Meet Your New USTA Missouri Digital Assistant

A cool summer job has turned into a love of tennis for Jeff Kessinger. 

Kessinger, a native of Springfield, is the new digital assistant for USTA Missouri Valley. He’ll be covering the Missouri district. 

The Missouri State University alumnus has covered sports across southwest Missouri for most of the last 18 years, including sports editor jobs in Taney County, Republic and Christian County. But it was a freelance assignment from the Springfield News-Leader in 2013 that sparked a real interest in tennis for Kessinger. 

He served as the beat writer for World TeamTennis’ Springfield Lasers that summer, covering home matches at Cooper Tennis Complex. Kessinger was back at Cooper for the 2014 season before a brief hiatus. He returned to Cooper in 2017 as the local beat writer for World TeamTennis’ website. Kessinger just completed his third season in that role, covering back-to-back WTT championships by the Lasers. 

Kessinger currently serves as the Communications Manager for the Downtown Springfield Association. He and wife Jamie have five kids, Victoria (19), Ava (13), Carolina (11) and twins Romey and Finnegan (4). With the exception of Victoria, a freshman at Columbia College Chicago, all the kids now have tennis rackets and enjoy finding an open court on the weekends to play together. 

You’ll see Kessinger’s byline here on the USTA website. You can also follow him on Twitter @JKessingerSGF and send story ideas to communications@movalley.usta.com.