Bill Ozaki’s 30-year focus on Southern junior players earned him the title of “Mr. Junior Tennis” by Southern Hall of Fame inductee Mary Hatfield.
Ozaki led a tightknit three-person junior department at USTA Southern for more than a decade. Along with Hatfield, who handled Junior Team Tennis and TennisLink (a tournament online technology), Ozaki was assisted by Sandy Hastings.
Ozaki, Hatfield and Hastings held weekly staff meetings on Wednesday at Ozaki’s favorite restaurant: JR’s in Peachtree Corners, Ga. All Southern staff were invited, especially (former USTA Southern Executive Director and COO) John Callen as he would pick up the check!
Hastings nominated Ozaki for his Southern Tennis Hall of Fame induction. Here is what Hastings wrote: “A parent once told me, ‘Bill would not ask a player if they won or lost, but how did they play today.’ “
According to Hatfield, Ozaki was “a junior players’ advocate, with attention to inclusion, quality development and teaching of life skills. As a colleague, he was professional, thoughtful, fair and FUN. If you want to know where to eat, ask Bill.”
The Southern Junior Sportsmanship was renamed for Ozaki in 2017. Upon his retirement in 2019, the award was renamed the Ozaki-Hasting Junior Sportsmanship Award.
Ozaki is the first inductee of Asian heritage into the Southern Tennis Hall of Fame.
Ozaki, a resident of Cherry Log, Ga., said, “One of the highlights of my career was working with Sandy, Mary, John and the Southern staff. Every day with them was extraordinary and always enjoyable, even when we tackled difficult items such as QuickStart, PPR and designated tournaments, to name a few. They were the ultimate professionals and friends. When I started, we had about 5,000 tournament and JTT players. That number grew to more than 48,000.”
Ozaki started as a junior player in southeast Georgia and won the 1970 Class A High School singles championship. After a work accident curtailed his college career at Dekalb College, he taught tennis for about 16 years, including eight years as head pro at Hidden Hills Country Club in Stone Mountain, Ga. It was there he got to know Callen, who hired him as a USTA Southern staffer in 1989.
Ozaki was a volunteer with USTA Southern serving as a state, sectional and national NTRP verifier and adult ranking chair for Southern men’s 25, 30 and 35 age groups.
After two years coordinating USTA Adult League development in the South, Ozaki moved over to the junior side. Other than two years during which he worked in the USTA Player Development Department, Ozaki has spent his career piloting Southern’s growing and successful junior tournaments with skill and devotion.
During those three decades, Ozaki watched as a string of highly successful pros – from Chanda Rubin to Brian Vahaly to Melanie Oudin to Robby Ginepri and most recently Coco Gauff, Tennys Sandgren, Tommy Paul, Catherine Harrison and Christopher Eubanks – all emerged from the USTA Southern junior circuit. Grace Min, a native Georgian pro, especially benefitted from Ozaki’s guidance.
In addition to heading up a three-person junior department, Ozaki also supervised the section’s program staff and 11 tennis service representatives. He also served as Georgia Professional Tennis Association President.
Former USTA Southern President and CEO Bonnie Vandegrift said upon his retirement, “Bill Ozaki has been a staple to Southern tennis for 30 years and he will be sorely missed. Bill is so well respected for his knowledge of and commitment to junior tennis across the country by players, staff, parents and volunteers alike. Year after year we hear stories from our junior players about the positive impact he has had on their lives.”
Ozaki has been married to his wife, Bonnie, for 49 years and has four children – Brian, Kyle, Dale and Megan – along with six grandchildren.
Highlights
- 16-year career as teaching pro at Hidden Hills Country Club
- 30-year worked as USTA Southern/USTA employee
- USTA Southern reached 48,931 junior players in 2010
- Teamed with Eric Voges and Mary Lou Hambrick to establish the Southern Junior Cup team competition
- Southern Junior Cup renamed the Southern Ozaki Junior Cup in 2019
- USTA Southern Junior Sportsmanship award renamed for Bill Ozaki. Later it was changed to the USTA Southern Ozaki-Hastings Junior Sportsmanship Award
- Inducted in the USTA Georgia Hall of Fame in 2019
- Given the USTA Georgia Ruth Lay Award in 2020