Beth Herr is an American tennis

Tennis

Tennis is a sport usually played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a racket that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all...

 player. She became the number 1 junior tennis player in the world at age 16. She was the #1 college recruit in 1985 and went on to play for the University of Southern California

University of Southern California

The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...

 where she won the NCAA singles title and team title in her freshman year. She beat Clemson

Clemson University

Clemson University is an American public, coeducational, land-grant, sea-grant, research university located in Clemson, South Carolina, United States....

's Gigi Fernández

Gigi Fernández

Beatriz "Gigi" Fernández is a former professional tennis player, the first female athlete from her native Puerto Rico to turn professional, the first Puerto Rican woman to ever win an Olympic gold medal and the first to be inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame.Fernandez won 17 Grand...

 7–6 in the 3rd set after being down a match point to win the NCAA singles final.

She cut short college and went directly into professional tennis after the NCAA Championship and played on tour for 11 years with wins over Martina Navratilova, Pam Shriver

Pam Shriver

Pamela Howard Shriver Lazenby , is a former professional tennis player and is currently a sports broadcaster from the United States for ESPN2. During the 1980s and 1990s, she won 133 top-level titles, including 21 women's doubles titles and one mixed doubles title at Grand Slam tournaments...

, Hana Mandlíková

Hana Mandlíková

Hana Mandlíková is a former Czech professional tennis player from Czechoslovakia and later Australia. During her career, she won four Grand Slam singles titles – two at the Australian Open, one at the French Open, and one at the US Open...

 and Mary Joe Fernandez

Mary Joe Fernández

Mary Joe Fernández Godsick is an American former professional tennis player...

. She lost an epic match to Billie Jean King

Billie Jean King

Billie Jean King is a former professional tennis player from the United States. She won 12 Grand Slam singles titles, 16 Grand Slam women's doubles titles, and 11 Grand Slam mixed doubles titles. King has been an advocate against sexism in sports and society...

 at Wimbledon

The Championships, Wimbledon

The Championships, Wimbledon, or simply Wimbledon , is the oldest tennis tournament in the world, considered by many to be the most prestigious. It has been held at the All England Club in Wimbledon, London since 1877. It is one of the four Grand Slam tennis tournaments, the other three Majors...

 8–6 in the 3rd. Commentators on HBO Breakfast at Wimbledon made a very big deal out of her ability to hit numerous swinging volleys out of the air for winners. This which was something that had not been done before especially by a female.

After tennis she finished her undergraduate degree at UCLA and then went to law school at UCLA. She married Tennis Channel founder Steve Bellamy

Steve Bellamy

Steve Bellamy is a former rock musician, songwriter, and entrepreneur in sports and media as well as the writer/director for the film The Story starring Bode Miller, Lindsey Vonn and Hilary Swank...

 and after a short stint as a lawyer at Manatt, Phelps and Phillips, she stopped working and started raising their 4 children.

She later went on to win the US Open of paddle tennis

Paddle tennis

Paddle tennis is a game adapted from tennis and played for over a century. Compared to tennis, the court is smaller and has no doubles lanes, and the net is lower. Paddle tennis is played with a solid paddle as opposed to a strung racquet, and a depressurized tennis ball is used along with an...

and became the unofficial world champion of the sport.