2023 USTA Eastern Tennis Woman of the Year: Debbie Miller

Business owner Debbie Miller has been named USTA Eastern’s 2023 Tennis Woman of the Year for a lifetime of service to the western N.Y. tennis community. 

A standout player in the 1970s and 1980s who parlayed her passion for the sport into a long and fruitful teaching career, Miller has, for nearly half a century, established herself as a revered and incomparable presence in the Buffalo, N.Y.-area tennis ecosystem. In 2007, she and her husband Todd opened the Miller Tennis Center, and—with Debbie coordinating special events, conducting day-to-day operations and directing the center’s renowned 10-and-under program—the location has gone on to become one of the premier tennis destinations in the western N.Y. region. For all her many efforts to grow, promote and support tennis locally as a clinician and community leader, Debbie was named the Professional Tennis Registry (PTR) Eastern Professional of the Year in 2004, and she received USTA Eastern’s George Seewagen Award for teaching professionals in 2020. (With their children Tina and Tony, the Millers were also honored as the organization’s Tennis Family of the Year in 2005.) In addition to receiving Eastern’s Tennis Woman of the Year distinction for 2023, Debbie will also be inducted into the Buffalo Tennis Hall of Fame later in 2024.

After graduating, Debbie also enjoyed competitive stints at the University of Buffalo and the Ohio State University; she joined the latter as a walk-on and played #5 singles. Ultimately, she decided that she just couldn’t quit the sport and that she wanted to build a career in the game as a teaching pro, just like her dad.

“Again, my father was a huge influence,” she explains. “I watched him run the junior program at the local club and saw the passion he put into everything. Teaching was kind of in the blood, and I was in the world. When I was just 12 years old, I would help with the little kids in his program. And when I was 16, instead of babysitting, I would offer tennis lessons. So [when I came back home from school] I started picking up my basket of balls and teaching all over the place.” 

Debbie brought her skillset to a variety of clubs in the western New York area, serving as the head professional at the Transit Valley Country Club and the Holiday Health and Fitness Center. Around this time she became reacquainted with Todd, her high school sweetheart and former teammate who served as the executive director and head professional at the Amherst Hills Tennis Club. The pair—who had known each other since they were 11—began dating again and eventually married. Debbie joined Todd as a teaching pro at Amherst Hills, and they have worked closely together ever since. In 2007, they purchased the facility and rechristened it the Miller Tennis Center, and the operation has wholly become a family business: Both of their children serve as teaching pros on the staff. (Tony also coaches at the University of Buffalo, where both of his parents competed.)

“I once taught a boy who couldn’t see peripherally,” she recalls. “He could only see straight ahead, and he was going through all this therapy for it. I’d roll the ball on the floor like it was hockey. Eventually he started getting the hang of it, and he ended up doing well enough that he played high school tennis and became a pretty decent player. When you help kids find success on a tennis court while they're struggling with other things, that's like winning Wimbledon to me.”

Ultimately, Debbie hopes to imbue others with the same passion her father passed on to her (and to her sister). It’s the same passion that she shares with Todd, and that they both imparted to Tony and Tina.

“You only have one chance for the first impression,” Debbie says. “If you can ignite a positive experience and something that they enjoy and carry on, then that's really rewarding.”

Indeed, Debbie knows that all too well herself. 

“Sticking with something I loved and was passionate about didn’t bring me to the pro tour,” she says. “But it helped me to create a nice life for my family, my kids, and it helped us to create something nice for our community. I’ve been very lucky.”