Renee Blount (born May 12, 1957) is a retired American tennis player.

Career

Blount was a No. 1 singles and doubles All-American player for

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school then known as the southern branch of the C ...

. She joined the

WTA Tour The WTA Tour (also known as the Hologic WTA Tour for sponsorship reasons) is a worldwide top-tier tennis tour for women and organized by the Women's Tennis Association. The second-tier tour is the WTA 125 series, and third-tier is the ITF Wome ...

in 1978 and went on to reach a career-high ranking of 63 in singles and world No. 8 in doubles. Blount was the fifth seed in the 1978 Australian Open and competed in the 1979 US Open and the 1980 US Open. In 1979, she made history when she became the first African American woman to win a professional tennis tournament since Althea Gibson when she won the Futures of Columbus. In 1984, Blount achieved her best Grand Slam women's doubles result, reaching the quarterfinals at

Wimbledon Wimbledon most often refers to: * Wimbledon, London, a district of southwest London * Wimbledon Championships, the oldest tennis tournament in the world and one of the four Grand Slam championships Wimbledon may also refer to: Places London * W ...

partnering Janet Newberry, losing to Kathy Jordan and Anne Smith 0–6, 1–6. Blount was also a mixed-doubles semifinalist at the French Open and extended

Martina Navratilova Martina Navratilova (, ; ; born October18, 1956) is a Czech-American former professional tennis player. She was ranked as the world No. 1 in women's List of WTA number 1 ranked singles tennis players, singles for 332 weeks (List of WTA number ...

to three sets at the 1980 Australian Open. She competed in Wimbledon five times, including a 1986 doubles quarterfinal appearance.

Life after tennis

After retiring from professional tennis, she became an assistant coach at the

University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a Public university#United States, public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States. It was founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson and contains his The Lawn, Academical Village, a World H ...

and was inducted into the St. Louis Tennis Hall of Fame in 1997. Blount founded the Keswick Tennis Foundation to help children with

autism Autism, also known as autism spectrum disorder (ASD), is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by differences or difficulties in social communication and interaction, a preference for predictability and routine, sensory processing d ...

and disabilities develop skills through tennis. She currently coaches at the Keswick Tennis Foundation in Central Virginia.

References

External links

Keswick Tennis Foundation
* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Blount, Renee 1957 births Living people African-American tennis coaches African-American tennis players American female tennis players Tennis players from Washington, D.C. UCLA Bruins women's tennis players 21st-century African-American sportswomen 21st-century American sportswomen 20th-century African-American sportswomen 20th-century American sportswomen Tennis coaches from Washington, D.C.