Years after facing tennis greatness, Riviera coach poised to lead Bulldogs new heights

This month, coach Jane Forman will lead Miami’s Riviera Prep on a playoff run that she hopes will result in the school’s first state title in team tennis.

However, 36 years ago this summer, Forman was in England, playing on the hallowed grass courts of Wimbledon against tennis queen Martina Navratilova.

The year was 1986, and Forman made it to Wimbledon as a qualifier. In the first round, she beat Eva Pfaff, who went on to earn a ranking of No. 16 in the world.

“Beating Eva was one of my biggest wins,” Forman said. “I knew if I beat her, I would play the No. 1 woman in the world (Navratilova), and that was the most exciting thing.”

Prior to her match with Pfaff, Forman saw a televised interview with Navratilova, who was asked who she would rather play in the second round.

“My coach and I were glued to the TV,” Forman said. “Martina said she would rather play Eva, and we were stunned. We joked that Martina was scared of me, but it was just that I was the unknown.”

After beating Pfaff, Forman – who had been a three-time All-American at Clemson University – was inundated by interview requests from reporters in her hometown of Providence, Rhode Island.

“Reporters were in my hometown, interviewing my parents,” Forman said. “It was a lot of fun.”

The fun ended when Forman – who is just 5-foot-2 – had to face the powerful Navratilova.

“She was ripped,” Forman said.

At Wimbledon, Forman said the top 16 seeds had their own locker room. Qualifiers such as Forman waited for match time alone in a separate room.

“It was a small basement,” Forman said. “It felt like a dungeon.”

Forman remembers getting a pre-match phone call from her mother, who was back home in Rhode Island. She wanted her daughter to wear makeup – she was going to be on TV after all – and Forman obliged.

When the previous match on stadium court ended, security guards escorted Forman through the crowd.

Forman was highly nervous.

“When I finally walked on the court, a wave came over me,” Forman said. “The grandstand was full with 5,000 people, and I felt like I was on a stage.”

The late Arthur Ashe, who won three Grand Slam titles and is an icon in the sport, was the commentator for the Navratilova-Forman match.

Forman still has the VHS tape of her match, and she is particularly fond of the time Ashe called her “spunky” on TV.

Navratilova won the match 6-0, 6-4, but Forman said it was closer than the score indicates.

“Every game was close, and we were 4-4 and on serve in the second set,” Forman said. “Martina would miss some shots. But what made her great was when she needed a point, she would not miss.

“The biggest difference was mentally.”

When the match was over, Navratilova and Forman shook hands as is the tradition. Six months later, a photographer named Carol Newsome tracked Forman down and sent her that image.

That photo became the logo Forman has used ever since.

Forman, a two-time ACC Player of the Year at Clemson, had a 10-year pro career, earning a top-50 world ranking at her zenith.

She retired as a player in 1989. The next year, she started the Jane Forman Tennis Academy in Miami. Forman had made the move south because she wanted to be in a warm-weather location near an international airport.

Forman, who was inducted into Clemson’s Sports Hall of Fame in 2003, had a flourishing tennis-academy business when she noticed that a school – Riviera Prep – was under construction near her Falls-area home.

This was in 2010, and Forman decided to stop by to see if they needed a tennis coach.

“I had never coached high school tennis,” Forman said, “but I was hired that afternoon.”

Since then, the Riviera Prep program has grown.

In 2016, Sara Culbertson became Riviera’s first individual state tennis champ, going 21-0 without dropping a set all season before signing with the Miami Hurricanes.

Forman, now 60, coaches the boys’ and girls’ programs at Riviera. The school built an elite tennis compound last year with eight lighted courts. There are also four pickleball courts.

“The priority is our school tennis program,” Forman said. “But we also allow the community to use the courts through various leagues.”

Forman made it clear how much she wants to reward Riviera administrators with a state championship for either the boys’ team or the girls’ team or both.

For now, the girls are probably closer to state, having won a regional last year. The girls finished third at state last season, and their top five players are all underclassmen, including three middle-school girls who have big-time potential: Sasha Kilgour, her sister Leyla Kilgour and Isabella Paradisis.

Riviera’s boys are improving, though, advancing to regionals last year for the first time in program history.

District playoffs begin April 11, regionals start April 19, and the state championships are set for April 25-29.

In other words, Forman’s quest to win a 2022 state title starts now, and she has the full backing of Riviera Prep athletic director Courtney Young.

“She is terrific and very humble,” Young said of Forman. “She loves the kids, and she doesn’t over-coach.”