Beth Herr

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Beth Herr (born 1964) is an American tennis player. She became the number 1 junior tennis player in the world at age 16. She was the #1 college recruit in 1985 and went on to play for the University of Southern California where she won the NCAA singles title and team title in her freshman year. She beat Clemson's Gigi Fernandez 7–6 in the 3rd set after being down a match point to win the NCAA singles final.^[1]

She cut short college and went directly into professional tennis after the NCAA Championship and played on tour for 11 years with wins over Martina Navratilova, Pam Shriver, Hana Mandlikova and Mary Joe Fernandez. She lost an epic match to Billie Jean King at Wimbledon 8–6 in the 3rd where commentators on HBO Breakfast at Wimbledon made a very big deal out of her ability to hit numerous swinging volleys out of the air for winners which was something that had not been done before especially by a female.

After tennis she finished her undergraduate degree at UCLA and then went to law school at UCLA. She married Tennis Channel founder Steve Bellamy and after a short stint as a lawyer at Manat, Phelps and Phillips, she stopped working and started raising their 4 children.

She later went on to win the US Open of paddle tennis and became the unofficial world champion of the sport.