Oracle's Grants Are Difference-Makers For Aspiring Players

Larry Ellison gets the photo-ops at Indian Wells, but away from the camera, Oracle’s commitment to U.S. tennis has begun to bear fruit

- Stephen Tignor

Mark Hurd laughs as he recalls a hitting session he recently had with young American pro Mackenzie McDonald. It was, apparently, a workout that pushed the 62-year-old CEO of Oracle all the way to—and maybe past—his physical limit.

“It’s hard to believe I’d have trouble against someone in his 20s, isn’t it?” Hurd asks with a sarcastic chuckle.

The veteran tech executive may be as competitive as anyone who has scaled the heights of Silicon Valley, but he didn’t mind getting a lesson in the modern game. If anything, he’s pleased to see how far McDonald, a former UCLA standout and NCAA singles and doubles champion, has progressed in his two years on tour. Hurd, and Oracle, can rightly claim to have played a role in the 23-year-old’s success.

IN 2017, the company began the Oracle U.S. Tennis Awards: a pair of $100,000 grants given each year to two American college players who are trying to climb the pro-game mountain.

The first recipients, McDonald and former Virginia Cavalier Danielle Collins, each used that much-needed cash infusion to make surprisingly deep inroads in their rookie years on tour.

“Danielle and Mackie have both done really well, and we couldn’t be prouder of them,” Hurd says. He has the same hopes for the 2018 recipients, Georgia Tech’s Chris Eubanks and Ohio State’s Francesca Di Lorenzo. So far, so good: The 22-year-old Eubanks began 2019 by qualifying for the Australian Open for the first time.

The grants have a personal meaning for Hurd. Introduced to tennis by an uncle when he was 10, he has loved and played the sport his whole life. As a teenager in South Florida in the early 1970s, he played it well enough to earn a scholarship to Baylor University. Hurd may have even played well enough to make a go of it as a pro, but he never had a real chance to find out.