Honestly, I kind of lost interest,” she admitted in a recent article in The Oregonian newspaper. “I would go out on court and I wasn’t nervous. When I wasn’t nervous I knew something was wrong. The desire, the will to win: I’d always had that. It was why I won, not that I was faster or stronger than anyone else. But it just wasn’t there anymore.”
In 2000, she went back to Tulane to get a Masters in Anthropology. “This subject matter just fascinates me the way that tennis did,” she said. “I guess you could say one passion just led to another.”
She is married to Dr. Bill Lindsley and lives in Sea Island, Ga. She has three children and one grandchild; Billy Blatty, Jennifer Blatty and grandson Gabe live in New Orleans; David Paul lives in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida.
more of louisianas best
stephanie vallejos - ULl Women's tennis Coach
Stephanie Vallejos begins her sixth season as head women’s tennis coach for the Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns.
Vallejos led the 2020-21 team to a 9-2 start during the spring season, running through the state and beating SLU, McNeese and Northwestern State. Under Vallejos' guidance, she helped Floriane Picaut earn Second Team LSWA Honors and guided the team to an overall record of 38-11 in singles matches and 16-8 in doubles matches.
During 2019, the team tallied a 6-14 record but Vallejos coached another No. 1 singles to eight wins. This was the second time Vallejos guided a No. 1 singles player to eight wins in her short tenure. With this, Vallejos has now coached two of the three No. 1 singles players to earn eight wins since 2013.
Two years ago, Vallejos guided the Ragin' Cajuns to an 11-10 record, equaling the win total the previous two seasons that produced an 11-36 record. During the 2015-16 season, Louisiana placed a pair of student-athletes (Melissa Burckhartt and Kelly Drew) on the All-Sun Belt Conference team for the first time since 2011 while the Ragin' Cajuns closed out the regular-season with three straight wins, earned a 4-3 win over Western Kentucky and nearly pulling off an upset of nationally-ranked North Carolina State.
Prior to being named the school's 14th head coach on July 22, 2015, Vallejos spent four seasons at UT Pan American, where she led the Broncs to a pair of Western Athletic Conference Tournament appearances, a berth in the National Invitation Tennis Tournament and an appearance in the Great West Conference Tournament.
Vallejos led UTPA to back-to-back seasons of 10 or more wins for the second time in school history after the Broncs posted records of 13-8 in 2014 and 10-12 in 2015. Her 2015 team reached the championship match of the WAC Tournament where Katia Stavroulaki and Reegan Greenwood were each named to the All-Tournament team. Stavroulaki was also a first-team All-WAC selection in singles play and joined Greenwood in earning All-WAC honors in doubles.
Off the court, Vallejos continued to put emphasis on hard work in the classroom and in the community as the Broncs earned the UTPA AD Cup Award for serving the most community service hours. Vallejos’ squad was also named the UTPA Academic Team of the Year for having the highest Grade Point Average in the department.
The Broncs were the only school in the University of Texas System named as an 2015 Intercollegiate Tennis Association All-Academic Team while also having two student-athletes being named as ITA Scholar Athletes. They also had six student-athletes named to the Fall AD Honor Roll in 2014 while six student-athletes earned the honor in the spring. Additionally, three student-athletes earned Spring Academic All-WAC honors.
Vallejos played for Northern Arizona from 2005-08, leading the Lumberjacks to 15 wins and a 7-1 record in the Big Sky Conference as a senior. She amassed a 15-6 singles record and a 7-1 mark in conference play while winning her final nine matches. Vallejos also went 16-5 (7-1 Big Sky) in doubles competition in 2008.
Vallejos earned All-Big Sky first team honors in 2008, which was NAU’s best season since 2002.
A 2003 graduate of Benicia High School in northern California, Vallejos led her squad to an undefeated record in 2001 and the MEL Conference Championship. Vallejos was ranked No. 1 in the Northern California Section in the 18 and under division in 2002 and was nationally-ranked in the top 40 in the 14, 16, and 18 and under from 1999-2002.
Vallejos was a two-time Pacific Coast national champion in singles and doubles, as well as a Junior Fed Cup player for Northern California in 2002.
louisiana's best
Chanda rubin -100 Influential Black Women in Sports
From the Court to the Broadcast Booth, Chanda Rubin Is an Eternal Champion
Sports Illustrated and Empower Onyx are putting the spotlight on the diverse journeys of Black women across sports—from the veteran athletes, to up-and-coming stars, coaches, executives and more—in the series, Elle-evate: 100 Influential Black Women in Sports.
When Chanda Rubin watched the recently released film King Richard, the scenes in the movie took her back to her time spent on the WTA Tour, surrounded by tennis.
“I just remember hearing a lot of the stories with Richard Williams back in the day, about his girls and how they were going to be, these great No. 1, No. 2 players,” she says. “And you wonder, Is that really going to happen? And it did. And it's amazing. I think, for me, it’s the greatest story in sports. I just loved feeling all the energy surrounding their story being brought to life.”
But in the early 1990s, when Venus and Serena Williams were still young girls at the junior level, Rubin was already rising in the WTA ranks. She turned pro in '91 at the age of 15 and just five years later, reached the Australian Open semifinals in singles and captured the doubles title with Spain’s Arantxa Sánchez Vicario. That same year, in '96, she reached a career-high World No. 6 ranking in singles.A child prodigy from Lafayette, La., Rubin was one of the Black women who laid the foundation for the next generation of women of color to be accepted, seen and given an opportunity to become winners. She’s always operated at full throttle in tennis. Her parents played competitively but never had to push Rubin into the sport. Her desire and drive were 100% personal.
Read the entire story at the link below
USTA Junior CIrcuit
Net Generation PlayTracker
Net Generation PlayTracker
This is a new program that utilizes a non-elimination round robin draw format for players of all ages to gain match play experience in a tournament setting with a focus on individual results. This experience will encourage players of all ages to develop their skills through level-based play and demonstrate good sportsmanship.
Net Generation PlayTracker
Net Generation PlayTracker
Net Generation PlayTracker
On January 1, 2021, USTA Youth Progression will be transitioning to USTA.com within your profile, and with that comes an exciting new look.
The new Net Generation PlayTracker will help parents and players navigate their development progress, replacing the current stars and trophies system. Now, players will collect points on an engaging PlayTracker after playing in USTA Team Challenges, USTA Junior Team Tennis, and USTA Junior Circuit programs.
USTA Wheelchair tennis
Net Generation PlayTracker
USTA Wheelchair tennis
A NEW STRUCTURE WITH MORE OPPORTUNITIES
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As the USTA continues to create a new tournament pathway, a new simplified structure creates more level-based play, an easier to understand nomenclature across all Sections and provides more local playing opportunities for junior and adult wheelchair players.