Local Junior Tennis Player Honored with USTA/Midwest Section Award

Submitted by USTA/Midwest Section

Gianni Ross from La Grange received the USTA/Midwest Section’s Wallace R. Holzman, Sr. Award this past weekend during the Boys USTA National Championships currently taking place in Kalamazoo, Mich.

This award recognizes the outstanding 16 or 18-and-under age division male player from the USTA/Midwest Section for the highest standards of tennis accomplishments, character, conduct, sportsmanship and amateurism.

Ross is currently ranked No. 5 in USTA Boys’ 16, No. 1 in the USTA/Midwest Section Boys’ 16, and No. 1 in the Chicago District Boys’ 16 division. In February of this year, he was honored as the 2014 Junior Player of the Year by the Chicago District Tennis Association.

Ross had an exciting 2014, winning several titles both domestically and internationally. He was a member of the 2014 US Junior Davis Team Cup, which won the title in Mexico last fall. In October of last year he was one of 50 young players selected for the inaugural USTA National Masters Championship, a unique, all-inclusive clay-court tournament and training camp.

Earlier in the year he won the 2014 USTA/Midwest Indoor Closed Championship Boys’ 16 singles title, and later went on to win the USTA Boys’ 16 National Championship doubles title, which provided an automatic main draw entry into the 2014 Junior US Open.

In July of this year Ross was one of eight young men selected for the 2015 Team USA National Junior Team, a training program designed to give the country’s best players the opportunity to train together during the summer and to compete against top junior players around the world.