Published: August 28, 2007 11:52 pm            

Tennis star serves a return

BLUEFIELD, Va. — Marianna Sarver was a tennis standout.

She ranked among the nation’s best on the junior circuits, played one year for Bluefield High School, and followed that with three seasons at Wake Forest.

Then, Sarver packed up and left for California. Tennis became an afterthought. She was a chef for about 12 years, followed by several years as a social worker.

She’s back. Tennis, and family, are a big reason why. Sarver’s brother, Steve, the owner of Sedgewood Tennis Club encouraged a return to Bluefield. So did her mother, Joy.

Not only will Sarver be back home on a permanent basis for the first time in 18 years, but she’ll also work as an instructor at Sedgewood and will help promote tennis for the West Virginia Mid-Atlantic Region of the United States Tennis Association in southern West Virginia and southwest Virginia.

“I’ll do whatever Steve needs me to do,” said Sarver, who graduated from BHS in 1982. “I’m sure I’ll be teaching a lot of private lessons and doing some clinics, and then I’ll be doing the tennis job with the Mid-Atlantic.

“I’m mainly there to try and promote tennis, not just in clubs, but in city parks and public recs (recreation departments). I’ll mainly just be promoting tennis.”

Steve Sarver, who has operated the Sedgewood club since 1995, is thrilled to add a female to his instructional staff, especially with it being his accomplished sister.

“My dad passed away four years ago and Marianna had been out on the west coast for 18 years, and my mom has always wanted her to come back,” Steve said. “It was a combination of me wanting her to help out with the tennis club and my mom really thinking it would be good to get her back.

“From our standpoint, that’s why we wanted her to come back. Me, for the tennis, and my mom, just to have her back. From her standpoint, after being on the west coast for 18 years, she was ready to try something different and to get back into tennis a little bit.”

Sarver was a successful ACC tennis player for three years at Wake Forest, but didn’t finish the fourth.

“I only played three years,” Sarver said. “I didn’t play my last year, I suffered a little burn-out.”

Sarver, along with her successful tennis brothers — Steve and Mark — were introduced to tennis at a young age by their father, Raymond ‘Corky’ Sarver.

From the time she was about five, Sarver played lots of tennis. She entered national and international junior tournaments, and was successful, ranking as high as 66th in the nation in her age group as a senior at Bluefield.

That was followed by more success in the ACC, and she even won a match in a qualifying tournament in hopes of playing in a professional major. She also played some on the professional satellite tours, competing against future pros like Zena Garrison.

“I played the national amateur circuit while I was at Wake, and I think I wound up being ranked about 18th in 1984,” Sarver said. “As far as numbers go, my junior year (at Wake Forest) I finished third in the flight two singles.

“I’m sure, overall, I had a winning record, probably about 75 percent, but I just don’t remember names and tournaments. I had a pretty good career at Wake.”

Soon afterwards, Sarver decided she’d had enough tennis.

“Then I pretty much quit,” she said. “I was 22 and I was burned out on it, I needed a break.”

That break included a cross-country journey to California, specifically to San Francisco and Oakland.

“I played some tournaments out there when I was a teenager and a couple of my friends from Wake Forest moved out there right after graduation and I always loved it,” Sarver said. “It seemed like the place to go at the time.”

Tennis was an option, but not one that Sarver chose to pursue.

“When I first moved out there I was thinking about it because I got my certificate to teach,” Sarver said, “but I kind of fell into cooking and then my USTA certificate ran out and I was like, ‘Oh well.’”

Steve understood that his sister needed a break from the sport. He’s just glad she was ready to come back.

“I think a lot of times when you play real competitively, whether it’s golf, tennis or whatever, when your playing days are over, it’s very difficult to ever be a recreational player in that sport,” Steve said. “Like they can’t do it and they’ll almost just bag it all together so I think she needed a break from tennis.

“Now I think she’s more likely to be able to enjoy it more like all of us would enjoy it, just recreational, and not at a real intense high level.”

It wasn’t an easy decision, but Sarver finally agreed to a return to Bluefield last month. She isn’t sure how long she’ll stay, but she’s happy for now.

“It was a grueling decision, Steve has mentioned it on and off the past two or three years, but about six months ago he really got the idea,” said Sarver, who turned 43 on Aug. 13. “Then the position in the Mid-Atlantic opened up too..

“I’m glad to be back in Bluefield, it’s good to spend time with the siblings. It’s good to see all my brothers because I had been seeing them maybe twice a year for the past 18 years...”

Sarver returns to an area that is known for some of the best high school tennis on either side of the state line. However, the sport’s popularity isn’t what it once was, and that isn’t just here.

“The sport has dropped off a lot since the ‘80s when I was last here,” Marianna said. “It seems like it is a nation-wide thing, except for maybe California and Florida, where tennis is just huge.

“I think it has been a national trend, I think soccer has maybe overtaken tennis. Soccer is really big now and the other sports, there are a lot of factors and a lot of variables.”

Sarver hopes to help bring more people into the sport, especially children. Steve said she’ll teach lessons, help run tournaments, fill in as a substitute player when needed, and promote tennis, partly by setting up USTA events.

“It’s going to be tough, but hopefully we can try to get more kids in here and just help out more with kids that want to start playing competitively,” Marianna said, “instead of just coming to take lessons and learning how to hit the ball.

“Kids that want to actually learn how to play, I think I can definitely help out in that sense.”

She knows what it takes to be a good tennis player. After all, she was one herself.

“I think it’s just like any sport, you’ve got to have a certain amount of natural ability,” Marianna said. “You’ve got to be able to hit the ball, that’s the first thing, and you’ve got the have a natural competitive drive.

“Tennis is such a solo sport, like golf, that you really have to be into the competition and wanting to compete. You’ve got to be able as a person to focus when you are out there because you don’t have any teammates to throw the ball to if you get into trouble.

“It’s pretty much you out there. You have to find kids that really like that environment.”

For more information on the tennis options offered by Sedgewood or the local USTA, contact the club at (276) 322-4851 or the USTA’s West Virginia district office at (304) 324-2838.

—Contact Brian Woodson

at bwoodson@bdtonline.com

        

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