Leslie Echols Earns No. 1 National NTRP Ranking for 2023

Echols said one of the best things to surface from her 2023 journey was she learned to better cope with her nerves, which came on strong prior to singles matches. Echols said early on in the summer she was so nervous she wasn’t able to eat pre-match. A calmer and more confident player emerged as the year progressed with one opponent telling Echols she was the mentally tougher player, which was the difference in their matchup.

“It’s ironic — how nervous I get and how much I struggle to control my nerves — that someone would say to me you won because you’re mentally tough. That meant a lot,” Echols said. “My goal when I started was to just get better at singles and learn how to work through my nerves. And I ended up on this really rewarding and fun journey.”

The path to No. 1 never would have happened without Debbie Pell, a USTA Missouri captain and player and one of Echols’s closest friends. Pell wanted the opportunity to compete in the NTRP National Championships for doubles and asked Echols to be her partner at tournaments. Echols figured if she was already going to be traveling for doubles, she might as well play singles for additional exercise and experience.

Echols and Pell coordinated their schedules for the summer and picked out a list of tournaments they’d attend together. Both players had a hectic 2023, with a 40 & Over women’s 3.5 team Pell captains and Echols plays on advancing to USTA Nationals. Echols had several weekends filled with Section Championship tournaments or running tourneys of her own on behalf of the district. Any spare weekend she did have, she entered a tournament to play in.

“It was me and Debbie traveling a lot last summer,” Echols said. “It was awesome.”

Echols competed in about 10 NTRP singles tournaments in 2023 with her top-six results during a 12-month rolling period counting toward her section and national ranking. She checked her singles points and ranking periodically with the hope of earning the USTA Missouri Valley’s golden ticket for entry into the NTRP National Championships. In that process, Echols noticed her national ranking jump to No. 7 after a September tournament.

“I was like, ‘Oh, that’s hilarious. No way,’” Echols said. “I just thought it was funny honestly.”

When Echols worked her way up from a No. 2 ranking in USTA Missouri Valley — which she was stuck at for some time — to the No. 1 spot, she also moved to a No. 3 national ranking. Echols then got bumped up again to a No. 2 national ranking.

“At that point, I was like I’ve got to go for it,” Echols said. “Knowing I might get bumped up, I thought this is probably a once-in-a-lifetime chance. If I miss out on being No. 1 by a few hundred points, I think I will regret it.”

Echols — who did end up being bumped up to 4.0 status at the end of the year — was on the hunt for one more L4 tournament to secure as many points as possible before December hit. She found one in Philadelphia during Thanksgiving weekend, so she and her son traveled there. Echols won the tourney then took her 19-year-old son to New York City — where he was born — to spend the remainder of the weekend.

Echols officially moved into the No. 1 national spot in the 18 & Over NTRP 3.5 women’s singles division on December 27 and concluded 2023 at the top of the final USTA National standings list. She will find out around mid-March whether she did enough to receive the golden ticket to NTRP Nationals for both singles and doubles. She said the chances are slim someone will be able to surpass her between now and then.

Regardless, Echols is happy she went for the No. 1 ranking at the section and national level, calling it an “awesome” year of tennis.

“It was just a whirlwind,” Echols said. “But I’m glad I did it for sure.”