Name Beth Herr Role Tennis player | ||
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Education University of California, Los Angeles, University of Southern California | ||
Beth Herr (born May 28, 1964) is an American tennis player from Centerville, Ohio, where she was a two-time high school Singles State Champion (80-81), and was the 1983 NCAA singles champion.
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College
Beth Herr became the number 1 junior tennis player in the world at age 16. Upon graduation from Centerville High School, she was the #1 college recruit in 1982 and went on to play for the University of Southern California, where she won the NCAA singles title and team title in her freshman year. She beat Clemson's Gigi Fernández 7–6 in the third set after being down a match point to win the NCAA singles final.
Junior grand slams
In 1982, Beth Herr won the 1982 French Open girls' doubles championship with Janet Lagasse., Beth Herr also Wimbledon girls' doubles and US Open girls' doubles with Penny Barg. She also won the US Open girls' singles in the same year.
Professional career
Beth Herr cut short college and went directly into professional tennis after the NCAA Championship and played on tour for 11 years with wins over Hana Mandlíková and Mary Joe Fernandez. She lost a match to Billie Jean King at Wimbledon 8–6 in the third round. Commentators on HBO Breakfast at Wimbledon mentioned her ability to hit numerous swinging volleys out of the air for winners as it was something that had not been done before especially by a female.
Personal life
After tennis she finished her undergraduate degree at UCLA and then went to law school at UCLA. She married Tennis Channel founder Steve Bellamy and after a short stint as a lawyer at Manatt, Phelps and Phillips, she stopped working to look after their 4 children.
She later went on to win the US Open and World Championships of paddle tennis and teamed with Scotty Freedman to become the greatest Mixed Doubles team in the sports 112-year history they were undefeated as a team from 2000 – 2007.