OUR MENTORS

Virgil Christian

Chairman at The Yardley Group

mentors-header

Virgil provided the vision for the USTA’s Home of American Tennis, a 100 million dollar tennis campus, which includes the relocation of the USTA divisions of Community Tennis and Player Development (the USTA is largest NGB in the world) to Lake Nona/Orlando, FL. He provided the plan and executed the parameters of the deal to bring the USTA to FLA. He has partnered with elected officials (State, County and City), county administrators as well as private businesses to make this vision a reality for Orlando.


While at the USTA he drove the change of the collegiate tennis Division I NCAA team match format, authored College MatchDay™ (it is College GameDay™ for tennis), led he successful bid to host the NCAA Championships in '19 and '21 and executed the first collegiate broadcast deal for college tennis with ESPN, Fox and Tennis Channel.  He has been featured in Tennis Industry Magazine, American Builders Quarterly and Orlando Business Journal.  


He created the Facilities Department at the USTA in 2006 (he renamed it the Venue & Design Group in 2019). He has provided facility consultation to over 4,000 Communities, Colleges and Universities. His strength is concept development, programming implementation and designing complimentary properties connected to the “Sports District”. He has completed work on over 400 million dollars in both
expansion and new construction. He has designed and created the most prominent Tennis Venues in America, providing everything from initial concept, reconstruction, renovation and planning of tennis campuses/district. He also developed the specifications and details for the 36’ and 60’ court that have been adopted worldwide and have been accepted by the International Tennis Federation
(ITF)

Involvement :

HEAD COACH

Expertise :

Business Development, Customer Management, Entrepreneurship, Events, Management, Marketing, Communication & PR, Product Design, Product Management, Sales, Sports

SPORTS :

American Football, Baseball, Basketball, Fitness & Workout, Golf, Racket Sports