SubscribeTennis star of tomorrow?
Yes, according to Josh Sayles of the Jewish News of Greater Phoenix:
Scottsdale girl wins national tennis tournament
Jeffrey Letzt has an old photograph of his then-4-year-old granddaughter, Alexandra Letzt, parading around outdoors with a tennis racket. Although she’d never played a competitive match in her life, she looks strangely comfortable with a racket in hand.
Eight years later, Jeffrey’s Scottsdale, Ariz., home is teeming with tennis trophies; they’re in almost every room in the house. Some are stowed away in closets, Jeffrey says, because he doesn’t know what to do with them at the rate Alexandra keeps on winning.
It’s a family of achievers, and at age 12, Alexandra has already carved herself a niche. Her mother, Barbara, is an accomplished marathon runner and soccer player. Jeffrey, at one point in his career, was the number-one Cadillac salesman in the world. And Alexandra’s father, an ex-boyfriend of Barbara’s whom neither Jeffrey nor Alexandra has ever met, is a former NFL player. Barbara has raised Alexandra with the help of Jeffrey and his wife, Ellie; Jeffrey calls himself “Alexandra’s father and grandfather, all rolled into one.” In typical grandfather form, he adds later on, “The only thing this (ex-boyfriend) ever did right was to make a nice, smart, pretty, athletic, Jewish girl.”
Alexandra’s most recent feat is also her most impressive; she won the 12-and-under girls’ Winter Nationals tournament in Tucson on New Year’s Day, and with it the Golden Ball trophy (similar to the Golden Gloves trophy in amateur boxing), vaulting her to number two in the country in her age bracket, according to the United States Tennis Association (USTA). Her coaches and family say they expect her to continue climbing to the top.
“(Winning a tournament) doesn’t always hit me right away,” says Alexandra. “Sometimes it takes me the night or a couple of days. But this one means a lot more to me than a lot of the others.”
She says that she had planned on falling to her knees and kissing the court “like the professionals do” if she won, “but then I got embarrassed and just kissed my racket. And I yelled really loud.”
Alexandra’s first real tennis competition came at age 9, when Barbara took her to Tucson to play in a recreational tournament.
“I had no intention of her pursuing tennis,” says Barbara. “I was trying to expose her to a bunch of different sports.” The idea, she says, was to find a sport Alexandra was good at, with the hope that she’d be able to earn a college scholarship.
“It was just a fun tournament,” Alexandra remembers. “I didn’t expect to win all of my matches.”
But coach Forrest Pascal noticed Alexandra on the court almost immediately.
“What I saw, honestly, is that there aren’t a lot of girls of color playing tennis, so she caught my eye,” says Pascal, who, like Alexandra, is black and Jewish. “I saw she was fast and I saw she didn’t know how to play the game. She had a lot of talent. I didn’t see the skill. (I wanted) to help her get the skill.”
Pascal worked with Alexandra up until about a year ago, when he turned her over to friend and colleague James Jack for fine-tuning. “It’s like I built the race car, and (Jack) is putting the decals on,” says Pascal, who still plays a role in managing Alexandra’s “career.”
Jack agrees with Pascal, saying that at the point Pascal jumped on board, Alexandra was like a Ferrari — with no driver’s license and no gas.
Alexandra, who is home-schooled, trains under Jack at the Rasta-TPA Tennis Academy at the Scottsdale Athletic Club for about 20 hours per week; Jack says that many of the other players on her level spend eight hours a day on tennis, five or six days per week.
The next step, Jack says, is to try to get Alexandra ready to play in some professional events when she turns 15; he says she will not lose eligibility for a college scholarship as long as she doesn’t accept any earnings.
“We’re not chasing any money,” says Jack. “We’re chasing the experience of playing professional tennis.” But, he adds, if she wins a six-figure purse, she’s not going to turn it down.
And, he acknowledges, success at the professional level – and by extension that big payday – won’t come right away, if at all. “You can’t say, ‘Hey, you’re going to win matches, you’re going to win tournaments,’” says Jack. “It’s like you’re starting out all over again.”
Alexandra, despite the quiet confidence she exudes, appears to be aware that even with all her talent, the odds are still stacked against her. If professional tennis doesn’t work out for her, she says, she wants to attend Stanford University on a tennis scholarship and become a lawyer.
Jeffrey Letzt has no regrets about supporting Alexandra and her tennis dream, but he has spent a significant chunk of his retirement money doing it. “I raised her as my own, which is what she is,” he says. “If you had a kid, and your kid has a talent … what am I supposed to do? How could you not do it if you think you can afford it?”
Even so, the Letztes are searching for a corporate sponsor for Alexandra; they acknowledge that the money could run out before she has a legitimate shot at the big time.
In addition to Alexandra, Jeffrey financially supports Barbara, whose full-time job is shuttling Alexandra around. He also pays for coaching, as well as travel expenses when Alexandra competes nationally (soon to be internationally, he says).
Either Barbara or Jack accompanies Alexandra on the road; Jeffrey won’t attend any of her tournaments. “I don’t want her to feel the pressure of having her grandfather in the stands,” he says.
“It’s tough for a 12-year-old kid to understand the sacrifices you make,” says Pascal. “But some day, when I’m old and gray, (Alexandra) will look back and understand what (we all) sacrificed.”
Doesn’t the father have to at least pay child support?