TENNIS TORNADO: Rising Star Alicia Black, 15, Enlivens Dow Corning Tourney
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Tornado Alicia Black, left, and Urzula Radwanzka, of Poland, talk to the news media at Midland.
Tornado hits a winner at the U.S. Junior Open last fall.
Remember the name: Tornado Alicia Black.
Only 15 (she'll turn 16 in May), Alica (name she prefers) is a shy, powerfully built youngster who may just surprise some older, experienced players at the $100,000 Dow Corning Tennis Classic this week at Midland.
Tornado will play 8th seeded Vesna Dolonc of Serbia in the first round that begins at 10 a.m. Tuesday at the Midland Community Tennis Center. Daytime matches are free.
Dolonc, 24, is ranked 117 in the world Women's Tennis Association. Black is ranked 954. The teenager no doubt will get the experience she craves; an upset would be improbable but monumental.
Like Li Na, who played here a couple of years ago and just won the Australian Open, young Ms. Black is definitely a comer. How many girls, or boys for that matter, are turning pro at 15 like she did?
Not only doesn't she have a drivers' license, she told Tournament Director Mike Woody at Monday's news conference she doesn't even have a permit to learn yet.
Her mother, Gayal, has another tennis whiz, younger sister Hurricane Tyra. She resists the inevitable comparisons to the Williams sisters, Venus and Serena, who have dominated women's tennis for the past decade.
Where did Tornado get her name: on the court, near her home at Boca Raton, Florida, of course. At age 2! She was already blasting the ball, like a tornado, onlookers said, thus the apt moniker.
Tornado isn't her given first name, but Hurricane is the given name of her younger sister, who is a highly ranked 12-year-old. Her father, Sylvester, played Davis Cup tennis for Jamaica and ran track. Her mother, Gayal, was a college swimmer.
According to Tornado, her parents decided early on that if their daughters were to become stars, they would have names to storm the tennis world. She used to be embarrassed by the name, but in the context of the Open, it fits. "I don't mind it," she says.
"It would have been impossible to foresee how good she's become so fast," commented Palm Beach Florida television broadcaster Matt Lincoln. "At 15 years old, Tornado is taking the tennis world by storm."
Tornado won the North American Championships in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The Boca Raton native won her first $10,000 professional tournament in Amelia Island.
Tornado made it all the way to the finals of the US Open Juniors in New York. She played in front of 7,000 people, most of them rooting for her. She had a 5-3 third set lead, but wound up losing the match.
Now she's ranked 4th in the world for juniors.
"And after her experience at the U.S. Open and she knows the sky's the limit."
http://www.cbs12.com/sports/stories/vid_632.shtml ###
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