How the Love All tennis scholarship has helped Hanna Dessie reach her dreams

Growing up in Los Angeles, Hanna Dessie found her love for tennis at a young age thanks to her mother, Jeri Norris. Born as "an ordinary kid ... not born into wealth," her mother says, Dessie overcame adversity and been able to live her dreams on and off the court as a result of the vision of actor Boris Kodjoe, his wife Nicole Ari Parker, and the Love All scholarship program sponsored by their family's charitable foundation, the Mouratoglou Tennis Academy and Tennis Channel.

Kodjoe and Ari Parker have led their foundation since 2008, when it was called the Sophie's Voice Foundation in honor of their daughter, who was diagnosed with spina bifida at birth. The couple have committed to using their celebrity to promote the health and wellnes of families worldwide, as well as support social activism causes close to their hearts; as a lifelong tennis player, Kodjoe is particularly passionate about using the sport to do both, and recognizes that fostering a diverse and inclusive environment in tennis is so important.

As a result of receiving the inaugural Love All scholarship while in high school, Dessie was able to live, train and learn at the academy in the French Riviera at no cost, before she enrolled at Howard University this past fall as a Division I student-athlete.

"For us, Love All represents an opportunity for Black students to be included in a sport that will greatly benefit from diversity," Kodjoe said. "Hanna as a Love All scholar represents all the values that the Kodjoe Family Foundation supports. She is a kind, emphatic person; she's a hard worker. She wants to learn, she wants to grow.

"We're talking about inclusion and representation. Every child deserves an opportunity to discover and develop their talents."

Leaving her mother to travel across an ocean in pursuit of an opportunity of a lifetime proved "scary in the beginning," Dessie said. But over two years, she was able to hone her game with daily training—"I've never been able to train this much," she said—which included serving practice before school, on-court sessions and fitness, and even had the opportunity to get tips from Mouratoglou himself. She even played her first tournament at Ville de Toulon, fell in love with clay-court tennis, and saw marked improvement as she made her way through France's junior tennis ranking system.

All that led to her being accepted to Howard, Vice President Kamala Harris' alma mater, in Washington, D.C. This fall, she scored her first collegiate match win for the Bisons at October's Hidden Dual Invitational.

"Being at the academy taught me that tennis, although it is an individual sport, it's so much more than just yourself," Dessie said. "I really got to understand how energy matters, who you surround yourself with. I think there are so many lessons that you learn playing tennis, that you can take and apply to other aspects of life. This expereince has been amazing because it taught me so much about myself, about the world."

And according to both Dessie and her mother, she is already hoping to use her experience to pay it forward to other players.

"Tennis costs a lot of money, and it requires a lot of resources to be good at it. ... I always think in my mind I would hate for there to be another child, or somebody who has so much potential, like myself, to not be able to excel at the level that they could because of lack of resources. It should be inclusive, and I think there is a lot more work that has to be done."

But through initiatives like the Love All tennis scholarship, and determined young people like Dessie, progress is already being seen.