Before there were Venus and Serena Williams, there was Zina Garrison out there, swinging that racket and making noise on a level in professional tennis that hadn’t been seen by a Black woman in nearly 30 years.
There is an argument that, had Garrison not accomplished what she did as a young tennis star in the 1980s and early 1990s, there might be no Venus Williams, Serena Williams, Coco Gauff, Naomi Osaka, or Taylor Townsend.
But until recently, the native Houstonian admits she didn’t think much about her impact and legacy alongside Althea Gibson in women’s professional tennis.
“As I get older, I do,” Garrison said. “Serena said this to me before; she called me a Hidden Figure. I was like, what?
“But it made sense. She said, ‘A lot of people don’t know your story.’”
Indeed, many people may not know Garrison’s story. They should.
In a sport that has never truly been inviting or accepting of Black people, the Sterling High School product who honed her skills at MacGregor Park under legendary coach John Wilkerson gave Black America something to be proud of during her run to the 1990 Wimbledon Finals, the US Open Finals in 1988 and 1989, and her exemplary play at the 1988 Seoul Olympics.
What an inspiration Garrison was, and continues to be, as she still impacts the sport and the people she loves.
Her eyes light up when she talks about the youth gardening project she is part of at MacGregor Park, thanks to a donation from Ellen DeGeneres in collaboration with her ZGA Foundation. Garrison is also still involved in various ways with introducing tennis and growing the sport among kids, which is a big part of her job as the youth program manager for the City of Houston Parks and Recreation Department (HPARD).
“I just really want to have more activities for the young kids to do,” Garrison said of this current phase of life. “Right now, it’s just a stressful time in our lives. Kids still don’t have the opportunities to just be kids for a minute.”
She also wants kids and young people interested in tennis to have the best available knowledge out there, which is why she put on the HPARD Tennis Exclusive Coaching Summit at the community center at Hermann Park, where coaches around the city were invited to come in and pick up tips about strength and conditioning, nutrition, mental health, and communication.
Then they were introduced to a tennis simulator machine from Fast Track Tennis, which Garrison is truly passionate about.
“The fact that in five minutes you can hit almost 100 balls. Like literally the ball just keeps coming back over and over and over,” Garrison said of the machine that has a net that captures the balls hit. “The ball comes back at a certain spot, so you can speed up according to what you need to do as you start moving up.
“We are trying to separate instead of brining people together. I just want to make sure we are all coming together to learn a wonderful sport.”
Zina Garrison
“For most kids, the hardest thing to do is when the ball is bouncing, and they are trying to move or trying to hit. The fact that you can learn a stroke over and over again, that’s what caught my eye again.”
Next thing you know, Garrison called Fast Track, where CEO and founder John Davey picked up. Both were surprised for different reasons. Garrison was surprised that the number was a direct connection to the founder. Davey couldn’t believe Garrison was reaching out to him.
“She is a legend,” Davey said. “And if you’ve got someone like her who believes in what you are doing, then you can’t argue with that. There are a lot of people who may try to give me advice or may try to give people advice, but she has been to the top of the mountain. You can’t question her tennis cred.”
You also can’t question her love for tennis, as she remains an outspoken ambassador for the sport.
“I definitely think it has grown,” Garrison said. Venus and Serena for sure put it on the map. But a lot of my friends tell me, ‘You and Lori (McNeil) did as well,’ at MacGregor Park. You showed the kids at that age. Venus and Serena got to the Wimbledon finals or semifinals. So they took it to another level.
“People looked up to Venus and Serena, and then you have Coco, Naomi, Taylor Townsend … I think it’s a great opportunity for the sport to move forward. What I love more than anything is that it’s not just Black kids, but it’s all kids.”
Garrison will be reminded of the part she played in that this fall when the mini-documentary highlighting her ascent in tennis is released. While maybe a little nervous about the project at first, Garrison is excited for its release in October.
Serena Williams is the executive producer of the documentary.
“I didn’t want to see it when the lady was making it, so I finally saw it a couple of weeks ago,” Garrison said. “It was interesting because you had Billie Jean King in it, you had Carl Lewis, Clyde Drexler, Serena, Jackie Joyner-Kersee. All of these people are my friends. They know me, know me.
“But to even talk about me was really kind of interesting. I was like, ahh, I really have touched people’s lives.”
