Our Story
The History of
Austin Tennis Academy
A Vision for Excellence
From its inception, Austin Tennis Academy has been built around excellence. The driving force behind ATA is a man named Jack Newman. Coach Newman pulled together people who shared his passion for tennis, as well as the necessary resources to create a tennis academy like no other. His plan started with making the tennis program excellent—hiring the best coaches available and building the best facility possible. ATA then added its own private, fully accredited school, which is now also known for excellence in education. Coach Newman says ATA’s number one focus is changing the trajectory of kids’ lives, and his goal is to impact ATA’s junior players in a way that helps them become someone better than they otherwise might have been.
ATA’s number one focus is changing the trajectory of kids’ lives.
— Coach Jack Newman
The Journey to Austin Tennis Academy
Like most successful businesses, there’s a story that began long before what people see today, and ATA is no different. Along with the values instilled by his parents, there were two stops in Coach Newman’s coaching career where he cultivated many of the ideas and practices he ultimately put into place as the foundation for the creation and development of ATA: Fretz Tennis Center (1982–1996) in Dallas, Texas, and St. Stephen’s Tennis Academy (1996–2002) in Austin, Texas. Coach Newman was lured to St. Stephen’s by the man who founded that academy, Eric Schmidhauser. Coach Newman then, in turn, helped entice a coach who was making a big mark in West Texas to join them at St. Stephen’s. Coach Doug Davis made the move to Austin, bringing with him his wife and three sons, who played junior tennis at a national and international level.
In 2002, Coach Newman, Eric Schmidhauser, and Coach Davis left St. Stephen’s to found Austin Tennis Academy. Groundbreaking for the ATA facility took place in March 2003, and construction was completed in mid-October of that same year. Until the facility was completed, ATA’s programs operated on rented court space at an Austin-area country club. The first building phase included the construction of 10 hard courts and a pro shop, which was located in what is now the current CP building. The second building phase came two to three years later with the addition of two more hard courts, bringing the total to 12, along with a 3,200-square-foot, state-of-the-art fitness center and a new home for the pro shop. The building that originally housed the pro shop then became the home of ATA’s private, fully accredited school—ATA College Prep. The third building phase took place in 2013 with the addition of two Italian red clay courts.
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