Tracy Press

A Tracy tennis phenom will travel across the Atlantic Ocean to try her forehand against players from around the world.

Chiara Adamo, who just finished the seventh grade at Hawkins School, will soon travel to Amsterdam to compete in an international tennis event. Bob Brownne / Tracy Press

Adamo, who just completed seventh grade at Hawkins School, is one of about 3,000 young athletes headed to Amsterdam, Netherlands, next month for the People to People Sports Ambassadors program’s Summer 2008 Friendship Games.

It’s a new experience for her, and one thing she knows for sure is that it will be a lot different from her usual tennis matches.

"I’m a little nervous, because I don’t know how people play in other countries. I expect them to be really good," Adamo said. "Otherwise, I feel really good about it."

She has been playing tennis since age 5, and for the past two years, she has competed in youth tournaments through Modesto Junior College, the U.S. Tennis Association’s National Junior Tennis League and the San Joaquin Valley Summer Youth Team Tennis league.

Her father, Ric Adamo, suspects that she loved the sport since the day she was born. While her parents weren’t dedicated tennis players, her mother, Beverly, gave birth the day before the U.S. Open started 13 years ago.

"She and her mom came home and watched the U.S. Open," Ric said, adding that by the time his daughter turned 5, she wanted to start taking tennis lessons with other children at In-Shape Sports Club in Tracy.

"They all started, and a lot of them fell away," he said. "But Chiara wanted to keep going back."

Adamo is one of about two-dozen local athletes headed to the Friendship Games, which will be July 19 to 29. The group includes athletes in all types of sports, including baseball, volleyball, basketball, soccer and swimming. At age 12, she will be the youngest in her group, which comes mostly from the northern San Joaquin Valley.

Adamo knows she will have at least six matches in the event’s tennis tournament.

She already has a case full of championship trophies from her seven years as a tennis player, but to qualify for the trip, she had to demonstrate her desire to live up to People to People’s diplomatic goals.

The program began in 1956 under President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who worked with high-profile sports and entertainment stars like Bob Hope, Jesse Owens and Walt Disney to establish a diplomatic effort that focused on citizens rather than political leaders.

The group sent Adamo an invitation to apply for the team in January, after she was named the winner of the U.S. Tennis Association San Joaquin Valley Section’s Arthur Ashe essay contest.

Since then, her coaches have taken her out to baseball diamonds to work on her game. The infield surfaces are the closest thing to the clay courts Europeans favor, her father said.

People to People will also take young athletes on tours around Amsterdam, including boat tours of the canals that run in and around the city. The group will explore the home Anne Frank lived in when she wrote her famous diary during the Nazi occupation and take a bicycle tour to the fishing village of Volendam.

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