FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. _ Over the past three decades Florida has become the world's largest training ground for professional tennis players.
Nowhere will that be more evident than in the upcoming Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. Five of the six women on Team USA's tennis squad fashioned their million-dollar strokes on courts across South Florida.
Top-ranked Serena Williams, 34, and her sixth-ranked sister Venus, 36, were gawky, spindly-legged 9 and 10 year olds, respectively, when their father Richard uprooted the family from the hardscrabble courts of Compton, Calif. They moved to Grenelefe in Central Florida in 1990 and then Delray Beach so that rising teaching pro Rick Macci could help mold them into Grand Slam singles champions.
This month, the Palm Beach Gardens residents go for an unprecedented fourth Olympic gold medal in doubles, while Serena will defend her gold in singles.
Fellow Olympic singles competitors Madison Keys, 21, and Sloane Stephens, 23, also trace their tennis origins to South Florida.
Keys' parents knew that if their fast-growing daughter was to achieve her lifelong dream of hoisting the Wimbleon trophy like her hero Venus Williams, the entire family would have to relocate from Rock Island, Ill., to Boca Raton to work with Chris Evert.
Last month, Keys won the Aegon Classic, her second title, and became the fifth American to crack the Top 10 in the past 25 years _ the first since Serena Williams in 1999.
"My family would take vacations in Florida all the time during the summer and spring breaks, so that's where I started playing tennis as a kid," said Keys, who moved to Boca Raton when she was 12. "It was just natural for me to move to Florida when I started getting more serious about my tennis career.
"Chris Evert and her brother John were a big part of my development as a player. Their amazing academy gave me the foundation I needed and a perfect environment to develop my skills both on and off the court."
Stephens was born in Plantation and moved to Fresno, California, only to return at 11 to work with Evert for a year before beginning an on-and-off again working relationship with Nick Saviano at his academy now located at the Veltri Tennis Center in Plantation.
The 23rd-ranked Stephens, who has a home in Coral Springs, has won three of her four WTA titles this year.
Also competing for a gold in doubles will be Bethanie Mattek-Sands, 31, a Minnesota native who grew up in Neenah, Wisc., before moving to Boca Raton when she was 12 to work with Evert. She eventually switched to Macci.
