2019: A Year In Review

It’s been an eventful year for USTA Missouri Valley.

In the beginning of the year, Lisa Minihan began her term leading the section as USTA Missouri Valley president.

We hosted many major tournaments including the US Open USTA Wheelchair Championships, the USTA 30s National Hard Court Championships, seven League Section Championships, two League National Championships, two Tennis on Campus section-level tournaments, the JTT Section Championships, and the final Sweet 16 tournaments. 

The USTA Missouri Valley was represented at the national level by many players, including multiple USTA League teams, three Junior Team Tennis teams, four Tennis on Campus teams, one Adaptive team, multiple Senior World Championships teams, NTRP nationals-competing athletes, junior athletes at the Girls’ and Boys’ National Championships, and professional athletes Madison Keys, Jack Sock, Nick Taylor, and Casey Ratzlaff. 

The Springfield Lasers continued to represent the section as well, earning their second consecutive World TeamTennis championship title, and several Missouri Valley adult and junior players had gold, silver, and bronze ball performances.

Our Net Generation Ace and Net Set Ambassador also represented our section at the US Open, connecting with other youth in the tennis community who all continue to serve the game well.

Three of our facilities were recognized for national facility awards, and one was chosen for the national Organization Member of the Year award. 

The USTA Missouri Valley was also represented at the national level by nine of our talented officials at the US Open, and we later honored these officials and many more as we celebrated the USTA’s first-ever national Officials Appreciation Week. 

Our pro circuits continued to flourish, hosting seven Pro Circuit events that welcomed many notable names into our section along with hosting many grassroots-level community events.

The 50th anniversary of the NJTL fell in 2019, and we celebrated by spotlighting all nine of our beloved NJTL programs in the Missouri Valley. 

Net Generation grew in our section, hosting seven Net Generation Community Coach Workshops, 19 schools workshops, and creating 138 new school partnerships.

We continued to give back to our players, awarding Tennis Trunk boxes to lucky League players and gifting Tennis Warehouse gift cards to junior players who showed great sportsmanship.

We published three issues of our Serve magazine, highlighting news and stories from around the section as well as providing important updates. 

Our year was capped off with the USTA Missouri Valley Annual Conference and Awards Luncheon, where we honored many deserving award winners and inducted three people into our Hall of Fame. 

There is much more that can be said about what our section accomplished in 2019, but we’ll just leave it to this list and continue to look ahead to 2020. What a year!

We’d like to recognize all of the players, providers, volunteers, and all others who have given their time, money, and other resources to USTA Missouri Valley and contributed toward the growth of tennis in our section. Without you, we wouldn’t be where we are today as USTA Missouri Valley. Thank you!