At The Net w/ Gordon and Zen Uehling, CourtSense
The person first, everything else is second.
That is a mantra that Gordon Uehling believed in when he decided to embark and build his own tennis academy at the turn of the 21st century. A former hockey and tennis player himself, Uehling had always embraced the educational aspect of coaching. During his time spent competing on the ATP Tour, he was fortunate enough to come across some top tennis minds and was influenced by smart people in the industry, and wanted to take that knowledge and put it to good use.
“Competing around the world for about seven years and playing in around 30 different countries allowed me to study the game and learn from some of the game’s great minds,” Uehling recalls. “I was always taking notes, and I ultimately knew that this is what I wanted to do, and I was lucky to be influenced by some incredible people.”
So after his time on tour, Uehling decided to open up CourtSense, a tennis facility in New Jersey with the idea of creating a truly educational tennis experience. He teamed with famed Spanish coach Jose Higueras to develop many of the concepts, as well as Dr. Jim Loehr, a renowned sports psychologist, who in tennis alone has worked with greats such as Novak Djokovic, Maria Sharapova and Monica Seles, amongst others, to create the program’s overarching philosophies.
“I grew up with dyslexia, which gave me a lot of compassion for learning, and I wanted to take that to sports,” he said. “I was gifted athletically and artistically growing up, but I found school challenging. I really wanted to create a process-driven concept, where you go from A to B to C, as opposed to A to Z.”
And so for the last 20 years, Uehling and CourtSense have become the home to many top junior tennis players. One of the key reasons for its success, according to Uehling, is the camaraderie between the coaches and directors, who remain on the same page, as well as its ability to combine all aspects of what it takes to develop an athlete.
As Uehling says, “The Art of Coaching plus Sports Science equals Magic.”
“What I found over the years is that a lot of great coaches don’t know a lot about the science, but the sports scientists don’t know a lot about coaching and dealing with people, so we wanted to bring all of that together,” he said. “I named our company CourtSense because I really wanted to emphasize that we use all of the senses in our teaching.”
Uehling truly believes in connecting with the person, whether that’s a coach, player or parent, first and then everything else comes second. It’s about finding what the person is passionate about and going from there, which is how he approached the idea of getting his own children into tennis. One would think that someone who has been so heavily evolved in tennis would push their own kids into the sport, but Uehling took the opposite approach.
It started with he and his wife, Rehana, and their oldest child, daughter Zia, who they put into tennis early on, but soon found out it wasn’t for her.
“She’s 18-years-old now, but when Zia was around five, she whispered to her mom that she didn’t like tennis,” he said. “We thought, how can you not like tennis, you have all this access. But as I say to people that work for me, we are in the passion business, not the tennis business. I told Zia right away that she didn’t have to play tennis, but that we wanted her to find her passion and pursue that.” 
Their second child, son Zen, took an immediate liking to tennis. It began with him playing in a Teddy Tennis program when he was two-years-old, and was immediately in love with the sport.
Once Zen found that passion for tennis, he and his father bonded over that shared love, and Zen can remember back to those early days.
“He created these fun games for me to play with my friends. I didn’t realize it at the time, but many of those games were helping me with my coordination and movement,” said Zen. “I have great memories of him setting up obstacle courses and mini-tennis in our living room…My mom was worried that we would wreck the house, but we were really careful.”
With that passion and access to all the tennis resources he could want, Zen continued his tennis journey and took his training to CourtSense. But Gordon made sure not be an overbearing parent, or treat his son any different than other players in the programs.
“I had the approach early on that I wanted to pull him along as opposed to pushing him. It was really about self-discovery and having him want to do it,” he said. “I never wanted to coach him or be his coach. I work with his coaches, and give them the power to either agree or disagree with me on things, I make sure not to dictate anything other than provide my opinion, and give the coaches the freedom to coach the best way they can.”
A key factor in that trust in his coaches come from that camaraderie he emphasized when he created CourtSense in the first place, ensuring that coaches and directors, no matter their backgrounds, are on the same page and have that open level of communication which is crucial in creating a consistent program.
“CourtSense is a great place to train because they emphasize fundamentals, and all the coaches work from the same philosophy,” said Zen. “They created high performance groups that pushed me to get to the next level. CourtSense has a great competitive pathway for anyone that’s motivated to compete like me.”
That hands-off approach has been crucial for Zen in finding that aforementioned motiviation as he continues to come into his own.
“I think it’s good that my dad did not force me to play tennis, because I don’t think I would have loved the sport as much as I do today,” he admits. “He never put an emphasis on winning or pressured me. He always talked about the journey and not the destination, and that my ability to have fun competing and working hard was the most important thing. He always focused on me more as a person, not as a tennis player.”
Now at 15-years-old, Zen is one of the top-ranked players in his age group, currently inside the Top 20 in the Eastern Section and the Top 150 nationally. He still has room to grow, both in terms of his physical stature and his mental tennis approach, but as he continues that process-based outlook on his tennis, his future is extremely bright.
“I’m a late bloomer physically, so I realize that I have to be patient in this whole process,” said Zen. “My short term goal is to get stronger physically by working hard on my fitness. I’m just starting to play ITF tournaments in the Dominican Republic with a great team. I’m working toward getting a world ranking on the ITF Junior Tour as soon as possible.”
Zen has a strong desire to be the best possible tennis player he can be, and has the work ethic and resources available to make that happen. Through the connections his father has made during his time as a pioneer in the tennis industry, Zen and his father have been able to share some amazing experiences together including earlier this fall at the 2023 U.S. Open. Gordon has been friends with Novak Djokovic for years now, and Gordon and Zen were in Djokovic’s player box during some of his matches, and even got to celebrate his championship victory afterwards as well.
Being able to see greatness and the unrelenting work ethic of someone like Djokovic can have a profound impact on a young player and should only add to Zen’s motivation as he continues his tennis journey. He has dreams of moving on to play college tennis and climbing the NCAA rankings before making a push to play professional tennis.
The Uehling tennis dynamic is a unique one, and Gordon’s desire to always put the person first not only applies to the business he runs at CourtSense, but the way he approached his son’s tennis career. With his own self-realized passion for tennis, and the work ethic to continue improving, Zen is the perfect representative of the type of tennis academy Gordon set out to build decades ago.
