Lindl at home on tennis court

PANAMA CITY — Brittany Lindl always is looking ahead.

From her next shot to her tennis future, Lindl has been one step ahead of her opponents throughout her young career.

Following her sixth-grade year at Mowat Middle School, Lindl looked into the Florida Virtual School, an online home school program that enabled her to take classes at home and spend more time practicing tennis.

That decision has helped Lindl achieve a Top 100 national, and Top 10 state ranking.

Earlier this month, as a 14-year-old, Lindl won the Gator Bowl tournament in Jacksonville, one of the oldest and most prestigious youth tennis tournaments in the country, in the under-16 division. Lindl turned 15 on Thursday, but had to play up a class because the tournament and her birthday fell in the same month.

Lindl said her standing should improve to No. 5 when the state rankings coming out later this month.

Because of her No. 8 ranking heading into the Gator Bowl, Lindl earned the top seed and had to win five matches to claim the title.

“Usually being the one seed has a lot of pressure with it,” Lindl said. “We got back from a vacation the week before, so I was really relaxed.”

Time away from the court has been a rare occurrence for Lindl, who is preparing for one of the top junior tournaments in Florida next month.

Tennis hasn’t only dominated her young life, but supplied much of the focus for her parents as well. A trip to the Easter Bowl tournament in California in April allowed the Lindls to take a weeklong vacation, their first in more than three years.

A natural right-hander, Lindl took to the sport more as a left-hander and has used that to her benefit. She’s learned to use angles that her opponents don’t expect.

“I love pounding my backhand crosscourt,” Lindl said. “I’ve been working on coming to the net and shortening my points.

“I’ve worked on being consistent and I think I am.”

Each family member has a role in Brittany’s success, in addition to sacrificing to support a $15,000 per year hobby. Her mother, Julia, has been the go-between for school as well as Brittany’s chauffeur, shuttling her to Tallahassee in 2008 three days a week for lessons by the Florida State University men’s tennis coaches.

Lindl’s father once shouldered the responsibility for grooming his daughter on the court. After years of being Brittany’s primary coach, she moved on to the FSU coaches and now is trained at Rosemary Beach by Jonathan Clark.

“We had used our resources around here,” Julia Lindl said. “It truly has been a struggle for her to do as well and to get to the point she has. We were just running out of resources. Most of the time it was her dad who was challenging her, and she got to the point where you just kinda stay level.”

Lindl practices at least four hours per day. Her schedule typically starts from 10 a.m. to noon with practice at Rosemary Beach, class work takes from 1-5 p.m. and she hits with her father from 6-8 p.m. Julia Lindl said Brittany has received scores of at least 95 in her five academic subjects this year.

Her aptitude in the classroom and on the court has her parents supporting her tennis career, whether or not it leads to a college scholarship or a professional career. Currently her plans don’t include playing at the high school level.

“When we started this adventure we told her when she gets up that morning and says, ‘I don’t want to do it anymore,’ it’s fine. She doesn’t have to. She never has to,” Julia Lindl said.

“I don’t think it’s coming. I think we’ve done it long enough where we’ll see it through to the end.”