After 34 years, the Asian Tennis League still spreads the 'love'
DENVER — As the sun shines on the tennis courts and balls ricochet between forehands, backhands and volleys, you can hear the friendly chatter of the athletes.
Susan Nakano bounces the ball on the ground as she prepares to serve. One foot in front of the other, she tosses the ball up high in the sky and swings her racket, driving the fuzzy, fluorescent yellow ball across the court.
Nakano, along with three others — Andy Cleary, Julie Cleary and Terry Wong — started the Asian Tennis League in 1989. All friends from their time at CU Boulder, the group made a communal league with a love for tennis serving as the backbone.
“I started asking my friends and we started the league. It was a lot of fun and I wanted to make it like the Akebono tournament, but that didn't have women, and I thought it would be more fun if family and women were included,” Andy Cleary explained.
Because of its welcoming admission process, the league became an immediate success. A waiting list formed just for people to enter the league’s tournament.
“Our goal was really, you know, to extend the diversity of Asian-Americans in town and to have it be something that could be done other than some of our more traditional events,” Wong said.
The only qualifications that one must have in order to join the league is to either be Asian, know someone who is Asian or enjoy Asian food. The league’s diversity and community focus has made for a dedicated membership. Several athletes have been playing with the league for over 20 years.
Julie Cleary, Andy Cleary, and Terry Wong are three of the four founding members of the Asian Tennis League.
The success of the league has led to the expansion of its programs as well. Providing lessons for kids has become a huge focal point of the program. Frank Adams, a prolific figure in the tennis community, serves as an instructor along with the others at the Asian Tennis League.
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“We’re really fortunate to have Frank. Frank is internationally known and he's in the Black American Tennis Hall of Fame, and we put him in our Hall of Fame too. And he's been with us for two decades teaching the kids,” Andy Cleary explained.
However, the goal of the program isn’t for kids to become professionals playing at Wimbledon — it’s more about collaboration, and forming lasting relationships.
“We hope that everyone has fun at our tournaments, but we hope that they can socialize and learn what it means to be a community,” Wong emphasized. “We have people from all walks of life in this community, and it's really formed a bond between everyone.”
Even with all the time that the founders of the Asian Tennis League have given to the league over the years, they still relay the importance of it to their own personal lives.
“I play all the time. I have matches every week. I go see my physical trainer,” explained Nakano, who teaches kids at a local middle school as well.
Though the league is nearly 35 years old, the passion for tennis is as strong as ever.
“I’ve just turned 70, but my hope is that I can keep on playing in my eighties and nineties,” Wong said. “One of the models for us is, tennis is a game of life. You keep on going in life just like you would in tennis.”
Peter Vo is a multimedia journalist at Rocky Mountain PBS. You can reach him at petervo@rmpbs.org.