Rachel’s Tennis Story
Every Tennis Journey is Unique
It often surprises people to learn that I am not actually a tennis player. I grew up as a nationally ranked junior squash player who happened to marry a Division I college tennis player. Both my husband and I had mixed feelings about our experiences in the highly competitive and often lonely world of elite individual youth sports. As such, we had absolutely no intention of raising tennis players. In fact, we did everything we could to interest our boys in other sports and activities. For years, we never even talked about tennis.
My husband was in the military, so we moved often when the boys were young. During our move to California in 2004, our boys discovered a trash can (the irony is not lost on us) full of my husband’s old racquets. Despite not having picked up a racquet since his college playing days, my husband agreed to take the boys out to show them a little about the game.
As they say, the rest is history.
By the time we relocated to Virginia in the summer of 2007, the boys were hooked. They had decided that all they wanted to do was play tennis. Not only did they want to focus on tennis, but they wanted to play at the highest level possible.
So began my journey as a tennis mom, trying to support their big dreams in a healthy and balanced way. We knew first hand that tennis is a notoriously expensive sport, and in reality, we were a family with limited means. So that meant we were going to need to figure out how to navigate their player development without breaking the bank.
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How Tennis Became My Second Career
In 2012 my “superhero” mom cape broke. I realized that there was no way I could support our boys on their tennis journey and continue to work at my intense Washington DC job. Although my job made it possible to pay for tennis, it also required a tremendous amount of time and travel. There had been multiple instances where my job and the realities of the boys competing at a high level were in conflict.
While we truly have no regrets about our decision to adjust our lives for the boys, the reality of not having my income presented a new set of challenges. We found ourselves committed to an expensive sport with substantially more training and travel costs looming. We were also living in an expensive location and relying on one government income. It was time to get creative!
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I spent time researching exactly what the boys needed in terms of training and competition, and explored ways to limit spending. In reality, we were often the family that brought PB&J sandwiches to tournaments versus going to Panera every day. We also could not afford to play everything, so it was not realistic to just follow along with what other high level juniors were playing.
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As I became smarter on what we needed to do to navigate our unique situation, I realized the dire need for practical parent support in the sport. I was fortunate to partner with a dear friend and co-founded a boutique junior tennis consulting service called Crosscourt Consulting. That experience working directly with parents ultimately laid the foundation for my taking a position with USTA in early 2018.
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During my tenure at USTA my responsibilities included Player Development, Tournaments (Junior, Adult, Family and Wheelchair), Rankings, Junior Team Tennis, High School Tennis, Sportsmanship, Coach Education, the Collegiate Pathway, and more. I am extremely grateful for the experience I gained while with USTA, and look forward to bringing that expanded knowledge back into the personalized consulting services I love.