Kareem Gobran attended Saddlebrook Academy to train with the best juniors in the world at age 12.  He was truly inspired by the best juniors and professional players in the world that trained at the academy: Andy Roddick, Mardy Fish, Michael Russell, Jennifer Capriati and Pete Sampras were some of the athletes that you saw daily who really inspired him to be the best player that he can be. Their effect on his tennis IQ at the time was priceless. 

 

Witnessing the development journey that each player took to be the best has a huge effect on his coaching knowledge and what he preach to his students at the Tennis Club at Newport Beach every day. His coach at the time was the hardest working man he had ever met: Alvaro Betancourt. Alvaro still teaches at Saddlebrook and has a full lesson schedule till this day. At the time he also worked with Pete Sampras when he trained at the Academy. Alvaro really inspired Kareem and made him believe that you can truly achieve everything in this game if your work is detailed and you don’t waste a second of your day. 

 

Kareem was a top junior in Florida where he played locally, and he represented Egypt in Orange Bowl and Eddie Herr. His junior career ended with an accident which severely damaged his left hand and fractured his skull. After a year of rehab, he focused on attending college and graduated with a Bachelor of Industrial Engineering. Kareem attended University of California, Irvine (UCI) and received 4 graduate certificates in Business Analyst, Six Sigma Green Belt, Six Sigma Black Belt, and Project management. While attending UCI he started his coaching career at south bay tennis center in Torrance California and ran a high-performance tennis program for 2 years. 

 

He moved to Orange County and worked as Head Coach and later Program Director at Advantage Tennis Academy at the racket club of Irvine for 5 years. At that time, he wanted to focus on all aspects of Development which resulted in starting his own Tennis Program "KG Elite Tennis". KG Elite Tennis focus was a full-time program that provided nutrition management, high performance training, tournament management and travel, and college placement and parent education. 

 

Throughout his coaching career he placed over 50 players in division 1 2 3 and NAIA colleges across the nation. Kareem joined the Tennis Club at Newport Beach in May 2021 and his currently The Tennis Director at The Tennis Club at Newport Beach. He started a nonprofit All4tennis, and its purpose is to make tennis accessible to everyone and fund athletes to play national and international events all over the world.

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• Coaching Experience = 20 years

• Division 1 Athletes developed = 56 players

• Top 5 Nationally Ranked Players = 5

• ATP WTA Players developed = 8

 

Most Recent Developed players:

• Alec Adamson 2nd best record at Corona Del Mar Highschool (top 50 nationally ranked player Division 1) top 400 in the world ATP

• Kelly Keller UTR 10.24 (Top 50 nationally ranked player Division 1) currently competing for ARKANSAS

• Dania Deaifi UTR 9 Full ride awarded to Grand Canyon University Division 1.

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International Pickleball Teaching Professional Association (IPTPA) certified.