Confidence & Consistency

Kallista Liu played every sport imaginable growing up, looking for the one that would capture her heart. Before she knew it, she found her calling on the court.

Liu is a senior on Maryland’s tennis team, competing in the No. 1 singles spot. She will go down as one of the best players in program history. However, it was a long journey to get to this point. The Woodstock native and Marriotts Ridge High School graduate played various sports growing up. But once she found her love for tennis, she became a star. 

“When I was younger, my parents put me into all types of sports,” Liu said. “I played pretty much every sport, like soccer, volleyball, table tennis, badminton. I did ballet, gymnastics, singing, piano, chess, basketball.”

She ultimately chose tennis because she felt it was what she was best at. She began playing when she was 8 and joined the Junior Tennis Champions Center (JTCC) a year later. The tennis club provides coaching and programs to adults and children. It’s just five minutes from the University of Maryland’s campus, near College Park Airport. 

Liu improved as she continued to train at the JTCC over the years. Her passion — paired with their coaching — led her to become a homegrown 5-star recruit and the No. 1 overall recruit in Maryland, according to Tennis Recruiting Network. Becoming a 5-star tennis recruit requires being one of the top 75 players in the country within one’s respective class. Liu checked in as high as No. 36 nationally in the class of 2022. 

When it came time to recruit Liu, head Maryland tennis coach Katie Dougherty sought to keep Liu in her home state. It helped that she already had some familiarity with the prized recruit.  

“Kallista has trained at JTCC, so we’ve seen Kallista,” Dougherty said. “I’ve seen Kallista since she was a little girl.”

Staying home was important to Liu. It allowed her to stay close to friends and family while continuing to build upon the legacy she’s created over the years. She also found the university’s strong academics and kind coaching staff appealing. 

Liu graduated a semester early from high school and joined Maryland’s tennis team at just 17 years old. In her first season in 2021-22, she achieved a 15-5 singles record and went 2-0 in doubles matches. 

Dougherty was drawn to Liu because of her accomplishments as a tennis player from a young age. Liu won the singles title at the 2021 L3 National Junior Circuit in Georgia and made three semifinal appearances on the National Junior Circuit. She claimed the Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Association state title as a freshman with a record of 12-1. One of Liu’s biggest accomplishments was representing Team USA in the North American IC Rod Laver Worldwide Junior Challenge.

Dougherty knew Liu would continue to improve and be a strong asset to the team in the future. 

“What stood out to us is that she doesn’t miss,” Dougherty said. “Her consistency is unbelievable on the court. She moves well, she wins a lot and her win percentage has been really high.”

Although her record in competition might not show it, Liu faced some challenges as she adjusted to the different atmosphere of college athletics. She had to shift her mindset and grow her confidence to play on a team rather than individually. 

“I think coming in, I still had that individual mentality,”  Liu said. “I wanted to play high up in the lineup. Now, I’ve realized that when you help others who will help you, it makes you feel better and helps you improve together. At the end of the day, we’re a team. We should all help each other.”

Liu made the necessary adjustments and improved tremendously because of them. In her sophomore year, she achieved a 26-4 singles record while undefeated in Big Ten competition. She also went 17-1 in dual action. One of the things Liu vastly improved was her confidence.  

Her teammate, Danielle Hack, described how Liu brings quiet confidence to the court.

“She is shy, but I think she’s also quietly confident in the sense that on the court,” Hack said. “Because of her ability, it’s a big thing playing one, and she’s really stepped up.”

In her junior year, Liu went 26-10 in singles and 10-9 in doubles. She also went to the 2023 ITA Division I Women’s Double Atlantic Regional Championship semifinals in singles. 

Dougherty attributed Liu’s success to arguably one of her strongest traits: consistency. 

“She’s consistent on the court, but her practice habits are very consistent,” Dougherty said. “Her match habits and demeanor are very consistent. You know exactly what you’re going to get from her every single day.”

Dougherty worked with Liu to build the confidence Liu now brings to every match. She credits Liu for being coachable.  

“She’s always been a very coachable person, very pleasant to be around, fun to be around,” Dougherty said. “Our big thing was building up her confidence once she got here, making her very confident on the court, but off the court as well.”

As Dougherty described, Liu now speaks up as a leader in team meetings.

The special aspect of Liu’s journey is being able to train and continue to improve as a college athlete where she grew up learning to play her sport. 

“I’m training at JTCC every day, which is basically my second home because it’s where I’ve been playing since I was 9,” Liu said. “So it’s nice to be able to go there every day and see the people I grew up with and all the coaches that have taught me since I was little.”

Liu’s presence at the JTCC has also been special to teammates and coaches. Her contemporaries stated that she is a source of inspiration and joy to them and the younger aspiring athletes in attendance.

 As she was once in many of the younger aspiring athletes’ shoes, it’s a full-circle moment to be around them.     

“You can’t help but like Kallista Liu,” Dougherty said. “She’s fun to be around. I know a lot of the little girls look up to her. I think her legacy from their standpoint is staying home, playing for the Terps, and doing really, really well.”

Liu has significantly shifted Doughery’s perspective on recruiting, as she conveyed how Liu isn’t the typical player that she would think about bringing into her program.  

“She typically, game style-wise, wouldn’t be someone we would always recruit because when she was younger, she didn’t have a ton of weapons,” Dougherty said. “But just understanding how much she’s won for us has kind of changed my perspective on recruiting.”

Liu’s joy comes from playing tennis. She says there’s no better feeling than winning a match.

“It’s definitely fun to win because it shows that all your hard work has paid off,” Liu said. “We put in the hours every single day, and all of that is basically to win a match.”

Liu has transformed both as an athlete and a person at the University of Maryland. Coming into her collegiate career, she was soft-spoken but fierce. Now, she’s a confident leader. 

As Maryland takes on Nebraska on April 6, Liu will play her final match in College Park. She boasts a 19-8 record in singles and a 12-6 record in doubles this season, including the fall. 

“Since joining the team, I think I’ve learned to be more of a leader and be more reliable,” Liu said. “Since joining the team, I’ve grown a lot, and I’m really appreciative of the coaches and my teammates for everything they’ve done for me.”

Her coach built on Liu’s development through her experience, attributing some of the growth to Liu’s earlier teammates. Before she knew it, Dougherty was watching Liu do for her younger teammates what her previous ones did for her. 

“Early on in her career, some of the older athletes embraced her and helped her get out of her shell and understand what this is all about,” Dougherty said. “The team’s done a good job of that over the years, and now she’s doing that for other players.”