Deja Kitchiner Tennis Prodigy

About Deja. Most of the footage from this video is Deja between the ages of 10 &12 Deja is currently 13 years old, 5'5 126 pounds with blazing speed, explosive power, and soft hands! Deja began her tennis dream at age 3. Deja's father noticed that she was an exceptional athlete and that she had a special ball striking skill. He began to nurture Deja's talent. Instead of teaching Deja from a textbook he let Deja develop her own style and strokes. By age 4 Deja was practicing, watching film of the greats, and had began to carefully build her body to perform at an elite professional level. Although Deja was working to become a professional, her young parents were unable to afford standard coaching, or the expenses of playing a full junior schedule. As a result Deja played approximately 5 tournaments per year, a relatively low number of events. By age 10 Deja was strong enough to compete with older players, so the decision was tentatively made that Deja would play in the older age groups. Before moving to Florida from Northern California Deja had became a top 20 player in the 10s division, this was despite that fact that Deja played only a few tournaments. That year Deja also played in a few14s/16s events winning about half of her matches and placing in several. In Nov 2006 Deja's family moved to Florida so that Deja could play tennis year round, the Northern California winters were not ideal for tennis. On many occasions Deja and her father practiced in the rain or hit through the back of an SUV for target practice when the courts were too wet or if it was too cold for full practices. When Deja arrived in Florida she had just turned ten, and she had won 3 straight 10 year old tournaments(2 in California, and 1 in Georgia) Deja's father had heard a lot about Florida tennis and he wanted to see how Deja's game compared to the girls her age in Florida. Deja was entered into a tournament located between two of Floridas top academies Saddlebrook, and the Bolitier