A decade ago, Alycia Parks was slugging tennis balls on the courts at Richard Craig Park in McDonough. Right now she is on the biggest stage in the sport.

Parks, now 20, was accepted as a wild card in the women’s singles draw at the U.S. Open, which began this week in New York. She was scheduled to begin this quest with a first-round match Monday against Olga Danilovic of Serbia. Neither player competed in the tournament last year. The winner would likely move on to a second-round showdown with Naomi Osaka of Japan, ranked third in the world right now and the defending U.S. Open champion.

One of her former coaches in Henry County, Wes Fuller, praised Parks last week for this accomplishment.

“So proud and a big congratulations to Alycia Parks,” Fuller wrote in a social media post. “This young lady has worked and trained so hard. All the hard work pays off this year.”

Parks got her start in tennis through the Henry County Parks and Recreation Department while spending her early years living here and attending Locust Grove Elementary School. The family moved to Florida when she was 10 so that she and her older sister could train at a higher level.

Upon graduation from high school, Parks declined several college scholarship offers so that she could pursue tennis at the professional level. According to the Women’s Tennis Association, in 2019 she reached the finals of two events on the International Tennis Federation (ITF) Women’s World Tennis Tour, a second-tier professional circuit. In 2020 she won her first singles title and first doubles title in the ITF.

She continues to be coached by her father, Michael Parks, who has coached her since childhood.
In 2017, she and her sister Mikayla started their own clothing line, Alyciamikay, from which most of her tennis outfits have originated.

You can follow Alycia Parks’ progress this week and next at usopen.org.