Sondra Michelsen Happy Following Son
Alex’s Pro Tour Exploits From Afar

The dorm room check list had been filled out and travel arrangements made. As a one-time educator, Sondra Michelsen’s dream of sending her youngest son off to college on a full-ride Division I scholarship was just days away from becoming reality.

Alex Michelsen had other ideas. As the nation’s top junior and college recruit sat and pondered the grueling decision of whether to spend his fall in the classroom, or begin his dream of traveling the world and becoming a professional tennis player, he had finally made up his mind.

A mere 10 days before he was set to depart for Athens to play for the Georgia Bulldogs, Alex picked up the phone and called coach Manny Diaz with the news. The tour had won out over the text books.  

“That was always the goal, just get a scholarship to a Division I school,” Alex’s mother Sondra said recently as she recalled the decision. “But he was doing so well and finally just said, ‘OK, I want to go pro.’ So we said, ‘Let’s do it.’”

Aliso Viejo’s Sondra was a former standout Division I college player herself at San Diego State University, as was her husband and Alex’s father Erik Michelsen, who was a three-time All-American at the University of Redlands and his father also had a successful career there. Both Sondra and Erik didn’t want their son to miss out on the experiences that come with college life.

“I wanted him to go to college because it was so much fun,” Sondra said. “Traveling and being with your teammates and the football games and parties. It’s a good way to grow up a little, too. But, no, he was very adamant about going pro.”

Sondra said that while she favored the college route, turning pro just made so much more sense. “He was already No. 140 in the world,” she said. “And there wasn’t one college player at that time even close to that.” 

The coming-out party for Alex took place when the 17-year-old high school junior won the Easter Bowl singles and doubles titles in 2022.

“I didn’t expect him to win,” Sondra recalled. “I don’t think he did either. I don’t know, maybe he did. He never really told me growing up that he wanted to go pro.

“It was a surprise, for sure. He always surprises me. I’m like, maybe just win one round and then he wins a tournament. He still surprises me now with what he’s doing on the tour.”

What the 21-year-old is doing on tour lately is consistently winning matches against some of the world’s best players. Alex reached a career high of No. 30 in the world last July and currently sits at No. 35. At Indian Wells he beat world No. 7 Taylor Fritz and in Miami he reached the Round of 16 before coming close to beating world No. 1 Jannik Sinner, 7-5, 7-6 (4).

Alex is currently being coached by Kristof Vliegen after working last year with Robby Ginepri and Craig Boynton. He also travels with longtime trainer Rodney Marshall.

Alex’s first coach was Sondra, who started feeding balls to him at the age of four. Following college, Sondra coached tennis for two years also earning her teaching credential. She taught third grade for 12 years at St. Mary’s School in Aliso Viejo where Alex and older brother Jake attended. 

Sondra played taxi to Alex and Jake as the boys were involved in multiple sports, including soccer, baseball, swimming, and even piano lessons.

Growing up in swimming-crazed Mission Viejo, Sondra didn’t benefit from the early start to tennis that Alex enjoyed as she didn’t pick up the sport till around age 11. She gave up the swimming and piano lessons to focus solely on tennis and played USTA SoCal junior events starting at age 12, mostly in San Diego at Balboa Park, in the early 1980s and played tennis for Capistrano Valley High.

Sondra didn’t experience the college recruiting war Alex went through. “No, I wasn’t good enough,” she said. “I got to be No. 18 in the section in the 18s.”

But after walking on at San Diego State, the only school she applied to, Sondra eventually became the team’s No. 1 player with her most memorable win coming in the Big West Conference Tournament at The Ojai her senior year when she beat local favorite Tracie Johnstone from UC-Santa Barbara after being down a set and a break. 

How did she go from walk-on to No. 1? “Just every day playing hard and the coach (Carol Plunkett) was really good and all the girls pushed each other a lot. The fitness, too, was insane, especially my freshman year. I just remember my freshman year being dead after practice. It was so hard.”

Pro tennis didn’t come calling for Sondra like it did for Alex, but she is content with sitting back and enjoying watching her son’s exploits on the court, even traveling to Wimbledon, Australia, and the US Open when Alex was 17 and playing the junior majors.

“My mom will be 96 next month and so I go over there three times a week to keep her company and take her to the grocery store and do some cooking and cleaning as my father passed away a year and a half ago,” she said. “She’s in the same one-story house that I grew up in in Mission Viejo.”  

There is also a needy but cute King Charles Cavalier dog she cares for at home. Sondra never envisioned herself being the obsessed tennis parent and has given Alex the space to grow into the successful pro he has become.

“He doesn’t really like us going too much because he says he worries about us too much,” Sondra said.

The world got to meet Sondra after Alex upset world No. 12 Stefanos Tsitsipas at the 2025 Aussie Open. In his post-match interview, Alex said of his mom: “I’m sure she’s watching. We used to hit a million balls from the baseline every day. We would just go out there. She would never miss a ball. She’s incredible. No chance I’d be here without her. Thanks mom. Love you.”