Page 32 - Tennis Magazine April 2019

Danielle Collins’ title run at last year’s
Oracle Challenger Series event in
Newport Beach was a turning point in the
former college star’s professional career.

Larry Ellison gets the photo-ops

at Indian Wells, but away from the

camera, Oracle’s commitment to

U.S. tennis has begun to bear fruit

by Stephen Tignor

Visionofnn

Mark Hurd laughs as he recalls a hitting session he recently had with done really well, and we couldn’t be
young American pro Mackenzie McDonald. It was, apparently, a workout prouder of them,” Hurd says. He has
that pushed the 62-year-old CEO of Oracle all the way to—and maybe the same hopes for the 2018 recipi-
past—his physical limit. ents, Georgia Tech’s Chris Eubanks
“It’s hard to believe I’d have trouble against someone in his 20s, isn’t and Ohio State’s Francesca Di Lorenzo.
it?” Hurd asks with a sarcastic chuckle. So far, so good: The 22-year-old
The veteran tech executive may be as competitive as anyone who has Eubanks began 2019 by qualifying for
scaled the heights of Silicon Valley, but he didn’t mind getting a lesson the Australian Open for the first time.
in the modern game. If anything, he’s pleased to see how far McDonald, The grants have a personal meaning
a former UCLA standout and NCAA singles and doubles champion, has for Hurd. Introduced to tennis by an
progressed in his two years on tour. Hurd, and Oracle, can rightly claim uncle when he was 10, he has loved
to have played a role in the 23-year-old’s success. and played the sport his whole life.
As a teenager in South Florida in the
early 1970s, he played it well enough
to earn a scholarship to Baylor Univer-
The first recipients, McDonald and for-
2017, the company
I began the Oracle U.S. mer Virginia Cavalier Danielle Collins, sity. Hurd may have even played well
enough to make a go of it as a pro, but
each used that much-needed cash
Tennis Awards: a pair of
$1 rants given each year to infusion to make surprisingly deep he never had a real chance to find out.
two American college players who are inroads in their rookie years on tour. “I was on the fringe,” says Hurd, who
trying to climb the pro-game mountain. “Danielle and Mackie have both graduated with a degree in Business AP

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