CiCI & Alisa

With Our Beloved Tennis Coach – Massimo. He’s also the director of Thoreau Tennis Open

Our family moved to Concord Massachusetts in 2017, in the exact same year, we started our tennis training with our coach Massimo in a local sports club – Thoreau Club. 2017 was the beginning of our tennis journey, it was also the beginning of the first WTA tennis open – Thoreau Open in Massachusetts.

During the past 5 years, we’ve learnt a lot of tennis skills from our coach Massimo. But what we also learnt from him, is his determinations and spirit of never give up on things he loves about. He brought a world class tennis open to our small town and he always has the faith to make it bigger and bigger every year. We are also so grateful for what he did every year. Because of him and the club, we young players get to watch world class tennis players competing with each other right next to our homes, how lucky are we!

Tennis club and Thoreau Open have been a very important community to us. In 2018 we participated Thoreau Open as ball girls and got to watches a lot great matches closely. When the pandemic hit in 2020, everything shut down and Thoreau Open was canceled for that year. In 2021 Thoreau Open came back again and we were so happy. What we didn’t know back then, was that our coach Massimo and the club put a lot of extra efforts just to make it happen.

In early 2022, we were so excited and confident that Thoreau Open will definitely happen again this summer. But soon we start noticing that Massimo was not smiling and laughing that much during trainings any more. One day we asked him after the class, what was on his mind. He then explained to us that he was concerned that Thoreau Open might not happen again this year, due to complicated financial hardships. He said he was trying very hard every day and he promised that he will make this happen as much as he could.

That night, my sister and I came back home and couldn’t sleep till very late. We love tennis and the club and Thoreau Open so much. We believe that a lot of kids love Thoreau Open as much as we do. We also know that there are a lot of families in New England area that could never afford a trip to New York or Miami to watch tennis opens but they could just drive to Concord and watch Thoreau Open. We decided that we needed to do something.

The second day, we told our mom that we wanted to take out all of our savings in our bank account and contribute to 2022 Thoreau Open. Throughout the years, we made some money by doing housework, we also saved every dollar given by our family members as gifts. Our total savings were about $3000 we thought that could help to save the Tennis Open at least a little bit. Massimo told us that, because of the $3000, some magics would happen and this Thoreau Open will be opened.

It really happened. On August 6th, first game was kicked off. Massimo put our names on the sponsor wall and we were so proud of ourselves.

We hope that everyone could do the same for things they love. If you love your community, make sure you do something for it as much as you can. Could be some little help, could be some little donation, if we are all doing the same, everyone is going to feel so loved!