Two of the Palos Verdes Peninsula’s top teenage talents scored big first-round wins on Wednesday at their hometown Kramer Club USTA SoCal Pro Series tournament as Andy Johnson and Tia Messerli moved into the second-round wins.
On a night where the Palos Verdes Peninsula area was honored by the USTA Southern California with its quarterly Tennis Towns Award presented to tournament director and Kramer Club General Manager Peter Smith by USTA Southern California Executive Director Trevor Kronemann, Johnson, ranked No. 867 in the world and the No. 5 seed, beat a tough Timofey Stepanov from Switzerland, 6-4 6-4, while Messerli came back to edge out Sacramento’s Klara Kosan, 3-6, 6-3, 6-3.
Johnson is coached by the five-time NCAA champion Smith and in February the high school junior won his first ITF pro title, a $15,000 event in Sunrise, Fla., becoming the youngest player since Carlos Alcaraz in 2019 and the youngest American since 2007 to do so.
Johnson said he could remember being a ball kid for early professional events at Kramer Club watching SoCal pro Sam Querrey and said he looked up to Brandon Holt, the son of Hall of Famer Tracy Austin, when his family joined the Kramer Club when he was just 6 years old.
“It’s crazy to think about 10 years ago,” Johnson said. “It’s like a big family and a lot of familiar faces. It’s been amazing to have them here and cheering me on. It’s really awesome.”
A recent Palos Verdes High graduate, Messerli is the 17-year-old daughter of former Grand Slam winner Kimberly Po (Wimbledon mixed doubles in 2000) and Peninsula Racquet Club Director of Tennis Oliver Messerli. She took advantage of her USTA SoCal wild card to win her first WTA point in the States having spent six weeks recently traveling and playing pro events in South Africa where her father is originally from.
“I did feel like she had more weapons than me, but sometimes all you need to do is just stay in the point long enough and they end up missing,” Messerli said of Kosan, who she had never played. “It’s nice to be here and surrounded by family after my six weeks in South Africa. Even though I was with family there, it’s just different sleeping in your own bed and having the comforts of home.”
Messerli had a degree of success during her six events in April and May qualifying for the first five of six tournaments and advancing to the second round four times.
Her final two tournaments were in Gaborone, the capital and largest city of Botswana in South Africa, which borders Zambia and Zimbabwe. “You have to learn to be patient,” Messerli said. “There’s no sense of urgency. Everything is late and it’s tough finding food. It’s just learning to adjust to things like cracks on the court and the balls bouncing everywhere. That’s the big part of being an athlete, learning to adjust.”
Messerli said because her mom was a touring pro and her dad traveled the tour as her hitting partner, they have passed on a lot of advice recently. “They’ve taught me a lot,” she said. “They give me a lot of head’s up.”
Messerli is happy to be healthy having missed a year because of a back injury suffered in December of 2024. She re-injured it one year ago at the Kramer Club event and finally made her return to the courts this past December. She will use this as a gap year and see how she does on tour before deciding on turning pro or going to college.
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Tia Messerli (Credit Jon Mulvey / USTA Southern California)
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