All Roads Lead to Texas for Maine’s Mavor

DALLAS, TX - Lana Mavor’s road to success began at the early age of four. Coming from a big tennis family – her mother played in Maine and father played for North Carolina State University – she was pushed in the same direction. Shortly after, Lana’s grandfather moved to Maine from the Ukraine, and with so much time on his hands, he took Lana and her sister to play tennis. From there, Lana began to develop her love and passion for tennis and continued to play with her grandfather, siblings and father.

It wasn’t until the age of around 11 that Lana started playing tournaments. As she got older and played more tournaments, she became driven and developed a strong will to win. Even though Lana was prone to follow in her tennis family’s footsteps, it was ultimately her and her determination that drove herself to succeed. 

Not only did Lana excel in her athletic abilities but she also overachieved in all of her academic endeavors as well. In high school, Lana attended Maine Virtual Academy in order to make time for her rigorous training schedule. Throughout her high school career, her grandfather coached her and trained at public courts during the summer and bounced around from the Woodlands, Apex, and Falmouth Foreside in the winter. 

Similar to her father, Lana also had the goal to win the Maine State Singles Championship at least one time during her high school career. Therefore, what has been a recurring theme in Lana’s life, she set a goal, put her mind to it, and achieved it. When Lana was a freshman, she decided to participate in the high school tennis season at her local high school, Yarmouth High. 

After reaching the finals her freshman year, she had to pull out due to an injury. Although this was disappointing, Lana just made it her goal for the next year. So, as a sophomore, playing for Yarmouth High School, Lana won the Maine State Singles Championships. She said that winning states was a really cool accomplishment and that it was a super fun and valuable experience playing on the team. Lana went to all practices, team matches, and did everything with the girls. Some tennis players with the potential Lana had, choose not to play during the high school season because it takes away from their sterneous, busy, and intense training and match schedule. However, because she wanted a state title and wanted to be a part of a team, she looked at it as more of a challenge and conquered it easily. During her sophomore year, in addition to the high school tennis schedule, Lana was also busy traveling and playing USTA matches, trying to increase her national ranking. 

After her sophomore year of high school, Lana decided to focus solely on getting recruited for Division I tennis. In order to do so, she had to play numerous New England and national tournaments, traveling all across the country, to win points and increase her ranking. Every year Lana would play two of the biggest tournaments – the hardcourts and the clay courts – and through a mix of all these tournaments, Lana stated that, “your name gets known.” 

In addition to players, coaches of Division I schools also fly out to these tournaments to scout players and recruit them. During Lana’s junior year of high school, whenever the date was that coaches could start talking to players, she began meeting with different coaches. When asked if getting recruited was a pressuring ordeal, Lana said that she felt no pressure because there were hundreds of universities, and although she had her own goals of the level of university she wanted to attend, she was confident in her academic and athletic abilities and ultimately believed there would be a school for her. 

As it turns out, Lana was indeed correct. Lana attended North Carolina State University for her freshman and sophomore year of college (the same place her father played tennis and went to school at) and loved every second there. 

Lana discussed how the NC State tennis team did really well (reaching the final 4) and that all the girls at NC State were like family to her and how she really clicked with them. Overall the experience at NC State was wonderful and helped her further career not only in tennis but also academically. 

Although loving her time at NC State, Lana decided to transfer to Southern Methodist University in Texas and is currently a junior with sophomore year eligibility (because of COVID-19) majoring in business. One might ask why she transferred, and the simple answer is that SMU had opportunities too good to turn down. 

Although North Carolina to Texas might be a big change, Lana completely embraced the school and the tennis team. Since being at SMU, Lana has expressed how great it has been, how amazing the girls on the team are, how it’s academically challenging (in a good way), and how glad she is that she transferred. 

Lana explained how she has to stay disciplined and have good time management because she doesn’t have a lot of extra hours in the day between practices, conditioning, individuals, and matches. 

“At SMU, they practice once a day, do weights about two times a week, and have individual training on top of that as well,” she said. However, the time management factor hasn’t been a problem for Lana since she also had to practice that skill in high school. For her, the most challenging aspect was adjusting to in-person classes because she attended online school in high school. 

As for goals this year, Lana has expressed that the team goal is to get into the NCAA Tournament , make a run, and win the conference. Lana is super excited for the opportunity to do this especially since SMU has a fairly new team, with a lot of diversity in their lineup. 

Personally, since Lana did not play a lot last year, her individual goals consist of just playing as many matches as she can, getting ranked, and helping the team make history. Not only is she helping to make history at SMU, but she is also helping to make history as an accomplished women’s tennis player from Maine. 

Lana stated that it feels good to represent Maine in such a positive light and that it’s been such a humbling, extraordinary, and powerful feeling paving the way to make a name for herself.