Advantage Tennis Academy celebrates class of 2017

It’s graduation season, and the Advantage Tennis Academy is no exception.

The full-time boarding tennis academy celebrated its Class of 2017 on Friday night at the Tennis Club Newport Beach. Seven graduates were celebrated, and each seemed to have their own stories.

The story of Advantage has been one of expansion. The academy has long had the Racquet Club of Irvine as its home base, but about a year ago ATA also expanded to the Tennis Club, forming a partnership with Sean Abdali’s Grand Slam Institute.

The partnership made the site of Friday night’s graduation ceremony fitting. It was in a new patio and courtyard area at the Tennis Club.

“We’ve done it at the beach, at Crystal Cove, we’ve done it in different locations every year,” said Mahmoud Karim, ATA owner and director along with Jimmy Johnson and Adrian Games. “This year, it seemed fit to do it here in Newport Beach. It’s beautiful down here, and it’s a great fit for us to bring in a DJ and turn it into a party.

“Taking on a new location has its ups and downs. We’ve had our younger kids programs developed here, moved our after-school program from Irvine to here, to be able to cater more to the local players. There are more courts here and more players, and that was just huge for us. If you combine the players from Newport and the players from Irvine at Advantage, they dominate the Southern California circuit, a lot of the nationals. It’s been a phenomenal year, a lot to celebrate.”

Yipare Abudureheman is an Irvine resident who was one of the graduates, and will play next year at Concordia University. She is originally from Turkey, but has been training at Advantage for about three years. English is her third language, she said, as she also speaks Turkish and Chinese.

“Every coach has helped me a lot,” Abudureheman said. “I’ve improved a lot in tennis, and academics too. All of the coaches are very patient.”

Harry Cohen, who lives in Coto de Caza, was another of the graduates honored. He will be going to Coastal Carolina in the fall.

“It’s probably 20,000 bricks off my shoulder,” Cohen said of graduating. “No, it feels good. I feel accomplished, relieved, a little sad but ready for the new experience.”

Many local players from Newport Beach who attend Advantage were present Friday night. They included the Di Giulio brothers, Joseph and Austin, who now have their youngest brother Perry also attending Advantage. Joseph recently finished his senior year at UCLA, while Austin is ending his junior year of high school.

Among the Advantage alumni who were also honored were Laguna Beach native Sydney Van Alphen, who graduated high school early and is now a freshman tennis player at USC, as well as Corona del Mar resident Alex Reyna, bound for the University of San Diego.

Max McKennon, who just finished off his freshman year at Newport Harbor that included a run to the CIF Southern Section Individuals singles semifinals, also enjoyed the evening. So did Newport residents Shaya Northrup, who will be a junior at Corona del Mar High, and Mater Dei High incoming sophomore Natasha Hill.

“I wanted to get good for high school tennis,” said Northrup, who has been training at Advantage since the eighth grade. “I wanted to be better for the team and everything.”

Hill said she was also enjoying the festive atmosphere that the graduation party provided.

“It’s different to see everyone out of their tennis clothes, and actually in dresses and suits,” she said.

Scott Spearman, whose family owns the Racquet Club of Irvine, is the club’s CEO. He also has a personal interest in Advantage, as his stepchildren play there. Cami Brown will be a sophomore at University High, while Conrad will be an eighth grader.

“It’s a private club first, a membership club, but you also balance it with an academy,” Spearman said. “That’s a unique dynamic that we’ve been able to have for 15 years. Not a lot of clubs do that, but we do, and it works out well.”

Abdali thinks the partnership with Advantage also is working well for the Tennis Club, he said.

“It’s funny because we competed against each other for so many years, we know each other’s best things and worst qualities,” Abdali said. “And now we’ve become family. It’s crazy. It’s really crazy.”

But it’s working for all parties involved. The amount of junior tennis in one place Friday night certainly was impressive.

“We’re the only program in town that runs a full-time academy,” Karim said. “It’s our flagship program, so everything else kind of feeds into that. We’ve figured out a formula for success for the kids. It’s been over 10 years now, and we’ve developed a lot of great players. We’re trying to just be able to provide it for more kids at this point.”

matthew.szabo@latimes.com

Twitter: @mjszabo