Ashley Harkleroad
Ashley Harkleroad, former resident of Flintstone, Georgia and student at Chattanooga Christian School, returned to her home for Christmas for a few days with her parents, grandparents and relatives. While home, she practiced with Ned Caswell at the Manker Patten Tennis Club.
Harkleroad ended her junior career ranked #1 in the United States, and #3 in the world.
This past May the 18-year old joined the Women’s Tennis Association Tour (WTA) as a full-time player. What a year it was been for the former Flintstone native as she finished 2003 with a ranking of #52 in the world in singles, and #82 in doubles.
Her tour highlights include:
• Two Challenger tournament championships;
• Advancing to the semi-finals (both singles and doubles) at the Family Circle Cup tournament in Charleston, South Carolina where she defeated tennis legend Martina Navratilova in a doubles match;
• Advancing to the semi-finals in Strasbourg, France;
• Advancing to the third-round of the French Open in Paris;
• Making it to the doubles final at the AIG Japan Open championship in Tokyo;
• During this past summer, she climbed to a ranking of #39 in the world ending the year ranked 52nd.
In the summer of 1999, her family moved to Tampa so that she could train at the famous Hopman’s Tennis Academy.
Currently she resides in Miami, Florida having moved there recently from Tampa. She is under contract with Nike and Babolat and is represented by the William Morris Agency in Los Angeles. Harkleroad is coached by the United States Tennis Association’s Jay Burger and trains in Key Biscayne, Florida.
Harkleroad is preparing for a full year of tournament play.
She leaves for Auckland, New Zealand on Dec. 30 to play in the ASB Classic starting Jan. 5 before moving on to Australia for the Tasmanian International tournament starting Jan. 12 followed by the Australian Open in Melbourne beginning Jan. 19. Her father, Danny, will accompany Ashley in January and her mother, Tammy, will travel some of the time with her in the summer.
More information about Ashley Harkleroad can be found at www.harkleroad.net or contacting Jill Moller at the William Morris Agency in Los Angeles.
Photo taken at the 2003 French Open