Tennis: Getting To Know Lisa Stone – ParentingAces – The Sol Is Coming To Baltimore

Written by: Staff on 5th August 2017

Tennis: Getting To Know Lisa Stone - ParentingAces - The Sol Is Coming To Baltimore |

Tennis is in Lisa Stone’s DNA. Her father was a member of the 1959 national championship team at Tulane University. Lisa Stone played junior and high school tennis and her youngest brother played college tennis. Growing up in Shreveport, Louisiana, Lisa Stone never imagined the role tennis would play later in her life.

10sballs.com doesn’t typically give much bandwidth to the junior and college game, but Lisa Stone, her ParentingAces website, and her podcasts available on iTunes caught – and have held – our attention.

After graduating from UCLA, Lisa Stone worked in the world of finance while putting her husband through law school. Once she accomplished that goal, Lisa Stone discovered her passion for health and fitness while raising her young children. When she and her family moved from Los Angeles to Atlanta, Lisa Stone encountered a gap in exercise classes for new moms (and pregnant women) so she embarked on a path to learn all she could, reading, taking courses, and eventually earning a certification in group fitness training with a specialty certification in pre- and post-natal fitness. She then tapped into her entrepreneurial side to create Fit For 2, a group fitness program for pregnant women and new moms.

As Lisa Stone promoted the benefits of fitness for this market segment, she caught the attention of local obstetricians who began referring their patients to Fit For 2; she created the first pregnancy fitness website and an acclaimed workout video; she became a sought after resource for pregnant women and media outlets around the world; she accompanied Oprah Winfrey’s fitness trainer as the co-host of a national fitness tour across the US; and she was tapped by a leading research university to consult on a study of fitness during pregnancy.

In the midst of her success with Fit For 2, Lisa Stone and her husband welcomed their third child, and first son, who, it would turn out, was the impetus for Lisa Stone’s return to tennis. When her son started preschool, Lisa Stone joined several singles, doubles, and mixed-doubles teams. By the time her son turned 5, it was clear that Lisa Stone’s tennis DNA had been passed onto him.

As her son began playing junior tournaments and having some success, Lisa Stone went in search of information on how to navigate the tournament and ranking structure. Once again, she encountered a gap. She turned to coaches, other tennis parents, and, the USTA but couldn’t get the answers she needed. So she persisted, finally finding the guidance she had been seeking in a Facebook group of former junior tennis champions. At the same time, she created an online blog as a way to document her son’s tennis journey and share her new-found knowledge and real-time experiences – and ParentingAces was born. Soon, other tennis parents began reaching out for advice; then, junior coaches started referring their players’ parents; and college coaches reported that their recruits rely on the advice shared on ParentingAces.com. Never one to sit on the sidelines, the outspoken Lisa Stone and ParentingAces website are a force to be reckoned with.

Now that her son’s tennis journey is complete, Lisa Stone’s entrepreneurial spirit has kicked into high gear. These days, she can be found at college tennis matches as well as pro tournaments, often sporting media credentials as she interviews top players, coaches, and tennis parents for articles and podcasts. She works as a commentator at top junior tournaments and is a sought-after speaker at coaching conferences and junior academies looking to educate their young players’ parents. She hosts Grand Slam champions, top-level college coaches, and rising NextGen players on the weekly ParentingAces podcast and continues to seek out and publish information to help tennis parents. When she’s not writing or interviewing, Lisa Stone is advocating for all levels of the game with the USTA, the ITA, and others to build the tennis fan base and increase its outreach.

TheSol

Lisa Stone has tremendous support from the tennis community. One important supporter was Sol Schwartz, a former junior and college player who devoted his adult life to his family, his work at Holabird Sports, and being an advocate for the growth of tennis at all levels. Before his untimely death in 2016, Schwartz was especially concerned by the colleges cutting their tennis programs, mostly due to budget concerns, and coined the hashtag #SaveCollegeTennis to rally his contacts via social media to support college tennis by attending matches. With the same passion she’s poured into her other endeavors, Lisa Stone decided to honor her friend by rallying Schwartz’s colleagues in the tennis community to create #theSol, a junior tennis tournament embodying the aspects of the sport Schwartz worked so tirelessly to preserve and incorporating the lessons learned on Lisa Stone’s ParentingAces journey. The first tournament, in Schwartz’s hometown of Baltimore, was such an overwhelming success – “My favorite tournament I’ve ever played,” according to the tournament’s inaugural champion – Lisa Stone has doubled-down in 2017, putting on TWO #theSol tournaments: Baltimore and Atlanta. When 10sballs.com learned about these events, we immediately signed-on to sponsor, providing seed money for the tournaments’ goal of giving grants to college teams at risk of being cut.

What’s next for Lisa Stone? Look for her to create and shape more junior tournaments as she continues to share insights, chronicle the junior and collegiate tennis journey, and follow the NextGen pros. 10sBalls.com will be there cheering her on every step of the way.

To register for the 2017 Sol Schwartz #SaveCollegeTennis All In tournaments, click here.

To find Lisa Stone online, follow ParentingAces on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, YouTube, and Instagram. To listen to Lisa Stone’s weekly podcast, subscribe to her RSS feed.

Topics: College Tennis, fit for 2, Lisa Stone, NextGen, oprah winfrey, Parenting Aces, ParentingAces, save the college tennis, Tennis, The Sol, TheSol, Tulane University, Ucla, Usta