Ace Returner So Delone Took a Leave of Absence Erika Delone Is a 32-Year-Old Senior (And Retiree)
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
JHJ-sports.final 4/8/05 11:29 AM Page 70 SPORTS her ranking drop to 250th. “It’s in- evitable, when you are focusing on academics and so many other things,” she explains. “But I had a dream I wanted to fulfill with tennis.” Ace Returner So deLone took a leave of absence Erika deLone is a 32-year-old senior (and retiree). and joined the women’s tour. Many fellow players, in fact, “thought I was crazy to come to Harvard in the first Erika deLone at home, with a doubles place,” she says, because four years of trophy from her pro college might keep her from playing tennis career. the game at its highest levels during Below, deLone her athletic prime. (Another tennis prepares to serve at the U.S. Open. prodigy, James Blake ’01, dropped out after his sophomore year to play the pro circuit; he is still active on the tour and has risen as high as 22nd in the world rankings.) A hard-hitting, aggressive baseliner whose favorite shot is her two-handed backhand, deLone’s quickness and tenacity, plus her strong serve, gave opponents lots of trouble. The uprooted life of constant traveling, without teammates, can make the tennis professional’s lot a lonely one; personal relationships are di∞cult to pursue. In deLone’s case it helped to have an older sister who was already in the pros. Amy deLone ’91 was a top Harvard player who graduated and turned profes- sional just before kid sister Erika ar- rived in Cambridge. “We’re very close,” Erika says. “We’ve been best Few students can simultaneously at- tournament. At the National Indoor friends all our lives.” tend their college graduation and their Championships, she lost in the finals to The sisters hail from Lincoln, Massa- tenth class reunion. And it’s a rare under- the University of Florida’s Lisa Raymond, chusetts; Amy went to Concord Academy graduate who has a long career as a pro- currently one of the top 50 professionals. but Erika chose Lincoln-Sudbury High fessional athlete behind her. But Erika de- “I loved my freshman year,” deLone School because the public school was Lone ’95 (’05) can claim both distinctions. says. “It was better than I would have ever more flexible about missing days to play After 11 years on the Women’s Tennis As- imagined.” She had five national tournaments. sociation (WTA) professional tennis tour, roommates and enjoyed Both girls worked with deLone returned to Cambridge in the fall her courses. Even so, “My Bill Drake, a well-known of 2002 as a sophomore, and is now a 32- tennis su≠ered a little,” tennis coach at The Coun- year-old senior who, this June, will grad- she says. After high try Club in Brookline, uate with a degree in economics. school, she took a year o≠ Massachusetts, and Erika In the fall of 1991, deLone was one of to play professional tour- spent one high-school the best women tennis players ever to naments (declining prize year at the Nick Bollet- show up at Harvard. She had a spectacu- money, to preserve her tieri Tennis Academy in lar freshman year, not only playing at amateur eligibility) and Bradenton, Florida. “Amy number one for the Harvard varsity, but rose as high as 95th on started [tennis] slightly ending the season ranked sixth in the na- the WTA computer. But before me,” Erika says. “I tion after ranking as high as number two. in her freshman year at wanted to do everything A 1992 all-American, she reached the Harvard, she played only she was doing—and get quarterfinals of the NCAA individual two pro events and saw COURTESY OF ERIKA DELONEgood enough to beat her. 70 May - June 2005 Photograph by Stu Rosner JHJ-sports.final 4/8/05 11:29 AM Page 71 She was probably the more talented of the two of us; her strokes were e≠ortless. I Pro Tennis at Harvard had to work a lot harder but I was a lot more driven, from being the youngest.” In This summer, professional sports will return to campus the pros, Amy eventually ranked around for the first time since the Boston (now the New Eng- 400 in singles and 100 in doubles; the two land) Patriots played at Harvard Stadium in 1970. Begin- deLones played on the tour together for ning on July 4, the Boston Lobsters of World Team Tennis four years and, at the U.S. Open, once (WTT) will play their seven home matches on an indoor won an all-siblings doubles match over court at Bright Hockey Center. There are 12 WTT fran- the Bulgarian Maleeva sisters. chises; the Lobsters (www.bostonlobsters.net/) represent Erika deLone had a long pro career, a reincarnation of the original team of 1974-78, one of winning nine singles titles and 10 doubles the best-known in the original WTT. Coincidentally, New championships in “Challenger”-level England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, M.B.A. ’65, owned events. In 1999 she achieved her highest the Lobsters in1977; his roster included such stars as Roy singles ranking (65th), and at a tourna- Emerson, Martina Navratilova, and current Lobsters ment in Kuala Lumpur, beat the Aus- coach Anne Smith. tralian Alicia Molik, currently ranked in Remarkably,Navratilova returns to her old team and will the top 10. In 1995, deLone played Monica again play for the Lobsters this year.The WTT draft also Seles in the second round of the U.S. brought brothers James Blake ’01 and Tom Blake ’98 to the Open, right after Seles returned to the Lobsters’ roster. The Blake brothers were standouts on tour after having been stabbed in Ger- the Harvard varsity who both became professional players; many two years earlier. DeLone’s deepest James was college tennis’s National Player of the Year in 1999 and penetration into a Grand has played U. S. Davis Cup tennis. In an- Slam draw was the dou- other Crimson tie, former associate bles quarterfinals of the men’s tennis coach Peter Mandeau is the Australian Open. “I’ve Lobsters’ general manager and chief op- definitely seen almost erating officer. Boston and Harvard have every corner of the long and storied connections with tennis, world,” she says—from so the Lobsters expect to draw enthusi- Melbourne and Paris to astic and knowledgeable fans. less magnetic venues like Uzbekistan. There, “We A new Boston Lobster and an old one: James Blake ’01 (top) joins the revived [players] had a cinder- team, while Martina Navratilova returns block hotel, with some- after a quarter-century hiatus. body spying on us on every floor, and we got sick from the food,” she recalls. “When we left, at the graduate, she lives o≠ campus and has balls with members of the Harvard airport they tried to charge us $800 in ex- limited her Harvard athletics to rowing women’s varsity, and she’s learning golf. cess baggage fees.” on the Dudley House intramural crew, Tennis has figured in her academic life: DeLone’s travels have now come full which includes some graduate students. deLone did a case study on the WTA circle to Cambridge. As an older under- Occasionally, she will hit a few tennis with Kirstein professor of human rela- tions Jay Lorsch of the Business School. The hardest adjustment, she says, is that Spectacular Swimming and Diving she misses “the competition—the thrill of winning a match or tournament.” The men’s swimming and diving team backstroke; Harvard finished twenty-sec- Yet deLone stays connected to the pro (8-0) won the Ivy championship and ond overall. The women (10-0) also game as a player representative on the their eighth EISL title in the last 10 years, out-swam and out-dove Princeton for WTA board. (“Players don’t have time to beating Princeton. John Cole ’05 won the Ivy title. At the NCAAs, Noelle go to board meetings,” she explains.) It’s a the 500-, 1000-, and 1650-yard freestyles Bassi ’07 set a new Harvard record of board that meets in some pretty nice for the fourth consecutive year; no Ivy 1:59.29 in the 200 butterfly, while Jaclyn places—Paris during the French Open, swimmer had ever won any of these Pangilinan ’08 swam the 200 breast- London during Wimbledon. This January, races four times. At the NCAAs, Cole stroke in 2:13.98, lowering the Crimson deLone went to Melbourne for a WTA took tenth in the 1650 and David mark set in 1992 by her coach, Players’ Council meeting. “Unfortu- Cromwell ’06 was eleventh in the 200 Stephanie Wriede Morawski ’92. nately,” she says, “I had to come back early, for exams.” �craig lambert Photographs by Fred and Susan Mullane/Camerawork USA Harvard Magazine 71.