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s was my life. I knew from a young age that all I wanted to do was be around the game I loved. I was blessed to work with the likes of George McCall and Pancho Gonzales thru the NTA future stars program. People like Sandy Tueller took me under their wing and provided free coaching for me and gave me an opportunity to develop correctly at a young age. |
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My first tournament was at the desert inn and Marty Hennessey handed me my first trophy. I was befriended by his son mike and we still are friends today. By 11 years old I was the #1 Jr in southern Nevada. Over my Jr career I was #1 in Southern Nevada and reached a high of #3 in intermountain and top 50 nationally. |
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I had impressive wins over top 20 players but could not afford to travel t herefore affecting my ranking. Pros like Jim Prisock, Sam Aparicio, and Pat Dupre played a huge part in my early development. I had the privilege to play in Japan at age 12 and lived in Florida at age 13 for a summer. I went to the Rick Macci Tennis Academy and was around some of the best coaching the world had to offer. I trained and roomed with Andy Roddick and we had Venus and Serena training in our camp too! In High School I received a full scholarship to play tennis for the meadows school and won the high school state championship my senior year. I played shortly for UNLV then ran the Jr Program at Anthem CC from 2002-2005. I then went to live in Spain for the Summer of 2006 and trained with the Spanish Tennis Federation. I played some futures on clay and came away with a lot. I trained a lot with Fernando Verdasco, feli lopez, and traveled for a few weeks as a hitting partner with Olympic Gold Medalist Nicholas Massu. When I got back to the states my coach and friend Sam Aparicio was on tour with Spadea and brought me on as another hitting partner. I still remain friends with all these players and it was an experience of a lifetime. It gave me a lot of confidence to know that I could hang with the big guys. Unfortunately my hopes of playing pro tennis were short lived due to finances and a career threatening ACL injury. |
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From then on I decided to be around the game I loved and began full time coaching. In 2007 Sam Aparicio and I started running Spanish Oaks Tennis Club. In 2008 we worked with some of the valleys finest players including Bradon Parker, Evan Song, and Stan Breland. Last year I went to wimbledon a nd the us open and was around some of the best coaches in the game and family friend paul annacone. He taught me a lot and i came back with so much insight. Im always striving to learn from the best and bring that knowledge into our community. After working the year with Evan Song I took the Head Coaching Job at Green Valley High School. I have deep passion for my community and to promote the game of tennis at a grass roots level so this year I started a full time program at Green Valley High School. By fall of 2009 we will have 4 elementary and 2 Jr high schools filtering in to the Green Valley High School program. This year I also started up lasvegastennisgetaways.com a VIP las veas tennis travel experience. I also am the head pro at The Club at Madeira In Henderson. |
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Over the past month I was able to hang out with my friend fernando and train with the Agassi camp. I spent a lot of time with him before his run at the Australian and Indian wells. It was an incredible honor to learn from Gil Reyes and his unconventional approach to fitness and tennis. It was an inside look to what has brought fernando to top 10 in the world. I plan on having a great summer of coaching and playing a few pro doubles tournaments with local atp ranked pros and friends Brian Wilson and Joel Kielbolwitz. I'm currently coaching Stan Breland full time and plan on going to Kalamazoo with him over the summer. I have summer tennis camps running at Oaks and Madeira. I look forward to helping my local tennis community and networking with other great pros to make l as vegas a striving force in the tennis world. |
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