Nino Chapter VI

As she started climbing the skill ladder, Nino had played up in age brackets in the Georgian National Championship. It was a very prestigious tournament and of course local to her. That made it important. The shiny object right in front of her. But because she kept playing up and getting beaten by older players she didn’t win it until age 14. The silver lining was that Georgian tournaments had large back draws which offered 5-6 matches per tournament, allowing her to acquire a lot of match play experience even if she was out of the main draw.

A source of pride from those tournaments and the friendships she formed with the other Georgian players, was that the elite of the juniors she played with and against all achieved some level of professional success, and all remain friends to this day.

Nino achieved #1 in Juniors at the same time as Marcello Rios of Chile on the boys side. Rios went on to be #1 in the ATP rankings, eclipsing Jaime Fiol who had been the highest ranked Chilean player until then. Jaime had reached #14 in the world in the 1970s, and upon his retirement became the Director of Tennis at Round Hill Country Club.

A foot injury eventually hampered her professional career – a stress fracture sustained while playing the US Open at age 19. Doctors couldn’t believe she finished the match. By age 21 she was physically unable to play at the professional level.

Post playing she transitioned back to Georgia, relying on family and friends to help her get over tennis. She had to learn how to put it aside. In her mentoring moments with people she knows on tour she provides the wisdom that the end of tennis isn’t the end of the world.

Nino started to work with the Georgian Tennis Federation. Her base had been in New Jersey, so she decided to move back to the US. At that time a friend who coached at Cal Berkely told her there were coaching opportunities in California. She had played in the Stanford tournaments and knew she liked the area and decided to pursue it. In keeping with her humble approach to things, her first coaching job in the Bay Area was at Bentley High School, which until then had no tennis courts.

Later, a friend introduced her to the Director of Tennis at Blackhawk Country Club, Gene Havrilenko so she went to taught at Blackhawk for a few months. Before taking the Blackhawk job, Gene had been one of the first Tennis Directors at Round Hill. He would later express regret at ever leaving RHTC.

While at Blackhawk Nino coached a Round Hill Junior who was also in the Blackhawk program (it is common for higher level juniors to travel in search of better instruction). She taught Round Hill kids at Blackhawk until - inevitably - the Round Hill member pushed RHTC to recruit her.

Besides soccer, Georgians are most passionate about basketball, having produced former Golden State Warriors center Zaza Pachulia who is best-friends with a close friend of Nino’s, a common circumstance in the close-knit community of Georgian ex-pats.

Fashion is a major pursuit of Georgians (especially Nino).

• Who were her idols? Her parents.

• What was the first racket she owned? Wood racket, make unknown.

• When she graduated from High school it was a tradition to write inspirational messages on their white long sleeved collar shirts, which has turned into a fashion statement adopted by Georgina rappers (yes, Georgians do rap), and sold for as much as 700 euros.

• Nino lights up when speaking about fashion and Georgia. Among her favorites t-shirts with the history of breaking away from Russia inscribed on the back.

• Georgian Denma Gvasalia, the chief designer for Balenciaga was a fugitive from the Russo-Georgian war. He was named Creative Director for Gucci in 2025.

• She has great pride in her heritage. The ending of her family name - “Vili” - indicates a specific region in Georgia, on her father’s side, noted for wine-making, and once allied with a king who named his war-time comrades Vili “or son of”.

• Her married name is Tabidze, which indicates a family from different region of the country. Though she and Irakli grew up in the capital city of Tbilisi, they actually met in California.

• She comes from a family that values education very highly. Her father is a physicist. Her mother is a numismatist (one who studies coins) at the national museum of Georgia, where she is an expert on coins found in Georgia from AD 221 – 626 (Media Tsotselia).

• Nino speaks Georgian, English and Russian. Georgian is its own language, with its own alphabet, not related to Russian.

• George is her younger (but he looks older) brother, who resides in NY, working for Sotheby’s.

• She has a great extended family, including wonderful grandparents and many aunts, uncles and cousins. Both her grandparents were exiled under Stalin. Both of her grandfather’s fought in WWII and survived.

• Her home country of George reminds her of her adopted state of California, both are rich in wine and food cultures. Georgia is all about good food and good wine. The people are very welcoming, very passionate about everything life.

The shared love of tennis is the obvious bond for Nino Louarsabishvili and the Round Hill membership, but it’s her dedication to family, people, food and culture that drives her daily interactions with members across common interests and shared values.