Courting Success: Eyes on the Future
Some of the most influential players have at one time called the Mid-Atlantic home. During our Centennial Celebration in 2023, USTA Mid-Atlantic will highlight 50 noteworthy and intriguing players.
Players of this generation in the USTA Mid-Atlantic community include top ranking pros, Olympians and junior phenoms. These players are already an accomplished group and many are just getting started.
The Centennial Celebration is underway and there are many ways you can get involved including joining the Centennial Club, sharing your story, submitting a photo to the Centennial Photo Challenge and of course, joining us at the Gala on Dec. 1! Revisit past “Courting Success” capsule stories here.
Shenay Perry
(b. 1984)
Shenay Perry was born in Washington, D.C., and began playing tennis at age four on neighborhood courts. She turned pro in 2000 and won nine ITF singles titles and seven doubles championships between 2003 and 2009. In 2006 she broke into the Top 50, peaking at No. 40 in singles after advancing to the Round of 16 at Wimbledon. Since retiring from professional competition in 2010 she has been in high performance coaching and has worked with such players as Coco Gauff and Sofia Kenin when they were juniors and Kristie Ahn on the professional level.
Somdev Devvarman
(b. 1985)
A five-time All-American—three times in singles and twice in doubles—Somdev Devvarman owns one of the greatest résumés in collegiate tennis history. Born in India, he moved to the United States in 2004 to attend the University of Virginia and became the first player to appear in three consecutive NCAA singles finals, winning back-to-back titles in his junior and senior years. Devvarman ended his career at Charlottesville with a school-record 158 singles wins while setting the NCAA Championships mark of 18 career singles wins. Upon turning pro in 2008 he won his first three tournaments (two Futures and one Challenger) and reached a career high of No. 62 in 2011.
Megan Moulton-Levy
(b. 1985)
Megan Moulton-Levy was born in Grosse Pointe, Mich., and attended the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Va., where she was a six-time All-American, three times each in singles and doubles. She advanced to the NCAA women’s singles semifinals in 2006 and the NCAA doubles final in 2007, and her combined 249 singles and doubles victories are the most in school history. After graduating from William & Mary she competed professionally from 2008 to 2016, capturing the WTA Monterrey doubles championship in 2014 in addition to winning 10 ITF doubles titles and attaining a career-high doubles ranking of No. 50. In singles she peaked in the rankings at No. 237 and earned one ITF singles title. She joined the Junior Tennis Champion Center in College Park, Md., as a Senior Coach in 2016 and since 2019 has been the General Manager of Player Development at the JTTC, whose high-performance program had developed professional players including Hailey Baptiste, Denis Kudla, Robin Montgomery, and Frances Tiafoe. Moulton-Levy is currently serving a second term as an Elite Athlete on the USTA Board of Directors.
Denis Kudla
(b. 1992)
Born in Kyiv, Ukraine, Denis Kudla moved with his family to Fairfax, Va., on his first birthday and started playing tennis while he was in elementary school at the Junior Tennis Champions Center in College Park, Md. Becoming a mainstay there, he developed into a top junior player, helping to lead the 2008 U.S. Junior Davis Cup team to the championship and winning the 2008 Orange Bowl Boys’ 16s singles title by defeating fellow JTTC student Mitchell Frank in the final. Kudla rose to No. 3 in the world junior rankings at the start of 2010 and reached the 2010 US Open Boys’ singles final, falling to Jack Sock. The next month Kudla won his first professional title on the ITF circuit. He broke into Top 100 in 2013 and achieved a singles career-high of No. 53 in 2016, when he made his Olympic debut for the U.S. men’s tennis team. Now an Arlington, Va., resident, he has won 10 ITF singles titles and 11 ITF doubles crowns, and has competed in the main draw at the majors 30 times, with his best Grand Slam results coming at Wimbledon. There he reached the Round of 16 in singles in 2015 and was a doubles quarterfinalist in 2022.
Danielle Collins
(b. 1993)
Born in St. Petersburg, Fla., Danielle Collins went to the University of Florida but transferred after her freshman year to the University of Virginia, where she earned All-American honors in all three years at Charlottesville and won the NCAA women’s singles championship twice, in 2014 and 2016. Turning pro after graduating from Virginia, she broke into the Top 50 in 2018 after qualifying for the Miami Open and reaching the semifinals. In 2019 she was an Australian Open semifinalist, and the following year she advanced to the French Open quarterfinals. Collins captured her first two WTA titles in 2021, at Palermo and San Jose, and in 2022 she appeared in her first Grand Slam final at the Australian Open, where her performance put her in the Top 10 and elevated her to the No. 1 ranking among U.S. women. Her world ranking in singles has been as high as No. 7.
Frances Tiafoe
(b. 1998)
Born in Hyattsville, Md., Frances Tiafoe began training at the Junior Tennis Champions Center in College Park, Md., when he was five years old and established himself as a top junior early on. At 15 he won the Boys’ 18s title at the Orange Bowl, becoming the youngest champion in tournament history, and when he captured the Easter Bowl four months later, propelling him to No. 2 in the world junior rankings, he became the first American since John McEnroe in 1976 to claim both crowns. In the professional ranks Tiafoe broke into the Top 100 in 2016 and won his first title two years later. He entered the Top 20 for the first time in his career after reaching the semifinals of the 2022 US Open. He entered the Top 10 for the first time in his career in the Summer of 2023.
Hailey Baptiste
(b. 2001)
Born and raised in Washington, D.C., and a product of the Junior Tennis Champions Center in College Park, Md., Hailey Baptiste won the 2018 Easter Bowl Girls’ 18 doubles title and reached the 2018 US Open girl’s doubles final, both when she was 16 years old. She turned pro the following year, at age 17, and made her WTA main-draw singles debut a memorable one by defeating No. 2 seed Madison Keys in the opening round of the 2019 Citi Open. That year also saw Baptiste win her first three professional titles at ITF events. Since then, she advanced to the second round at both the 2021 French Open and the 2022 Australian Open and won three qualifying matches at the 2022 French Open. In doubles competition she has claimed two titles, first at 2021 Charleston, a WTA tournament, and then at a 2022 ITF event in Orlando. Also in 2022 she reached the second round in doubles at the US Open. Her career-high rankings are No. 119 in singles and No. 127 in doubles, both achieved in 2022.
Robin Montgomery
(b. 2004)
Washington, D.C., native Robin Montgomery was five years old when she took tennis lessons at the city’s Turkey Thicket Recreation Center and earned a scholarship to train at the Junior Tennis Champions Center in College Park, Md. She maintained high national rankings beginning in the Girls’ 12s, eventually becoming the No. 1 junior girl in the nation after helping the U.S. team capture the 2019 Junior Fed Cup championship and winning the 2019 Orange Bowl Girls’ 18s singles title at the age of 15. At the 2021 US Open Junior Championships, her last international tournament in the junior ranks, she became the first player in 17 years and the first American since 1992 to win both the girl’s singles and doubles titles. She also played in the women’s doubles tournament at the 2021 US Open, having earned a wild card into the main draw for capturing the USTA Girls’ 18s national championship in doubles with Ashlyn Krueger, and they defeated No. 13 seeds Asia Muhammad and Jessica Pegula in the first round. Coming into 2023 Montgomery has reached five ITF singles finals, winning twice, and has netted three ITF doubles titles.
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This year USTA Mid-Atlantic Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, is celebrating 100 years of promoting tennis and its physical, social, and emotional health benefits. Get involved and show your support for the next 100 years of tennis.
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Courting Success Pt. 4September 15, 2023Some of the most influential players have at one time called the Mid-Atlantic home. During our Centennial Celebration in 2023, USTA Mid-Atlantic will highlight 50 noteworthy and intriguing players. Read More -
Courting Success Pt. 3September 15, 2023The 11 players in the next capsule collection forged a path to success at a young age, with many of them earning accolades in junior competition and high school tennis. From there, their tennis success catapulted them to collegiate and Pro Tour accomplishments. To this day, several of the players in this collection work or play in the Mid-Atlantic and continue to give back to tennis through careers in the sport. Read More
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Courting Success Cont.June 23, 2023Getting their start in their youth, many of the eight players featured in this next edition of Courting Success made their way from courts in the Mid-Atlantic to the grandest of stages including the French Open, Wimbledon and the US Open. Read about their roots in our region and how that shaped them for future success. Read More
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