He arrived at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center by way of Zambia and Mt. Vernon, outfitted in his white tennis coaching shirt and hat, of course. It was a little after 10:00 on Monday morning. Inside the Hospitality Pavilion by the East Gate, Kela Simunyola, survivor of tragedy, poverty and too many hardships to name, and the most improbable tennis pro you will find in Flushing Meadows or anywhere else, was holding hands with his favorite player. She is eight years old and weighs 50 pounds and is the No. 1-ranked player in the under-10 group of the USTA’s Eastern section, just ahead of another promising player, Victoria McEnroe, daughter of Patrick.
The girl’s name is Ligaya Murray, and she is Kela Simunyola’s granddaughter, the progeny of a tennis family as far-flung as it is accomplished. She plays left-handed and serves right-handed, and always tries to heed her grandfather’s advice.
“Move your feet and play your best – that’s what he tells me,” Ligaya Murray said. Ligaya was feted along with the other top junior players of the USTA’s Eastern section on the first day of the Open. Katrina Adams, USTA President, opened the ceremony. The kids stood up and were recognized and Ligaya Murray, in her tennis skirt, looked as if she was ready to go out and hit some volleys and overheads, even as her father, Dain Murray, filmed the event on his phone, and her mother, Kylene Murray, Kela’s daughter and a former pro player, applauded.
There was never much doubt that Ligaya would play tennis, a sport that courses through her family DNA like river rapids. She learned the game at Kela Tennis, her grandfather’s academy just off of Sandford Blvd. in Mount Vernon, a couple of deep forehands from the Bronx and not necessarily a location where you’d expect to find a flourishing and highly respected tennis academy.
Kela Tennis has six courts and an indoor bubble under construction, and with some 80 junior players and 400 players overall, it is a place where balls are flying from early until late.“There’s a lot going on,” Kela Simunyola said with a smile.
There’s been a lot going on for 50-year-old Kela Simunyola for a long time. The third of 13 children, he grew up in the city of Kitwe in the copper-mining region of Zambia, learning to play by hitting a ball against a wall at a club his father belonged to. He’d already grown into a promising player by age 11, when he was pulled out of class in school one day and told that his mother had been murdered. She was in her early 30s.
“I thought my life was over,” he said.
A hard life got so much harder. The children were crammed into one room in a two-bedroom house. Food was in short supply. Kela and several of his brothers who also played tennis would enter local pro tournaments and bring home some money for winning a match of two. Every little bit helped. Kela saved his one of sneakers for the tournaments, and a possible payday. That’s why he sometimes practiced barefoot.
The more Kela played, the more word spread about his game, and ultimately he earned a scholarship to Concordia College in Bronxville. Along the way he got to meet Arthur Ashe, who wrote him a letter to encourage him to study hard. Soon, other Simunyola siblings were following Kela’s lead, using their tennis skills to get a college education, all but two of them now in the States. Kela played briefly as a touring pro in Europe, then coached Kylene, who reached No. 400 in the world, before embarking on a career as a teaching pro. Four other Simunyola brothers –Brian, Teza, Niza and Muhabi – are all tennis pros as well. Brian is actually back in Zambia now, helping out at a tennis club there.
In Mt. Vernon, Kela Tennis is staffed not just by its namesake. Kela’s wife, also Ligaya, works in the shop, and Kylene is a coach.
“It’s a total family operation,” said Louisa Chirico, one of Kela Simunyola’s former students. Ranked No. 76 in the world, Chirico, 20, of Harrison, N.Y., played her first-round match Tuesday in the Grandstand, against No. 17 Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova. Asked what she learned from Kela Simunyola, Chirico says, “He definitely had a big impact (on my development).” “When you are young, it’s very important to have your coach cover the basics, and he was very good at that.”
Three years ago, the USTA’s Eastern section named the Simunyolas the region’s Family of the Year, in recognition of their unstinting passion for the game. Now the youngest of them, Ligaya Murray, is whacking top-spinning forehands and backhand slices, and doing well.
After the ceremony Monday, Kela Simunyola and his family went out to spend a day watching tennis, the next best thing to coaching it. Soon enough he’d be back at his academy in Mt. Vernon, hitting with his granddaughter. “It’s so great to see them out there together,” Kylene Murray said.
Kela Simunyola smiled. He talked about the arc of his family’s life, powered by a racquets and a yellow ball.
“You look back at what tennis has done in our lives,” he said. “It’s a big difference.”
