One Team, Her Dream

Nicole Giusto can still hear Heidi Zepeda talking to her on the doubles court.

“She’d tell me, ‘This is war, we’re going to war,” Giusto says of her 3.0 USTA League teammate. “She was fearless and aggressive and hit a hard ball, and she wanted to win.”

Cassie Miller, another teammate and partner of Zepeda’s, can still see Heidi’s well-measured service returns landing deep in the court and giving her a chance to close out the point at net.

“‘I set ’em up, you put ’em away,’ she liked to tell me,” Miller says. “Heidi picked up the sport in her 40s, but she had these shots you didn’t expect her to have. She had this beautiful serve. Someone saw her motion and said, ‘Where did you get that serve? That’s a 4.0 serve.’ She loved hearing that.”

John Zepeda, Heidi’s husband of 28 years, can still hear his wife in their jacuzzi in the evenings, talking—and talking, and talking— about tennis.

“She loved it more than anything outside of her family,” Zepeda says. “After a while I’d laugh and ask her, ‘Is there anything else you can talk about?’ Her dream was to win sectionals and make it to nationals.”

Zepeda and her Polk County, Fla. teammates—the Smart Aces, they called themselves—realized that dream this past August. After losing in the 3.0 sectional finals to a team from Miami-Dade the previous two years, Polk County beat its rival in 2021 to advance to the nationals in Oklahoma. But in a terrible twist of fate, Heidi fell ill after sectionals, and tested positive for COVID-19 the following day. Three weeks later, she passed away at age 48.

“She was tired the night after sectionals, but she thought it was just all the tennis,” Giusto says. “She was so excited to get that trophy.”

Zepeda’s husband and twin son and daughter, Corbin and Coryn, were devastated. Her teammates wondered if they could go on without their inspirational leader. But they were heartened by the overwhelmingly supportive reaction of their fellow Polk County tennis lovers. They made videos that Heidi could watch in the hospital, and after she died, teams in the area wore pink in her honor, made signs that read “One team, her dream,” and helped sponsor the Smart Aces’ trip to Oklahoma. They came together to give her an “awesome send-off” at her funeral, John Zepeda says.

“I don’t think I realized what a family our tennis community was,” Giusto says.

“Everyone knew Heidi, or knew her name,” Miller says. “She had a big personality, and she liked to recruit people into the sport. She thought of herself as an ambassador for tennis.”

Zepeda started a children’s program called Little Pros, but she also understood how much tennis has to offer those who pick it up later in life. She understood how the competition and camaraderie of league tennis can drive someone—anyone—to achieve things they may never have thought they could achieve, and to see their hard work pay off in their own small share of glory.

“We started playing just for fun, because we were out of shape and not really active,” John Zepeda says. “We would hit the ball around and shout and laugh. But she started playing every day and taking lessons, and she worked and worked, and she got better and better. She started kicking my butt.”

“It was amazing to watch her aggressiveness,” Zepeda says with a laugh. “If she lost to someone, she’d say, ‘I’ll get that lady.’ I would tell her, ‘You’re from this little town, Lakeland, Fla.—how do you think you’re going to win a national title?’ But they made it there.”

The Smart Aces dedicated their Oklahoma trip to Heidi, and inscribed her initials on their racquets. But her spirit was hard to replace.

“Her presence was so big,” Miller says. “Her passion was contagious, and she had made this dream grow in all of us, to go to nationals, and to keep getting better. We knew she would have wanted us to be there.”

I would tell her, ‘You’re from this little town, Lakeland, Fla.—how do you think you’re going to win a national title?’ But they made it there. John Zepeda, Heidi’s husband

Giusto, the team captain, played all of her matches with Heidi’s Head Instinct racquet.

“It gave me a sense of calm,” Giusto said.

The Polk County team acquitted themselves well in their first trip to nationals, winning two of four matches and finishing ninth. They hope to keep as much of the team intact for 2022 as possible, and to keep Heidi’s championship dreams alive.

“Heidi was magnificent, a little crazy, and unforgettable,” another of her teammates, J.J. Spann, says. “She helped give the team true joy, her joy.”

Miller says that tennis gave Zepeda what it gives many adults: An outlet, and a community away from work and family, a “life outside of her life.” Over the course of their 48 doubles matches together, the two found ways to be better partners, and better friends, for each other.

“She challenged me to work harder and match her intensity,” Miller says. “I think I gave Heidi balance, and brought her back down when she was rattled. It was a beautiful relationship that went beyond tennis.

“If I ever stopped playing, I’d feel like I was letting her down.”

For all of Zepeda’s desire to win, Miller can still hear another side of her when she thinks about their time on court together.

“Heidi always used to say, ‘No matter what happens, I love you.’”