It was Labor Day afternoon and the team of Anna Danalina-Harri Heliovaara was ready to take on Yifan Xu-Joran Vilegeno in the U.S. Open Mixed Doubles quarterfinals at Louis Armstrong Stadium in Flushing Meadows, N.Y.
Standing amidst some of the world’s most talented players was Sedona Youngblood, a 10-year-old Ewing resident who has utilized the We Lead Sports Inc. program in her hometown. Sedona was in Queens with 23 other We Lead players who were chosen to put on an exhibition of volleying prior to Open matches.
Youngblood was even bestowed the honor of performing the coin flip before the Danalina-Heliovaara and Xu-Vilegeno mixed doubles match. She executed it flawlessly and had a memory for a lifetime.
“It was great to do the coin toss,” Youngblood said. “I wasn’t nervous. I got to stand next to professional tennis players. I got to say hi to the players and umpire and then listen to the rules and I got to keep the one dollar coin. I also got a special US Open coin.”
As if that wasn’t enough, she proved to be a good luck charm as Danalina-Heliovaara went on to win the Mixed Doubles title.
“It’s really awesome they won the whole tournament,” Youngblood said. “I know they’ll become more famous over the years.”
As for fame, each of the We Lead players had their proverbial 15 minutes of it while playing demo matches on the legendary courts.
“They were just showcasing their skills as a way to open up the match,” We Lead Founder and President Michelle Gbelama said. “They were actually rallying amongst each other. They each had a partner, they came on and rallied back and forth just to build the crowd up and get them going before the match started. It’s more a demo based thing.
“It’s also the USTA’s (United States Tennis Association’s) way of building young people’s confidence and showcasing how the next generation’s new structure makes tennis easier for young people. They’re using smaller rackets and different color balls to grab the attention of these young people and slow the game down a little bit so they can build their confidence and become a little better down the line.”
Once the exhibitions ended, the players were able to explore the entire grounds, visit the Armstrong and Arthur Ashe facilities, take photos and watch different matches. Many of them met Noah Djokovic, who would go on to win his fourth Open title and 24th Grand Slam championship. But it didn’t end there.
“I got to see my favorite tennis player, Coco Gauff (this year’s U.S. Open champion), and favorite men’s player, Frances Tiafoe,” Youngblood said. “I got to see Daniil Medvedev, Madison Keys, Carlos Alcaraz and Djokovic practice. I saw Alycia Parks play doubles, and I also saw a lot of wheelchair tennis. Also Coco and Tiafoe were practicing side by side so it was really difficult with who to watch. I also saw Billie Jean King and took a picture of her.”
It was all made possible thanks to the hard work and dedication of Gbelama, who founded We Lead Sports in 2021 and has watched it steadily grow in providing tennis instruction to the youth of Ewing and beyond. She has done so with the invaluable help of her partner, James Okore.
Growing up in Trenton, Michelle was looking for a way into college at a low cost. Her guidance counselor suggested tennis and, despite going out for Trenton High’s team at the advanced age (for tennis, at least) of 16, Gbelama was good enough to get a scholarship to Drew University.
That in itself is impressive, considering Trenton is not a tennis hotbed.
“No it isn’t,” she said. “And that just showed it was something that was supposed to happen for me.”
After a career at Drew in which she played first and second doubles, served as captain and won the team’s MVP award three times, Gbelama served as an assistant coach for both the men’s and women’s teams.
From there she began to run the National Junior Tennis & Learning programs in Trenton, Ewing and Hamilton. Her efforts were so impressive she was recruited to run the NJTL New York office.
When Covid hit in 2020, Gbelama returned to Mercer County and came to a realization.
“The programs I was running here all faded out and there was very little tennis,” she said. “So there weren’t many opportunities for the young people in Trenton and Ewing. I decided to go back to what I used to do and start something on my own because I had the connections to the schools and community and they were all looking for something for their kids.”
And she was looking to provide that something.
“Because tennis has been in my blood I wanted to utilize my skills to help young people,” Gbelama said. “The same way tennis became a gateway for me to get a better education, I wanted to open doors for young people to actually understand the sport and hopefully use it as a way to also create a better life for themselves.”
So she established We Lead Sports in 2021. It has been mainly tennis the first year-and-a-half, but soccer began in September and there are plans to include lacrosse. The important thing to understand about the organization is that it’s not just dedicated to making kids better players. It wants to make them better human beings.
“The goal is to equip young people with the necessary tools needed to rise above their present situation and see a future through tennis or anything else,” Gbelama said. “It’s to build confidence, social, emotional learning skills, and physical and mental strengthening as well.
“Our goal is to utilize tennis as a vehicle, but we’re not only focusing on tennis. We’re looking for ways to build young people. Whether it’s mentoring them through a sport or finding ways to get them into colleges of their choice. We also have a mentorship component and college preparation as well. This is to utilize sports as a way for young people to find all those things they need to become better citizens and community leaders.”
Through all that, it also does make them better players.
“I get to practice and play against other kids,” Youngblood said. “We play fun tennis games, like the serve game. And I’ve gotten better as a player since I first joined the program.”
We Lead is based in Ewing and play takes place at Antheil School and Banchoff Park. The clinics are held in the spring, summer and fall. A new We Lead Academy has been started and centers around the 24 players chosen to play at the U.S. Open. The Academy will be in service year-round and Gbelama is currently seeking an indoor site for winter.
It is a non-profit organization and the cost per student is a mere $5 a day. The major donor to We Lead is the USTA, which provides seasonal grants to run the programs.
It was USTA’s New Jersey District representative, Lori Schwartz, who noticed that over 800 children attended We Lead clinics over the summer. Schwartz felt that Gbelama should try and utilize the opportunity to play at the Open through USTA’s Net Generation Experience.
Only 2,000 children from the entire country are chosen. Undaunted, Michelle applied for the grant and the Next Generation people were impressed at how popular the We Lead program had become in such a short time. Thus, they received the invitation.
“The parents were so impressed, and the kids were overwhelmed with joy,” Gbelama said. “None of them had ever been to the US Open and some of them had not been to New York.
“It was an amazing experience to open their eyes to see how there is a future in tennis beyond their environment. That was the goal, to see beyond what they normally see in our community and that tennis could be a gateway so they could have a success story of their own; just like I did. That trip really accomplished more than we could imagine.”
It’s an experience Youngblood will not soon forget.
“It was great playing on an actual US Open court and being on the court with my friend Melanie, who I’ve known since I was a baby,” Sedona said. “I thought it was cool to know that my favorite tennis player Coco Gauff could’ve played on that same court and my feet could’ve stepped in the same spot she stepped on.”
And the young player said nerves did not get in the way. “It wasn’t hard to focus on the ball,” Youngblood said. “We practiced a lot to get ready for that day. I hit a lot of balls in practice so I was ready to play. Coach Michelle said to go out there and have fun.”
They had fun all right, and Gbelama could only smile with pride and fulfillment.
“I’m very faith based so I believe it was the blessing of God,” she said. “I’m a native in the community and I’ve just been driving based on passion and my love for young people. Someone gave me a chance once and I’m able to have a success story on my own.
“I believe it takes someone to give another child a chance so they could do the same. I’ve just been going off what little we have to provide our young people. It was a blessing that we could showcase them in a big way.”
One of the biggest ways possible in the world of tennis.
