Having a Ball at the Fields Club

Bill Anderson has been busy since becoming tennis director at the Fields Club in Peachtree Corners. He just began his program there in January of 2010. Serving all of the Fields neighborhoods, Amberfield, Riverfield and Linfield, the club is busy providing tennis activities for people of all ages. 

Anderson has been teaching tennis in the Atlanta area for 12 years.  During college he earned a Public Relations degree from UNC, Wilmington. But even as he was working on that Anderson knew that he wanted to be a tennis instructor. Inspired by his grandfather who played basketball and tennis at UNC, Chapel Hill, Anderson aspired to someday teach tennis which he first did at his local YMCA at the age of 15. 

One of the things that he likes best about being the tennis director is his freedom to grow the program and bring in his choice of pros. The Fields now has three full time pros. Frank Solana (the preferred hitting partner for Caroline Wozniacki at the recent Family Circle Cup) is in charge of the Fields Junior program. Jen Sinclair, a former college player and winner of the Australian Open Pro Am event played here in Atlanta, is in charge of the adult program and the beginning juniors.

And, of course, there’s Anderson who was nominated for director of the year by the Georgia Professional Tennis Association for 2010. Also to his credit, Anderson was on the GPTA board of directors in 2003 and 2009 and was GPTA Head Pro of the Year winner in 2009.

There are over 80 teams, juniors through adults, that play year round at the Fields. Along with that comes coaching, stroke clinics and private instruction for all of the age groups. Anderson is excited to be expanding the Junior program and also hopes to someday begin a Women’s Academy.

The Juniors program consists of the Quick Start group for beginners as well a new academy format. The academy format is a Tournament Training Program which is a multi-tiered system based on skill level instead of age. Currently there are 40-65 kids taking part.

Socially there are lots of events going on at the Fields tennis club. They have gone from 6-7 functions last year to 17-18 this year. Those activities include such things as one tennis mixer per month, a Member/Guest Tournament, a Volleyfest tournament and a Fields Club Open at which they raised $8,000 last year. This was an increase of $6,000 over the previous year. 

One way that the Fields serves the community is by coaching the Norcross High School Varsity tennis team. The Norcross HS girls played in the State Semi-finals on Friday, May 5th. Anderson is glad to be working with NHS and hopes to continue that and do even more with them in the future.

There are two students that hail from the Fields Club who are going to college on tennis scholarships. Cameron Williams is going to Georgia Southern U. and Andrew Goodwin to the University of Mississippi. These are both division one schools.

There’s much to participate and enjoy at the Fields Club. For more information you can go to www.fieldsclub.com.