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Back home on the Main Line, tennis pro Lisa Raymond enjoys her Freedoms.
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In the parking lot in front of Bloomingdale’s at King of Prussia Mall, tennis is back in fashion. A temporary stadium has risen from the asphalt, where a multicolored court will showcase the Philadelphia Freedoms for seven matches during the three-week Advanta World TeamTennis season this month. Marquee names Venus Williams and Andre Agassi join the squad for one home date each, while Lisa Raymond, who grew up within earshot of the crowd’s roar and still lives in the area, reclaims her spot on the regular roster.
“It’s nice to play before family and friends, and sleep in my own bed,” says Raymond, who’s back in Wayne after Wimbledon and previous European stops, including the French Open.
Indeed, though Raymond travels the world with the Sony Ericsson Women’s Tennis Association Tour, even a pro gets homesick. “Philadelphia and the Main Line will forever be home,” says Raymond, who admits an affinity for snowstorms and cheesesteaks. “The Devon Horse Show, Eagles’ games, the Phillies—I’ve always loved it here.”
Action and athleticism define Raymond’s personality on the tennis court, where she’s won a combined nine Grand Slam titles (Wimbledon, and the Australian, French, and U.S. opens) in doubles and mixed doubles. In 2000, she first reached the No. 1 ranking in the world in women’s doubles, a level she subsequently regained and held for more than two years starting in early 2006. Now, a month shy of her 36th birthday, Raymond is eyeing that peak again.
“She’s working hard so she can be more explosive in her movement to the ball,” says Raymond’s coach, Raj Chaudhuri, a former assistant coach at her alma mater, the University of Florida. “At this stage of her career, she must stay as fit as possible.”
That career hasn’t been without its low points. Raymond’s exclusion from the 2000 U.S. Olympic Team, for one, was a bitter disappointment. But the hard work has remained constant.
It all began soon after a teacher at Rosemont School of the Holy Child hit a few tennis balls with a young student and promptly referred her to Charles Oliver, longtime coach at Philadelphia Cricket Club in Chestnut Hill. Oliver, who’d led West Point’s tennis team in the 1940s and bested future Wimbledon champ (and Philadelphian) Vic Seixas, saw something special in 8-year-old Lisa. Soon the ex-Army man and the little suburban girl were regulars at Valley Forge Sports Garden, which boasted an ice hockey rink and five indoor tennis courts, on the current site of the SYMS clothing outlet in Berwyn. Patricia Weger, then tennis manager at the facility, made sure the pair had enough court time.
“[Owner] Al Pollard said to me, ‘I have a friend who has a young daughter who wants to bring her pro,’” Weger recalls. “When the boss tells you something, you don’t say no.”
Pollard, a former Philadelphia Eagles running back, had played football with Lisa Raymond’s father, Ted, at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. Her mother, Nancy, played several sports at Upper Merion High School. So the genes were aligned for the future tennis standout. But it took coach Oliver’s know-how to shape her game. “Charlie astutely realized that [Raymond] wouldn’t be the size of the Russian girls, and decided to instill in her a one-handed backhand (when most women were adopting the two-handed shot),” says Weger. “That increased her reach and gave her a crosscourt shot with topspin.”
Oliver instilled more than just tennis technique in the young prodigy. “He stressed that I didn’t need to go away [to tennis camp], where my whole life would’ve revolved around tennis,” says Raymond. “He was like a second father.”
When Valley Forge Sports Garden closed in 1985, the Raymond-Oliver tandem moved to Gulf Mills Racquet Club, then owned and operated by Rose Weinstein, who remembers their 6:30 a.m. starts. “Her parents would bring breakfast, then she’d shower and go off to school,” says Weinstein, a tennis advocate and coach, and a former professional bowler.
By this time, the Raymonds had moved to a new Glenhardie home whose back yard bordered Valley Forge National Historical Park. “It was not strange to see five or six deer right outside the fence,” says Nancy Raymond, adding that nature’s backdrop was less important than the property’s size. “We moved because we wanted to build a tennis court for Lisa.”
“I spent a lot of hours out there,” recalls Lisa, who became the region’s top 10-and-under girls’ player in United States Tennis Association tournament competition. “But I really didn’t play a lot of tennis compared to what they play today.”
Weinstein, however, remembers Raymond “constantly on a tennis court, traveling and playing in tournaments.”
