A Tennis Journey, Shared: A Mother’s Day
Reflection on the Road with Her Daughter

The journey of a tennis mom can take all kinds of twists and turns. There are good days and bad days. There are peaks that go along with the big wins, and valleys with the tough losses.

But as one Southern California tennis mom, Vivian Center, can attest, the journey is certainly a fulfilling one – and she wouldn’t trade the title for anything.  

A few days before Mother’s Day, South Pasadena’s Center took time out to reflect on that journey and all that she has learned as the mother of UCLA Bruin freshman Olivia Center, one-time US Open main draw player, junior national champion, and NCAA doubles finalist.

The youngest of two daughters, 19-year-old Olivia’s first season concluded on Friday as UCLA was eliminated in the Round of 16 of the NCAA Championships, 4-2, to the No. 2-ranked and defending national champion host Texas A&M Aggies.

“It can be so intense because you’re working through the typical mother-daughter dynamics that any mother and daughter go through, but in tennis there’s an additional layer of being in this pressurized environment,” Vivian said. “You are constantly together going through these highs and lows. But you learn so much about each other, not just mother and daughter, but as people and seeing the experience through Olivia’s eyes has been very eye-opening. It’s been such a special time and it’s been a privilege being her mom in this experience.”

Vivian comes from a tennis-playing family as her father played in his native Taiwan and she competed on her high school team growing up in Houston, Texas. Vivian moved west to attend UCLA Law School with her future husband, Brian Center, and has spent the past 20 years as a staff attorney for a federal district court judge.

Vivian may be a federal attorney by day, but her unofficial title could easily be “Tennis Mom”—a role she’s embraced wholeheartedly while logging thousands of miles alongside Olivia over the years on their tennis journey.

“As a tennis parent you get this VIP, front-row seat watching your child grow and develop through the sport,” explained Vivian, who also has an older daughter, 21-year-old Sophia, an accomplished singer and songwriter studying at Chapman University in the City of Orange. “I feel so grateful for the opportunity to watch her grow and develop into this person that I look at and I’m just like, ‘Wow,’ I have so much respect and admiration for her. So, this whole tennis journey has been a blessing in so many ways watching her grow. And then I feel like I’ve grown also as a person through this. There are so many lessons that I’ve learned as a person and as a parent.”

It all started at Arroyo Seco Racquet Club with lessons given by John Letts of iTennis. Vivian said it wasn’t until COVID-19 hit that Olivia got serious about her tennis and began steadily improving while working with her current coach Zibu Ncube on his private clay court in Woodland Hills.

Olivia led San Marino High to its first-ever CIF-Southern Section Division I title in 2021 and the team beat Mater Dei High in 2022 to claim the program’s first CIF-SS Open Division crown and the unofficial title of best high school tennis team in all of Southern California.

Originally, Olivia was interested in traveling out of state for college but ultimately chose to be a Bruin because she was impressed with the school, the tennis program, and the coaches. It was a bonus that she also had a relationship with head coach Stella Sampras-Webster. Olivia has remained close friends with Stella’s twin daughters Sophia (Vanderbilt) and Savannah (University of Miami). In 2024, Olivia and Sophia teamed to win the prestigious Easter Bowl.

It was in San Diego at the Billie Jean King USTA Girls’ Nationals in the summer of 2023 where Olivia became a national champion as she and her now-UCLA teammate and doubles partner since age 10, Kate Fakih, shocked everyone by winning the coveted title as alternates. That meant a whirlwind trip to New York City to compete as wild cards in the US Open women’s main draw.  

“It was a total surprise,” Vivian said of the duo winning BJK Nationals. “We told them to just go out there and have fun. Everyone was so excited. It was just hard to believe and not on anyone’s radar.”

It was the first trip to the US Open for Vivian and Olivia, and now they were headed with other family and friends to the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center on a main-draw player credential. The pairing faced the tough seeded team of Leylah Fernandez and Taylor Townsend on an outer stadium court. Despite the loss, Olivia and Kate “handled themselves very well,” Vivian said, and gained some new fans along the way.

Vivian isn’t able to be in-person at all of Olivia’s matches. She chose Ojai for the Big Ten Conference Finals, but did not travel to Texas for the NCAA Individuals doubles final in October, nor did she attend Friday’s final match of the season. Instead, she watched the matches on her computer via livestream, much the same as Wayne Bryan, who often tuned in from afar because he was too nervous to watch his famous boys, Bob and Mike Bryan, in person.

“It is nerve-racking,” Vivian said of just another part of her journey. “But I’ve really worked on enjoying these moments.”

The most enjoyable trip Vivian said she experienced with Olivia was when the two traveled to an ITF J500 in Osaka, Japan, with Olivia calling it a “really special trip.”

“It was a country that I had always wanted to visit and Olivia was excited about visiting there also,” Vivian said. “The people there are just so nice. It was a very well-run, well-organized tournament. After she finished there we then spent a few days in Kyoto and did some sightseeing. It was just a really nice trip for some mother-daughter bonding.”

As Olivia finishes up her first year as a pre-psychology-biology major at UCLA, Vivian said she plans to play some of the upcoming SoCal Pro Series events. She, along with Kate, has also been selected to compete in Germany and play in the World University Games.

And so the tennis mother journey looks a lot different than it did the past few years with not as much travel as Vivian is used to in the coming months. She will always be mindful of the journey and all the special memories that won’t soon fade.

“There was something I was thinking about recently that is common wisdom among tennis parents – that it’s your child’s journey, not your own,” she said. “And I was thinking that I don’t agree with that. I just don’t know how a parent invests that much time and energy into this kind of endeavor and it not be their journey too. It’s both of our journeys.”

“But I think that the lesson really, for me anyways, has been about being able to discern what part of it is Olivia’s journey and what part of it is my journey,” explained Vivan. “While there may be some intersections, they’re not the same. And so the trick is knowing how to support Olivia in her journey without collapsing the two.”

On this Mother’s Day empty nesters Vivian and Brian Center will welcome their two daughters’ home with open arms joined by Vivian’s mother, Sue Kuo. “This Mother’s Day feels special because it’s the first year they’ve both been away and we’ll all be together,” Vivian said. “I’ll make brunch, and it will be so great to have three generations under one roof.” For Vivian, motherhood and tennis have become beautifully intertwined — and she wouldn’t have it any other way.