Gabrielle Robinson continues to dominate DeKalb tennis

Watching tennis star Serena Williams play was all it took for then 4-year-old Gabrielle Robinson to gain an interest in the sport.

“I told my parents that I wanted to play tennis and they went out and bought a racket,” Robinson said.

At 17, Robinson is one of the top female players in No. 1 singles from DeKalb County schools, has a 42-2 record in three season and has already received an estimated 20 scholarship offers. The Chamblee High School rising senior finished the 2014 tennis season at the top of female No. 1 singles with a 14-1 record and helped lead her team to a 11-9 overall record.

In her first year at Chamblee, she had an 11-1 record as a freshman. She went undefeated her sophomore year with a 17-0 record. Chamblee tennis coach Christopher Smith called Robinson a once in a lifetime player.

“She’s doing Chamblee a favor by playing tennis,” Smith said. “For someone who excels as much as she does on the junior circuit she doesn’t have to play high school tennis.”

When she was younger, Robinson began playing tennis in the United States Tennis Association (USTA), the largest tennis organization in the world, with 17 geographical sections, more than 770,000 individual members and 8,000 organizational members.

“I realized I was good at tennis when I was 10, and I started playing in USTA,” she said.

She won her first national tournament when she was 12 years old at the Peach State Junior Tennis Classic. She later won another tournament in Florida. When Robinson began playing at Chamblee, she never thought she would be this successful.

“I thought I would be in No. 1 singles, but I wasn’t sure if I would be this dominate playing against other schools,” she said.

Smith said Robinson is so good that she makes good players from other schools look like average players.

“Her teammates don’t always understand the mental toughness she has while playing No. 1 singles match in and match out and always winning under that pressure,” he said. “She makes stressful situations look very easy, and I find that extremely impressive because no matter whom you play, every team has one good player.

“When you play No. 1 singles you never have a day off,” Smith added. “It’s always somebody good. Her record of consistency over the past three seasons speaks for itself.”

Although she just completed her junior season, Robinson has already set goals she wants to accomplish during her final year at Chamblee.

“I would like to go undefeated and I would like for the team to make it past the third round in the state playoffs,” she said.

She is also hoping to get a scholarship offer from three schools that she is interested in: Central Florida, Florida State or Georgia Tech. She plans to try out for professional tennis after college and wants to become an inspiration to young Black girls like Williams was for her.

“I feel like it’s enough of us playing basketball and running track,” she said. “Athletes nowa days play tennis so I feel like if you’re athletic and can run then you can play tennis.”