Improbable and unlikely. Those are the two words WTA Champion and Win4Life Enterprises founder Leslie Allen used to describe her meteoric and historic rise to the top of the WTA world rankings.
After going unranked as a junior player, Allen went on to win an NCAA championship as a member of the University of Southern California tennis team, achieve the No. 17 ranking in the WTA standings, reach the finals of the French Open mixed doubles, and famously win the 1981 Avon Championships of Detroit, becoming the first African American woman to win a major tournament in over 20 years.
“It was a most improbable and unlikely journey for any athlete, even more unlikely for a woman of color in the generation I played simply because there wasn’t a perception that women of color were going to excel at the highest level in tennis,” said Allen.
Allen did not even have a desire to play tennis as a young girl. In fact, she did not pick up a racquet from the ages of 11-14. However, everything changed when Title IX came along. “With Title IX you could play tennis in college, you could maybe get a tennis scholarship,” she explained. “Around that same time, Billy Jean was starting the WTA Tour. All I wanted to do was be part of a team, all I wanted to do was compete.”
With that competitive drive in mind, Allen set out on a mission to play in college and professionally. She knew that the first step to achieving her dream would be to compete as part of her high school team, where she became the first girl to ever compete against boys in a varsity sport in the state of Ohio.
“My high school had a boys’ team, but no girls’ team. I was the best player on our entire team. It wasn’t a very good team at all, but I was the best,” explained Allen. “They said, ‘You can’t play, you’re a girl.’ Since I knew that the Title IX law existed, I knew what they were saying was illegal. We had to sue them, and the state tournament was going to be cancelled. At the end of the day, I made a historic mark where they had to rule in my favor to make sure that girls could compete with boys in non-contact sports. It was revolutionary, and it kick-started my dream.”
After high school, Allen walked on to the tennis team at the University of Southern California. Despite playing at No. 6 and hardly traveling with the team to major tournaments, she achieved her goal of playing collegiate tennis and earned a degree in Speech Communications in the process.
However, Allen was not done with tennis yet. She went on to compete on the WTA Tour for 10-years and win a combined nine singles and doubles titles, including the Avon Championships of Detroit crown.
“The thing about the Detroit tournament was that it was just so shocking that I won. I beat a lot of top-10 players en route. I did not really have a junior history, and I was not the star player at USC. I was not on anyone’s radar. It was almost as if I had dropped in from outer space to some people. That’s why it was such a huge story, and it set the stage for the black players who came after me.”
Whilst playing professional tennis, Leslie also spent time on the WTA Board as a player. After concluding her professional career, she felt a natural inclination to join the WTA Board of Directors on a professional level, representing the top-20 players in the WTA.
“I’m passionate about women’s tennis and continuing to make sure that the players understand their responsibilities,” she said. “We fight for what we deserve, and equal prize money was one of the things that was a big issue for me because I remember talking about it as a player, now fast forward many years later and we’re still talking about it. There were initiatives that I wanted to make happen, so I took that role quite seriously.”
The experience that Leslie gained while working at the WTA sparked her idea to begin Win4Life Enterprises, which helps young people prepare to be winners on and off the court. According to Allen, the idea for Win4Life came from an encounter on a bus at the U.S. Open.
“I was speaking with the Australian Open Tournament Director at the time, and he told me that some Australian boys were in town and that they were going to play some Harlem boys in tennis. I said, ‘Are there any girls?’ He said, ‘No.’ I asked him why there weren’t, and rather than get into that debate, he told me to get some girls together and bring them down to the Australian Open.”
Not one to back down from a challenge, Allen gathered a group of girls from New York City to bring to the Australian Open. “The way that the life skills component of Win 4 Life came to light was in preparing these athletes to go down there,” she said. “I saw that someone may be a great tennis player, but they’re not really focusing on the life skills that are going to help them forever. Whether it’s a tennis player, someone looking for an entry-level job, or a corporate business-person who is in middle management or senior management – there are always ways that you can improve how you present yourself.”
Attendees at the WTCA Conference in NYC will have the opportunity to work directly with Allen at her Win4Life training session. She will give attendees the tools to communicate better as women, with women, and with Generation Z in a personalized and intimate setting.
“At the end of the session, attendees will understand where they are in terms of their communication skill development,” explained Allen. “It’s not cookie-cutter, it’s very personalized because Win4Life training meets you where you are. Based on where you are, you should do X, Y, Z. It’s not, ‘Ok everyone, open up to page three. Everybody do 1, 2, 3, 4.’ That’s not it. Attendees can expect to be challenged, entertained, and collaborative.”
“It’s about developing the best in you so you can put your champion self forward. It’s about unleashing the champion within you.” Join Leslie Allen at the Win4Life training session from 4-6 p.m. on Thursday, August 30th at the WTCA Conference, and you too can unleash your inner champion.