The United States Tennis Association recently honored a number of individuals across the nation with the Champions of Equality award earlier this month during the U.S. Open in New York.
Burbank’s Shaina Zaidi was selected as the representative of the Southern California section of the USTA.
The 40-year-old was one of 16 women around the nation who were honored for making tennis more inclusive and equality regardless of one’s playing ability. The ceremony included tennis legends Billie Jean King and Venus Williams.
Zaidi, who played collegiate basketball at UCLA, attended Roosevelt Elementary and Luther Burbank Middle School, before spending her freshman year at Burroughs High, where she played basketball and tennis.
She transferred to and later graduated from Marlborough School in Los Angeles.
In 2022, Zaidi started TuMe tennis, which is trying to bring first-time tennis players together in hopes of enhancing the love for the sport.
Since the start, Zaidi said she hosted events at a number of locations including the Burbank Tennis Center. She now operates out of a club in the hills of Encino.
“Community over competition. That is our motto whether we are having a club night or an actual competition. It is still community first,” said Zaidi, who estimates most of her members are in the 21 to 40 age range.
Zaidi went on to play four years of professional basketball in Germany after her career ended as a Bruin.
When she returned home, she knew she wanted to coach the two sports she played growing up.
“After the pandemic my brother (Adam) was my inspiration towards what we are doing now. He never played tennis growing up. He asked me to coach him. He wanted to learn and potentially compete. He was picking it as a hobby in his adult life,” Zaidi said. “I knew he wouldn’t want to do the trainings I did as a kid. So I was like how do I make this different so he would enjoy the sport. Because there was a reason why he didn’t enjoy it when were kids. He had a chance to do it as well. So how do I make this more fun, how do I make it more inclusive. We kind of got a group together and realized it is something people wanted. They wanted a chance to try the sport, a chance to come together and be seen and be part of something that quite literally had gates around it, like they felt they couldn’t participate in it.”
Zaidi said she has over 300 active members in TuMe Tennis and has had more than four thousand people that have participated in one of her events, community days and or tournaments.
“We’re not what the typical country club looks like. It’s not just members who have been born into it,” she said. “It is a chance for people to be a part of something that the sport normally doesn’t see.”
