Play Like Julie
Free Lessons Offered at Ashland Tennis Center
Gwen Akers
The Ashland Beacon
From June 5-9 and June 12-16, the Ashland Tennis Center will be offering free tennis clinics for children ages 8-18 sponsored by the Julie Ditty Qualls Foundation. Not only are these tennis clinics a great opportunity for community members, but they also are born from the story of an Ashland legend.
Julie Ditty Qualls was born and raised in Ashland, Ky and was a professional tennis player who represented both her Ashland roots and the nation in her sport. Qualls passed away in August 2021, after a long battle with metastatic breast cancer, yet her legacy still inspires athletes today through her foundation.
“I think it's a great opportunity to expose kids to the sport of tennis. A lot of people think that it has to be expensive, and it doesn't have to be. It’s just a great opportunity to move. Julie loved working for the community–providing stuff for children and adults. We're just proud to be part of it,” said Jerry Groce who played tennis with Qualls as a child and now is a general manager at the Ashland Tennis Center.
Qualls began playing tennis in the second grade for the Russell High School team, where she was eventually named Kentucky High School Female Athlete of the Year. She went on to become a highly decorated collegiate athlete at Vanderbilt University, where she was a 3 time All-American under coach Geoff McDonald. She continued to play 10 years on the NCAA pro circuit, which took her all over the world–from Australia to France.
After her retirement, Qualls took to coaching and teaching lessons–all in an effort to bring others into the sport that she loved. She worked as a coach at Middle Tennessee State University, and at the University of Kentucky Tennis Center, while returning home to spend time with her family and kindle a love of tennis and athletics in the same facility and city that had so inspired her before. It was here that she began giving lessons to high school tennis players in the surrounding area.
It was her idea to begin the free tennis lessons at the Ashland Tennis Center, which received an unprecedented amount of interest which led to Qualls pulling together all of her friends and colleagues in the tennis world to be coaches. From her past coach at the University of Kentucky, to high schoolers she had been giving lessons to for years, Qualls strung together 32 instructors to meet the demand of 150 interested children.
“During those lessons, she developed a knot in her neck and she went to have a biopsy and she had the biopsy done in a hospital and getting back {she} was positive for metastatic breast cancer. The next day after hearing that, she went back to work at a clinic with all those 150 kids like it never happened. She didn’t miss a day,” said Jack Ditty M.D., Qualls’ father.
After her passing, the Julie Ditty Qualls Foundation was created in an effort to keep Julie’s love for both the community and tennis alive.
“We decided that we would continue Julie's free events that she did like the free tennis lessons. That was a great thing for those kids. It opens up the whole world of tennis for them by the time they finish in two weeks. They're going to have 10 sessions in tennis, have friends that are playing tennis, so they're going to have friends to play with,” explained Ditty. “And, they can continue playing tennis after this. Hopefully, they'll take more lessons and learn how to play really well, and maybe these kids will end up being the future tennis players on the tennis team.”
Qualls was a great inspiration for the Ashland community, and her family could not be prouder of her. From her father Jack Ditty, M.D. and her mother Juanita Ditty (who met on a blind date playing tennis), to her husband and son, Qualls was a great light in their lives. Since Qualls’ passing, a scholarship has been founded in her honor, and Qualls has been elected into the Kentucky Athletic Hall of Fame.
“This has been an effort really to give kids a boost and opportunity to be better players than they might be otherwise, and also for a lot of these kids who would never be players in the first place. Once it opens their eyes to tennis, many of them become regular players. That's a great thing because we've got a wonderful tennis center here,” remarked Ditty.
The Ashland free tennis clinics are open for registration now and are ready to serve and educate the community. Whether you are attending for basic instruction or more intermediate skills, the tennis clinics are for you.
“I think it's important to remember her and her accomplishments and to think that you know, a child can have a dream to go on to become a professional tennis player and play all over the world, and she accomplished that. I think it's awesome to have kids and show them they actually can make it,” expressed Groce.
With these clinics, children can learn to “play like Julie,” while also being inspired by the strength, ambition, and perseverance of Julie Ditty Qualls.
