Hall of Fame > |
Grand Inductees This is the Association's highest honor afforded any person, national or international, living or deceased. Inductees have given exemplary service to the tennis-teaching profession. Inductees must have momentous international and/or national tennis industry or teaching service, be well known by name to teaching professionals in the country in which they reside and fulfill various other requirements. Kathy Woods, inducted in 2018
Jimmy Evert, inducted in 2018
Harry Hopman, inducted in 2017
Rick Macci, inducted in 2017
Peter Burwash, inducted in 2016
Burwash is a featured international speaker for Fortune 500 companies and devotes his time as a keynote speaker, consultant and seminar specialist giving more than 100 speeches a year. The former Canadian champion and Davis Cup player coached and played in 135 countries. As a player, he won 19 international singles and doubles titles and competed on the ATP Tour from 1968-74. Burwash has been recognized for many of his accomplishments throughout his successful career as a tennis professional, entrepreneur, speaker, and author, and now as an inductee into the USPTA Hall of Fame. Tom Gullikson, inducted in 2015
Gullikson became one of the original members of the USTA Player Development Program, coaching players such as Todd Martin, Jennifer Capriati and Andy Roddick. He served as Director of Coaching for the program from 1997 to 2001. He also served as the U.S. Davis Cup Captain from 1994 to 1999. He captained the teams that won the Davis Cup in 1995 and were runners-up in 1997. In 1996, he coached the U.S. men's Olympic tennis team, and guided Andre Agassi to winning the Olympic Gold Medal in Atlanta. Gullikson later returned to the USTA where he is now the lead national coach for men’s tennis with USTA Player Development. A USPTA member for more than 28 years, Gullikson has been generous with his time to share his expertise with other tennis-teaching professionals. Dennis Van der Meer, inducted in 2015
A USPTA member for 54 years, Van der Meer is a believer in the concept of tennis for everyone. He also developed courses and manuals for teaching wheelchair tennis and adaptive techniques. Nick Bollettieri, inducted in 2013
Vic Braden, inducted in 2013
Steve Wilkinson, inducted in 2013
Doris Hart, inducted in 2012
Pancho Segura, inducted in 2012
Randy Snow, inducted in 2010
A USPTA member for 17 years, Snow was considered a pioneer and an innovator in the wheelchair industry and helped improve the designs for athletes and improve the lives of many disabled people. He devoted his time to giving back and sharing the game of tennis. Welby Van Horn, inducted in 2008
Van Horn was a star player and contemporary of other world-class players and USPTA members, including Fred Perry, Bobby Riggs, Bill Tilden and Bruce Barnes. When he was 19 years old, he reached the finals of the 1939 U.S. Nationals. One of the high points of his playing career was his crushing defeat of the great Bill Tilden during a match between U.S. and British Empire service teams at Wimbledon in 1945. Van Horn also won the United States Pro Championship (a USPTA event) in 1945. Bill Tym, inducted in 2007
Alex Gordon, inducted in 2007
Gordon was the president of the USPTA San Diego Division in 1969-1974. He was also president of the USPTA national Board of Directors in 1976, but passed away during his presidency. He is credited with holding the Association together in the 1970s, when it struggled with internal political turmoil. For that and his other contributions, the Alex Gordon Professional of the Year award was named in his honor. Clarence Mabry, inducted in 2006
Mabry's other honors include induction into the Intercollegiate Tennis Association Men's Tennis Collegiate Hall of Fame, Texas Tennis Hall of Fame, San Antonio Hall of Fame, Trinity University Hall of Fame and the University of Texas Hall of Honor. Tut Bartzen, inducted in 2003
Bartzen joined USPTA in 1961 and a year later turned professional as a player and became a tennis professional at the Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth. After the 1998-99 season and 25 years as head men's tennis coach, Bartzen retired from Texas Christian University. Starting with a group of walk-ons and one scholarship, Bartzen experienced all but one winning season. With a winning record of better than 70 percent, his team finished in the nation's top 20 all but three times between 1977 and 1998. Tim Gullikson, inducted in 2001
Gullikson and his brother Tom were doubles partners in high school and college, and then club teaching professionals before joining the pro tour in 1976. Tim Gullikson was the ATP's Newcomer of the Year in 1977 and reached 11 finals and won 16 doubles titles. Ten of those came when playing with Tom, with whom he reached the doubles final at Wimbledon in 1983. Tim Heckler, inducted in 2000
As CEO, Heckler guided the Association through a period in which it increased its membership fivefold and its annual income tenfold, established USPTA as the foremost organization of teaching professionals in the world, and revolutionized USPTA's operations through computerization. While attending Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas, on a tennis scholarship, he played the international circuit, including Wimbledon in 1959 and 1961, and the U.S. Open in 1960. Heckler assumed a full-time tennis-teaching position in 1970 at Houston's Westwood Country Club, and was elected president of USPTA's Texas Division in 1974. In 1973 he was the consultant to and tennis director for the Bobby Riggs vs. Billie Jean King "Match of the Century" held in the Houston Astrodome. Paul Xanthos, inducted in 1999
Xanthos wrote numerous articles and books on tennis, and conducted tennis seminars worldwide. He was a charter member of the USPTA Education and Research Committee, and was instrumental in founding the USTA's National Tennis Teachers Conference. His awards include the USTA Award of Merit in 1974, the USPTA California Division Coach of the Year in 1981-84, and the Intercollegiate Tennis Association's Community College Coach of the Year in 1988. In 1994, he was named USPTA Coach of the Year and was also inducted into the ITA Hall of Fame. Xanthos was a USPTA honorary member and Master Professional. George Bacso, inducted in 1994
From 1978 to 1980, he served as USPTA's national president. He also served several years as the president of the USPTA Eastern Division. He received the USTA National Education Merit Award and the national USPTA Professional of the Year Award. Bacso also received the inaugural George Bacso Lifetime Achievement Award in 1998, and he held a Master Professional rating. Arthur Ashe, inducted in 1993
Ashe, who died of AIDS complications in 1993, is also well remembered for his off-court activities, including his outspoken support of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, a writing career that earned him an Emmy award and his publicized battle with AIDS. He was also active in bringing inner-city children into the sport of tennis through programs such as USPTA's Tennis Across America. President’s Paul Waldman Award
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2018 Awards |
Kathy Woods is the director of tennis at the USTA National Campus, where she
is responsible for the set-up and implementation of all national campus
programs and hiring teaching professionals and coaching staff. She
directs a staff of 30 tennis professionals with comprehensive year-round
programs for all ages and levels of play, as well as adult and youth
camps. Previously, she served as the director of tennis at the Racquet
Club of St. Petersburg, Florida and managed tennis programs in several
communities, including Princeton, New Jersey, Key Biscayne, Florida and
Westport, Connecticut. In 1995, she was awarded the Tennis
Educational Merit Award from the International Tennis Hall of Fame for
outstanding service at the national level. She served as president of
the USPTA from 1994-1996 and held the distinguished honor of being the
first and only woman to serve the Association in that capacity. She
played singles and doubles for the University of Pennsylvania and
graduated summa cum laude in 1980. She was later inducted into the
University of Pennsylvania Tennis Hall of Fame in November 2017. She is
the co-author with her husband Ron of Playing Tennis After 50. 
Jimmy Evert, who was born in Chicago, was an All-American tennis player at
Notre Dame in the 1940s and reached as high as No. 11 in the U.S.
rankings. He was the tennis director of Holliday Park in Fort
Lauderdale, Florida for nearly 50 years and coached players such as
Jennifer Capriati, Brian Gottfried, and Harold Solomon. The tennis
complex was later renamed the Jimmy Evert Tennis Complex in 1997. During
his tenure, he taught all five of his children how to play the game of
tennis, including his daughter Chris Evert, who went on to win 18 Grand
Slam Singles titles and became inducted into the International Tennis
Hall of Fame in 1995
Harry Hopman is known throughout the tennis industry as the most
successful Davis Cup captain leading the country of Australia to 16 World
Championships from 1939-1967. Hopman inspired a leu of Australia tennis greats
including players like Mal Anderson, Ashley Cooper, Roy Emerson, Neale Fraser,
Rex Hartwig, Lew Hoad, Rod Laver, John Newcombe, Tony Roche, Mervyn Rose, Ken
Rosewall, Frank Sedgman, and Fred Stolle. Hopman was known on the ATP World
Tour for capturing the 1929 & 1930 Australian Men's doubles title alongside
with Jack Crawford and four mixed doubles titles. After consecutive years of success in the
Davis Cup, Hopman moved to the United States in 1969 and became a highly
successful tennis-teaching professional at the Port Washington Tennis Academy
in New York. He later moved to Largo, Florida with his wife Lucy and opened the
Hopman Tennis Academy and lived in the city until his death in 1985 
Rick Macci is an
iconic tennis- teaching giant. Over the past 40 years his overall innovative,
unique, and powerful on court philosophies and passion have inspired
millions of players and coaches at each level. Macci has coached players
such as Karim Alami, Jennifer Capriati, Tommy Ho, Sonia Kenin, Bethani Mattek,
Anastaysia Myskina, Mary Pierce, Tina Pisnik, Andy Roddick, Christan Rudd,
Maria Sharapova, Vince Spadea, Venus and Serena Williams, and hundreds of other
professional tour players around the globe. Since 1985, Macci
and his academy of USPTA professionals have produced 247 USTA national championships
in singles and doubles. Rick has been an instructional editor for tennis magazine
for over the past 30 years. A high
demand motivational speaker, clinician, and author, his award winning book,
Macci Magic , a self-help novel and a snapshot of players Rick has coached, is
one of the most read tennis books ever. Macci has also consulted for Trump Management
from 1998 to 2004. Macci, along with the USPTA, has produced many award-winning
videos and his Improved Forehand Technique with Rick Macci
video delivered more than a million views on YouTube. Macci is in the Hall
of Fame for Basketball and Tennis in his hometown of Greenville, Ohio. He was
honored recently by the USTA with the USA Legendary Coach
Award. He is also in the
USPTA Florida Hall of Fame and has been named Coach of the Year numerous times
in Florida and won the USPTA Alex Gordon Professional of the Year Award in
2006. Macci now coaches at The Rick Macci Tennis Academy in Boca Raton,
Florida, which has thousands of kids and adults visit throughout the year.
Peter Burwash
is the founder and president of Peter Burwash International, which for the past 41 years has been the world’s largest tennis management
company operating in 32 countries. PBI was named “One of the Ten Best-Managed Companies in America” by author James O’Toole in
his book, “Vanguard Management.” He has been a USPTA Master Professional and a USPTA-certified member for more than 40 years, spoken
at numerous conferences and events, and has encouraged the certification of many teaching professionals.
Tom
Gullikson is a legendary player and coach who has taught Grand Slam champions and helped grow the game of tennis. Gullikson and his twin
brother, Tim, played collegiate tennis together at Northern Illinois University, where they still rank as two of the top student-athletes at the
university. At the professional level, Gullikson won 16 top-level doubles titles – 10 of them with Tim. His career-high rankings were
world’s No. 34 in singles and No. 9 in doubles, both in 1984. Gullikson earned his only Grand Slam title in 1984 at the US Open, taking
home the mixed doubles championship with partner Manuela Maleeva. 
Dennis Van der Meer was a pioneer in creating a standard for tennis-teaching instruction. He began playing tennis at an early age
while living in Namibia in southern Africa with his missionary father and mother.
After a stint with the Davis Cup at the age of 19, Van der Meer found his calling to teach tennis. He made a name for himself in
Johannesburg, South Africa, before he quickly developed a large following in the U.S. Eventually he started to coach professional players,
including Margaret Court and Billie Jean King, who he coached during the famous “Battle of the Sexes” match with Bobby Riggs in
1973. Van der Meer founded the Professional Tennis Registry in 1976. He was instrumental in developing the TennisUniversity course manual,
which became the first of PTR’s instructional series of books and supplements. He became one of the first registered coaches of both the
ATP and WTA, and he has coached hundreds of nationally and internationally ranked professional and junior players throughout his career,
including world champions in singles and doubles. 
Vic Braden has impacted tennis as a player, teaching professional and broadcaster. He was the founder/director
of the Vic Braden Tennis College in Coto de Caza, Calif., co-founder of Vic Braden Tennis College at Star Island Resort in Kissimmee, Fla.,
and co-founder of Vic Braden Tennis College in St. George, Utah. He and Jack Kramer co-founded the Jack Kramer Tennis Club in Palos Verdes,
Calif. Since joining the USPTA in 1984, he authored numerous books including “Tennis for the Future,” “Teaching Children
Tennis the Vic Braden Way,” “Quick Fixes” and “Mental Tennis.” As a professional player, he was invited to play in
the World Tennis Championships three times. 
Steve Wilkinson of Saint Peter, Minn., was the head men’s coach at Gustavus Adolphus College for 39 years from 1971-
2009 and is the winningest coach in the history of men’s collegiate tennis with 923 victories. He has coached 46 players to 87 all-American
honors (including current ATP tour player Eric Butorac). He founded the Tennis and Life clinics/camps more than 25 years ago and has dedicated
his time and effort to improving tennis performance of youth and adults while teaching life lessons that can be used off the court. He has
been a USPTA member since 1972. 
Doris Hart is
one of three players, all women, to have a "boxed set" of Grand Slam titles - every possible title (singles, same-sex doubles, and
mixed doubles) from all four Grand Slam events. The others are Margaret Court and Martina Navratilova. She won 35 Grand Slam titles during
her career. Six of her titles were in women's singles, 14 in women's doubles, and 15 in mixed doubles. Hart retired from the tour in 1955 - the
same year she joined USPTA - to become a tennis-teaching professional. She was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1969.
She is the first woman inducted into USPTA's Hall of Fame. She lives in Coral Gables, Fla. 
Pancho Segura is
a former leading tennis player of the 1940s and 1950s, both as an amateur and a professional. In 1950 and 1952, he was the World Co-No. 1
player. He was born in Guayaquil, Ecuador, but moved to the United States in the late 1930s. He is the only player to have won the U.S. Pro
Tennis Championship title on three different surfaces (which he did consecutively from 1950-1952). He joined USPTA in 1946, and was widely
credited with helping develop the young Jimmy Connors. He was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1984. 
Randy
Snow became the first Paralympic athlete inducted into the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame in 2004. He was a silver medalist in the 1,500-meter
wheelchair race at the 1984 Summer Olympics. He won gold medals in both singles and doubles with Brad Parks at the 1992 Summer Paralympics in
Barcelona. He also won the U.S. Open Wheelchair singles titles 10 times and doubles six times. 
Welby Van
Horn's career as a coach has spawned institutions such as the Welby Van Horn Tennis Academy in Boca Raton, Fla., and Welby Van Horn tennis
programs in a number of locations. The teaching system he developed is still used today and it is featured in his book "The Secrets of the
Tennis Master." 
Bill Tym, a USPTA
Master Professional and past USPTA national president, has been involved in tennis as a coach, player and administrator for half a century. He
coached the Vanderbilt University men's tennis team to its first NCAA tournament. As a player, Tym was a Southeastern Conference singles
champion at the University of Florida. He also competed on the international tour and won 10 national and international titles. As executive
director of USPTA, Tym helped create a standardized certification test. Tym was named USPTA Professional of the Year in 1982, College Coach of
the Year in 1989, and Touring Coach of the Year in 1997 and 2002. He also received the George Bacso Lifetime Achievement Award from the USPTA
in 2001 and the International Tennis Hall of Fame Tennis Educational Merit Award in 1981. 
Alex Gordon
made great contributions to the game of tennis as a coach, player and USPTA member. As a coach, he was first hired on as head professional at
Hotel Del Coronado in San Diego in 1946. He taught there for 10 years and then returned again in 1960 and remained there until 1976. As a
player, he attended UCLA and was captain of the men's tennis team and the No. 1 singles player. He was also the two-time Southern California
Interscholastic doubles champion. Gordon was the USPTA national 45 doubles champion in 1969, '71 and '72 (with Ben Press). 
Clarence Mabry is both a respected player and tennis-teaching professional. As a player, he was nationally ranked and a state champion,
winning the Southwest Conference singles and doubles title while at the University of Texas at Austin in 1946. In 1955 he established the
Trinity University's men's tennis team and went on to develop a nationally recognized program. He led them to the NCAA championship in 1972,
and for 18 of his 19 years as coach, his team ranked in the top four NCAA teams, giving him an impressive win-loss record of 319-36. 
Tut
Bartzen was one of America's top amateur tennis players, ranked in the U.S. top 10 from 1953-62. He was unflappable on clay courts, achieved a
national ranking of No. 2 in 1959 and reached as high as No. 3 in 1961. He was 15-0 as a Davis Cup player and also served twice as assistant
captain. He competed with players like Rod Laver, Roy Emerson and Chuck McKinley and won. 
Tim
Gullikson, a USPTA member from 1989 until his death in 1996, was a teaching professional, playing professional and coach to other world-class
playing professionals, including Pete Sampras, who he coached to six Grand Slam singles titles. As a USPTA member, Gullikson was generous with his
time as a speaker at educational events and a promoter of the association. 
Tim Heckler
was USPTA's CEO for 30 years, from 1982-2012. Prior to that, he served on the national USPTA executive committee and board of directors before
being elected USPTA president in 1980. He was USPTA Professional of the Year in 1979 and a Master Professional.
The late Paul
Xanthos amassed a 550-94 win-loss record during a 28-year career as tennis coach of Los Angeles Pierce College. During Xanthos' tenure at
Pierce College, he led teams to 23 conference championships, and experienced winning streaks of 96, 50, 37 and 27 wins in a row. 
The late George
Bacso served as USPTA's Director of Certification and Academies. In this capacity, he traveled the world conducting Certification Exams,
Tennis Teachers' Courses and Certification Training Courses. He was also a popular speaker and clinician in the United States. Bacso was
instrumental in developing the current USPTA certification process and worked with USPTA's national tester network. 
The late Arthur Ashe
was the first inductee into the USPTA Hall of Fame. Ashe's tennis accomplishments, including Wimbledon and U.S. Open titles, earned him the
world's No. 1 ranking on two separate occasions -- 1968 and 1975. He was instrumental in the founding of the ATP Tour and the National Junior
Tennis League.