Congratulations to former USTA/Midwest junior players and MYTEF grant recipients Brooke Austin and Rajeev Ram who have recently experienced success on the court. Also, current MYTEF program grant recipient Milwaukee Tennis & Education Foundation in Milwaukee, Wis., recently received recognition from the USTA.
Brooke Austin
Brooke Austin from Indianapolis who was recently named the Intercollegiate Tennis Association’s Rookie of the Year. Austin is a former USTA/Midwest Section junior player and Midwest Youth Tennis & Education Foundation grant recipient. Austin is a freshman at the University of Florida where she plays No. 1 singles and doubles.
Austin had a remarkable freshman year reaching the ITA Riviera All-American Championships singles semifinals and USTA/ITA Indoor Intercollegiate Championships singles semifinals last fall. Austin reached the NCAA Championships semifinals in doubles competition last month.
Austin has also been named the Southeastern Conference Freshman of the Year and Player of the Year. Austin finished 19-3 during the dual match season, and posted a 10-2 season record. She played a key role in helping the University of Florida capture the regular season conference title. Austin finished the 2014-2015 collegiate season ranked No. 4 in singles and No. 3 in doubles.
Collette Lewis, a journalist who lives in Kalamazoo and covers junior tennis, recently interviewed Brooke and here is a link to that article, http://www.tennisrecruiting.net/article.asp?id=2220.
Rajeev Ram
Former USTA/Midwest Section junior player and MYTEF grant recipient Rajeev Ram who won his eighth ATP World Tour doubles title on June 21 at the Gerry Weber Open in Halle, Germany. He and doubles partner Raven Klaasen beat the No. 1 and 4 seeds en route to the final, where they defeated the No. 2-seeded team of Rohan Bopanna and Florin Mergea 7-6(5), 6-2, to take the title. Ram is now back to his career-high doubles ranking of No. 33 in the world.
Off the court, Ram is giving back to MYTEF through the creation of the EntouRaj for Kids High Performance Grant awarded annually to an MYTEF junior player. MYTEF is grateful to Ram for wanting to support junior tennis players in the Midwest after he received financial support years ago as a junior player.
Milwaukee Tennis & Education Foundation Congratulations to the Milwaukee Tennis & Education Foundation (MTEF) for recently receiving Four-Star recognition from the USTA as an NJTL Chapter. MTEF is only one out of 15 chapters that received this prestigious distinction out of 662 chapters nationwide. MTEF has received support and grant funding from MYTEF for several years to help with costs associated with expanding its tennis program to include additional sites.