USTA Early Development Workshop with Mali Vai and Orange Ball kids

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bolles dec
bolles dec

In November and December my orange ball students and I were invited to attend an Early Development workshop directed by USTA's Rita Gladstone and Dede Allen.  I was told to pick some of my outstanding students on Orange ball (60' court) to attend two 5 hour sessions located at Bolles School in Jacksonville.  I learned more about the standards of teaching 10 & Under tennis and what we (as pros) want to see skill wise and strategy wise for the 60' court level and green ball 78' court level of tennis.  Wow!  This generation is going to rock at tennis as they get older.  I really wish I had these types of training balls to enhance my shot tolerance and accuracy.  I really would have hit twice as many balls in play and had the chance to practice my footwork and technique more as a tennis student myself.  We were joined by two "famous tennis pro's", Brian Gottfried in November and Mali Vai Washington in December.  Two outstanding pro's and sportsman I must say!  Their hearts are gold for the local tennis players and tennis community of Jacksonville!  I was absolutely thrilled and honored to teach beside them and my other fellow pros of Jacksonville from Atlantic Beach, Mali Vai and Bolles schools of tennis.

Saint Johns Tennis Christmas Camp - Mon, Dec. 29- Wed, Dec. 31- 9a.m. - 12p.m.

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We will be having a Tennis Christmas Camp Monday,December 29th thru Wednesday, December 31st from 9a.m. - 12p.m. (3 days of tennis)  The cost is $95.00 which will include your food and drink at our pizza party at noon on the Wednesday AND a chance to win the Dog Fight shirt on the Wednesday, December 31st!!  What better way to ring in the New Year and wear all your new fancy tennis gear you get from Santa Clause? There will only be 16 spots open to reserve before I close out this camp.  Students need to be either in the extended hour Teen class, Academy or High Performing classes to participate in this event.  Please call me at 904-994-3376, text me or email me (heather.lester@mac.com) to reserve your spot in this camp.  So far 6 spots are already reserved and 10 are left open at this time, so hurry and reserve your spot! Coach Heather Lester, Patrick Diegan, Bill Angus, Cheryl Keller, Cecil Mella & Alex Pham

Layering your clothes for cold weather!

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Tonight its going to be cold at practice.  No sun and under 45 degrees so how do you layer?  Here is a picture of all the clothes I would wear to prepare to hit in 45 degree weather.  Layer in light thickness 2-4 layers.  You can peel and put back on according to how hot or cold you get during practice.  You will also need a hat (to keep your head warm), thin gloves or an old sock with a thumb hole cut out and probably a scarf to keep your neck warm.

Mills Field U10 & U12 wins first place at Julington Creek Plantations NFPTA tournament!

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Congratulations to our U10 green ball team and our U12 "Sonic Servers" tennis team. Both of these groups from Mills Field won 1st place competing against other local teams from Florida Yaught Club, Williams YMCA, San Jose Golf & Country Club and Julington Creek Plantation teams. Way to go team! We had a lot of fun on such a beautiful day.photo 1 photo 4

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Tennis Team Challenges

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There will be two Tennis Team Challenges in which we will put together teams of like ages and skill levels to participate. This a great time to put your best team mates together and challenge other kids in the local area to a match for singles and doubles. You can put together teams with 4 minimum and 8 maximum players, 2 girls/2boys minimum per team. Next two matches will be:Julington Creek Plantation - Saturday, October 25th Eagle Harbor - Saturday, November 15th

Put your teams together and register to Randy Jenks first.coast.tennis@gmail.com

Matches is a 6 game set, regular scoring, tie-breaker 5-5

Good luck to all our High School Academy players for HS tryouts this week!!

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We wish all the best of luck to our following students at Saint Johns Tennis Academy: Alec (senior), Kelly, Camille, Kate, Harrison (senior), Nila, Sandy, Rachel (senior), Erik, Savanna, Lindsey and Olivia (senior) for Creekside High School tennis team.  Go Knights!!

Martin, Mark, Ryan, Sydnee, Chad for Bartram Trail High School tennis team.  Go Bears!!

Sean (senior) for Mandarin High School tennis team.  Go Mustangs!!

Atharva, Mani, Mannat, Julia & Maelee for Nease High School tennis team.

 

Back to the tennis courts!

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Tennis lessons will resume this Monday, January 6th as normal.  Please return to your normal class schedule as before the break and bring your tuition for the new month of January.  Happy New Year! I expect all our high school players back to class for next week before tryouts so that we may finish preparing you for the tryout process.  Please email me with any questions you may have.  I'm sending out reminder emails today.

Marc Moreira awarded the "Kelly Award" from Youth Tennis Foundation

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For the second year in a row our tennis student Marc Moreira was awarded a $500.00 scholarship "Kelly Award" from the Youth Tennis Foundation.  We are so proud of Marc and his family!  Marc has improved so much in the past two years and has been dedicating more time to private and group lessons in order to improve his game.  He is now competing in at least one to two tournaments a month. Marc's game has grown leaps and bounds due to his dedication to practice and support of his family.  Marc continues to grow in maturity in how he deals with the pressure of competition in a tennis tournament environment.  He is a rock with his mental attitude to keep pushing himself to the next point even when he might be down in a game.  He displays good sportsmanship win or lose and encourages those around him with great team spirit.  Congratulations to you Marc!  Keep up all the great work and dedication to improving your game in the sport of tennis.  You are growing up to be a fine tennis player and we look forward to your success in tennis.

St. Johns Tennis Academy players celebrate Wimbledon 2013!

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Every year at our summer tennis camp we celebrate the 3rd grand slam tournament of the year.  We celebrated Wimbledon 2013 by dressing all in white and having the iconic Wimbledon strawberries (less the creme).  Our second week of summer tennis camp is now complete, we have 5 remaining weeks of hard work improving our tennis game.

Liberty Pines Middle School tennis team in the playoffs!

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We recently finished our middle school team tennis season at Mills Field.  Liberty Pines and Swiss Point are the home teams based out of the St. Johns Tennis Academy at Mills Field.

Today the Liberty Pines tennis team will play in the middle school playoffs against the Murray Middle School team for 2nd place at the Palencia tennis courts.  We wish them good luck to win today in their matches.  Go Wolves!

 

Were going to Plantation, Florida for Winter USTA Jr. Sectionals

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The Academy will be sending a U14 intermediate team to Plantation, Florida this next weekend to compete in the USTA JTT Winter sectionals tournament. Next Friday we will hit the road for a 5 hour trip to South Florida (near Ft. Lauderdale) over the MLK weekend. We hope to have a successful weekend of great tennis and fun hanging out as a team! I will personally coach this team of 7 named the "Topspin Terminators". Wish us luck! We hope to finish in the finals and we promise to take pictures and post them next week. Good luck Topspin Terminators!

Coach Heather Lester St. Johns Tennis Academy

Happy New Year! January 2013

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All tennis clinics resume back to normal Monday, January 7th! We look forward to teaching and playing tennis with all our students after a long break from the holidays. WE WILL BE CLOSED MONDAY, JANUARY 21ST FOR MARTIN LUTHER KING DAY!

High School tennis tryouts are upon us. If you are a high school student in the Academy we understand that tryouts will begin soon. We want our students to attend clinic for as long as you can before they find out if they are on their respective teams. Parents may send in two weeks of tuition this month, which is 1/2 your normal tuition. If they are able to stay longer we will pro-rate your tuition to that amount.

Please stay tuned for "The Academy" new tennis schedule coming out the end of this month.

Thank you, Heather Lester

Sean Diegan ranked #83 in Florida and climbing!

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I love to highlight my tennis players at the St. Johns Tennis Academy. Whether its a story about a recent happening, or a players accomplishment in match play, or development in becoming a better tennis player. Most likely, with these small stories to becoming a tennis champion entails a lengthy history of a lot of hard work and private lessons to developing a great tennis player. I would like to introduce to you one of our current tournament players, Sean Diegan. Sean has been practicing and playing with us for about two years now at St. Johns Tennis Academy. Since 2007 Sean has played 104 USTA sanctioned events including local, Super Series, State closed, and designated tournaments. He has made 36 singles and doubles finals winning 18 of those events. Folks, this is not an easy task! When you commit to playing tennis tournaments you must take on many weekends of disciplined focus and drive to take on challenging other tennis players, sometimes opponents that have beat you in the past and sometimes players you've never met before. The suspense and anxiety of figuring out what strategy you will choose to defeat each player in your draw one by one to reach the finals in one weekend. With this comes a rearranging of you and your families schedules, time, expenses and responsibilities of keeping up your school life and grades and less social time with your friends.

Sean started playing tennis when he was a young lad (I can say that because his dad is British), he soon started playing competitively in USA Junior Team tennis at age 6 and also played in junior grand prix events. He is now a junior in high school and has played No. 2 for Mandarin High his first 2 years and this past year made the district finals in both singles and doubles. Sean has made the top 100 rank in every age division 10's through 16's, and is currently reached the #83 ranking in Florida for the 16's!

In the mean time, Sean is working hard to improve his all court game, his ranking and aspiring to bigger events. He is devoted to his family and faith and I am happy to call his family my friends.

With this hard work there is hope for a future in tennis, attaining a sense of accomplishment in being the very best you can be with what passion God has given you. We hope for his future in collegiate tennis and beyond as a young man and a future world class tennis player.

Marc Moreira awarded Youth Tennis Foundation scholarship at Mills Field

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Marc Moreira is one of current academy students. Marc joined us at Mills Field almost one year ago and practices with us 4 hours a week in clinic. He works extra hard in private lessons and is a current player in our junior team tennis team. Marc was awarded $500.00 from the Youth Tennis Foundation/ USTA Junior Team Tennis Award. This scholarship money will go towards helping to pay for his lessons and clinics at the St. Johns Tennis Academy. He is one of the first students at Saint Johns Tennis Academy to acquire this scholarship.

Marc started out as a U14 beginner player last season. His team acquired first place in the local U14 beginner league so next season he will compete in the next level for U14 intermediate. Marc will be successful in tennis not only because of his dedication to clinics and private lessons but because he possess a network of family who encourages him and cheers for him when he plays in tournaments and practices in lessons. Family support is so important to any child who dedicates his/her time to one sport and wants to become a great athlete.