Two Kuckelmans, Pham and more: KC United Tennis program has young stars to celebrate

Eight high school seniors in the KC United Tennis program gathered at the Overland Park Racquet Club early this week to celebrate signing their college tennis scholarships.

All of them came to tennis early and thrived due to the tutelage and exposure to national competition afforded by the KCUT. They’re all only weeks away from starting the next chapter of their lives and tennis careers.

Shawnee Mission Northwest senior Nam Pham is undefeated this year and hopes to wrap up the Kansas 6A state title this weekend. He’ll play college tennis at Illinois State.

Pham is the top tennis recruit in Kansas, and No. 50 in the nation according to tennisrecruiting.net. His primary goal was to be in a position to start his professional career this summer, but a scholarship and state title will suffice in the meantime.

“High school tennis is a more relaxed type of tennis rather than being the club and playing more national tournaments against opponents that have more experience and game and play a higher level of tennis,” Pham said.

Pham started playing around age 5 because that’s when he noticed his older brother, Vinh, playing the game. The 5-year-old Pham loved taking mighty rips at tennis balls. He still does, of course. The difference now is he can put the ball just about anywhere he pleases.

“We had some family rivalry, but it was more of me picking up the racquet and saying ‘Woah, this is fun,” Pham said. “I decided to do this for the long run, and here I am.”

Pham had offers from Drake, Southern Methodist University in Dallas, and the University of Delaware, among others. It turned out that Illinois State was just the right fit.

Blue Valley North seniors Ellie and Chloe Kuckelman were looking for the right college fit as well. The identical twins wanted to remain teammates in college, and got their wish at Nebraska.

“We’ve always been together, and we knew we wanted to play together at the collegiate level. When we got to high school and started talking about our plans for the future we got together and decided we wanted to go to the same place,” Chloe said.

The 2017 and 2018 Kansas 6A state finals were both Kuckelman family affairs. Chloe (No. 1 recruit in Kansas, No. 91 nationally) defeated Ellie (No. 2 in Kansas, No. 115 nationally) in 2018. Ellie prevailed in the family showdown in 2017.

“Honestly it’s the best scenario. I wanted to meet her in the finals, it was my goal, and it didn’t matter who won or lost,” Ellie said. “We got to play together as sisters in the state championship, and that was really special to us.”

For all their genetic similarities, the tennis court is one place where it’s easy to tell the sisters apart. Chloe is left-handed, and Ellie is right-handed. That, combined with their talent and close connection that twins often share, makes them a formidable doubles team.

The sisters got their start one day when they noticed the children next door hitting tennis balls off a garage door. The Kuckelmans wanted to play, and play they did.

“We were about 4, and we started taking lessons and it took off from there,” Ellie said with a smile.

Ellie and Chloe played other sports growing up, including basketball. But tennis is the future, and the future is now.