MERIDEN, CT - Beck Bond has met Miss. North Carolina, accepted a tennis scholarship to North Carolina State University and hit with John McEnroe - twice.
Other than that, it's been a pretty boring senior year for the junior star who attends Cheshire Academy.
Bond, the No. 2-ranked 18-year-old in New England, attended the tennis trip of his young lifetime in mid-April, when he was invited to the Azalea Festival Tennis Challenge on the campus of UNC-Wilmington in Wilmington, N.C.
The event was a fund-raiser organized by the Greater Wilmington Tennis Association to help expand the city's Althea Gibson Tennis Center.
Bond was invited by one of the event's organizers and stars, Lenny Simpson, former doubles partner of Arthur Ashe.
"Lenny is a Cheshire Academy alum and he came to visit the school last year and took a liking to Beck and was impressed that he was a Top 10 player in New England," said Jason Perugini, who has coached Bond at the Tennis and fitness Center of Rocky Hill for several years. "Beck is just a great kid who has worked so hard. So for me, as his coach, to see him out on the court warming up John McEnroe in front of 3,000 people...it was awesome. I think I'm still on the moon over it."
Bond had actually met and hit with McEnroe before. Last summer, the two met at McEnroe's Manhattan-based tennis academy. The meeting was set up by Perugini's former college tennis teammate who now works for McEnroe.
"I got the chance to play a match against (McEnroe) at his club, and it was unbelievable...mind-boggling that I was on the court with him," Bond said. "He beat up on me pretty bad, 6-2, 6-3. He can still really play."
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