Junior Player Spotlight: Gabriela Finchelstein, Gotham Tennis Academy at Stadium Tennis Center

For as long as she can remember, tennis has been a part of Gabriela Finchelstein’s life. The NYC-born teenager, who goes by Gaby, began playing with oversized balloons substituting as tennis balls when she was four-years-old, an early introduction to the sport that would become the focal part of her upbringing.

But her tennis origins date back even farther than that. Finchelstein’s parents were huge tennis fans living in Argentina, and they shared a favorite player, Gabriela Sabatini, the Argentine tennis legend who won the 1990 U.S. Open, and compiled a decorated professional career. When they moved to the United States, the couple had a daughter and named her, appropriately, Gabriela.

“They joked [before I was born], saying that our daughter is going to be named Gabriela and she is going to play tennis,” Finchelstein says. “They liked the name, but it’s also become this ongoing joke that I was destined to play tennis.”

But her parents never pushed her into tennis, she found her love for the sport organically. She loved tennis from the moment she first picked up a racquet, and always understood the value of it. The one rule her father established for her early on was that she could never throw a racket.

“It’s always been clear that playing tennis is a privilege, and it’s something amazing I get to have in my life,” she says. “The most important thing they taught me is having a positive attitude on court, and that has always been my mentality.”

She has taken that to heart. When she was eight-years-old, Finchelstein began playing at Gotham Tennis Academy at the Stadium Tennis Center in the Bronx. The place has become a home away from home for her, finding comfort on the tennis courts but also with the people who work there and who have fostered her tennis development.

“I remember playing in the programs there, and my little sister LuLu would be standing outside the curtains shadow swinging. She was trying to play also, she was only about four-years-old, and that’s one of my earliest memories there,”  said Finchelstein.

The comfort and familiarity Finchelstein has felt at Gotham has gone a long way, and is a primary reason why she has remained at Gotham throughout the years.

“The atmosphere at Gotham is so great. The coaches are super uplifting, and you can tell that everyone there really cares about how I am doing, how I am playing, and about me,” she said. “Staying consistently at one place has really given me a lot of balance. I feel like in tennis, you’re always changing opponents, switching surfaces, or dealing with different weather. In New York there are a lot of indoor tennis facilities, but staying at Gotham has given me stability.”

And it isn’t just stability, but the expertise and depth of coaching provided by the program’s directors, Chris DeStefano and Baloo Turcsik, as well as her primary coach, Fabio Minami, has been invaluable. Finchelstein says when DeStefano and Turcsik are on court with you, they provide incredible motivation, and are always there with answers to her questions. And with Minami, the two share a special bond and connection that has constantly helped her improve over the years.

“I’ve never had someone be able to explain things to me like he does, and he has coached me for so long that he really understands me,” said Finchelstein. “In terms of explaining technique, he is able to do so clearly, even if it’s a complicated adjustment, he simplifies it so that I really understand it. Also, he knows how to adjust each training session. If on a certain day he sees that I have a lot of energy, and I’m feeling my best, he’ll push me. But on other days, if he sees that I am down or not in the best headspace, we’ll work on more technical things.

The whole team there has known me since I was a little girl, and they’ve basically seen me grow up. They know the best ways to get the most out of me.”

For the last year, Finchelstein has moved her education to online schooling through the Dwight Global Online School, which has allowed her to spend more time on court training, and increase her ability to travel not only to tournaments, but to different academies in the United States and abroad.

All of that has helped create a well-rounded tennis player, and attracted the interest of collegiate coaches. In her search for the right school and the best tennis fit for her, she wanted to find something similar to her tennis home in New York at Gotham.

“I wanted to be in an environment where the team got along well, and had a positive relationship with their coach,” she explains. “Also, both my parents are professors so school is a very important part of my life, so I was looking to go to a school that also pushes me academically.”

She found it in Williams College, a liberal arts college in Massachusetts. When Finchelstein met head coach Anik Cepeda, she knew she had found her home for the next chapter of her life.

“She was always so interested in not only my results, but also my development,” Finchelstein says. “One of the key aspects that I was looking for was somewhere where I could develop as a player, but also a person, so Williams was kind of the perfect fit.”

Until she arrives on campus later this fall, Finchelstein is excited to continue her development so she is ready to compete at the college level. She wants to push herself as much as she can in her training, and continue to compete at a high-level.

“I’m always looking to grow as a player, and compete better. The most important thing is, win or lose, to compete well. That holds a lot of weight with me. I love to win, but the objective should be to give it your best on the court, and embrace looking for a solution and problem-solving.”

Tennis has been a core facet of Finchelstein’s life, since the day she was born. It has been something she shares not just with her younger sister LuLu, but also her extended family. She has family still in Argentina, and when she visits, her grandpa and cousins join her on court:

“That’s another beautiful thing about tennis to me. It’s been a way to connect with my family,” she said. “My sister and I play together all the time. She really encompasses the attitude our parents stressed to us, she just won the Sportsmanship Award from USTA Eastern, and she has a beautiful, composed game. We learn a lot from each other.”

The tennis court has always been a place of tranquility for Finchelstein. It has been that way for as long as she can remember, and will continue to be as she closes out her junior career and becomes a college athlete.

“I know it sounds simple, but I really enjoy my time on court. It’s usually the best part of my day,” she proclaims. “I really love being on the court, it just brings a smile out of me. I feel like when I am playing tennis, I’m really having fun, especially when I compete. What pushes me in practice is for me to be able to be good at doing what I love. I think there’s so much possibility in this sport, and I just want to be the best college player I can be. I want to continue playing tennis, because I love it, and it consistently pushes me to be better.”

Gaby Finchelstein is one of the many players across the Eastern Section that benefits from the work done by the not-for-profit Junior Tennis Foundation, which supports tennis programs for under-served youth and people with disabilities. That includes a new pilot program at multiple programs and clubs in the Section, one of which is Gotham Tennis Academy, to help subsidize highly-skilled juniors and provide the kind of training to allow them to compete at their highest level. 

“We’re providing them with a grant to continue doing what they are doing, and encouraging them to do more,” said Junior Tennis Foundation Executive Director & CEO Mark McIntyre. “We’re going to be doing that four or five other places across the Section this spring to benefit players to level the playing field for them. We are a not-for-profit and therefore accept tax-deductible donations from people, which will all go towards supporting kids such as Gaby.”

To learn more about the Junior Tennis Foundation and the great work it does across the Section, visit JuniorTennisFoundation.org.