Allexis Moen Has High Tennis Aspirations

15-year old Allexis Moen of West Des Moines is an up-and-comer in the Iowa tennis community. After starting tennis at the age of seven, she played her first USTA tournament at age eight, and that’s when she was hooked.

“After that was when I knew I wanted to play this sport at a high level,” she said.

Moen received the USTA Missouri Valley Female Emerging Player of the Year award for 2022. She played a number of events in the 14’s, 16’s and 18’s. Valley High School tennis coach, Michael Conlon, nominated her for this award.

“Allexis (Lexi) will begin her high school tennis career in the spring of 2023,” he said. “Lexi has pursued higher level match play in order to challenge herself, I can’t wait to see how her high school career unfolds.”

Moen said she most enjoys the mental aspect of tennis. The tennis court, to her, is a safe space with no other life distractions. She also pushes herself to be better, though it wasn’t always easy.

“The hardest challenge I have had to go through is having a positive attitude and finding confidence in myself,” she said. “I often had the feeling that I wasn’t good enough and was hard on myself. But recently I have overcome that and I have seen way more progress in my tennis game mentally.”

Moen grew up playing many sports, but tennis doesn’t leave a lot of time for those. She recently took up lacrosse and will continue that in the fall seasons. She said her tennis mentors are her parents.

“They know and fully understand my love for the sport and do anything to help me achieve my goals, but most importantly they support me through everything in life,” she said.

Her future goals are to qualify for the state tournament and win. She also hopes to play in the 16U Nationals this summer, because she had such a good experience playing 14U Nationals.