Inside the 2025 Raymond James Larry Turville Super Senior Grand Prix
Apr 27, 2025
The 2025 Raymond James Larry Turville Super Senior Grand Prix, hosted at the historic landmark St. Petersburg Tennis Center, is more than a highly respected national/international senior tennis tournament. It is part of the game’s history.
The Turville family will always be recognized as major contributors to the game. Ed Turville, Larry’s dad, along with Eddie Herr, Gardnar Mulloy, Edward Turville, and Clarence Varner, was a one of the “founding fathers” of the USTA Florida Tennis section.
Ed Turville served as the United States 1970 and 1971 Winning Davis Cup Captain.
It was a fantastic honor to get to know these founding fathers. It was a real privilege for this tennis media journalist to get to produce the 1999 50Love Advantage Florida Golden Anniversary celebration for the Sunshine Fox Network and Tennis Channel.
The state of Florida was big and strong enough with tennis participation to become its own USTA section. It was a great vision of the Founding Fathers to secede from the Southern Tennis Association and become its own section of the USTA. Florida has become one of the most influential tennis organizations in the USTA.
Larry Turville was the top ranked junior boy in Florida. He played his intercollegiate tennis for Georgia Tech earning All-American honors in 1970. In 1971 with his innovative insight for promoting tennis, with the help of his good friend Armistead Neely, Turville launched the World Association of Tennis Champions (the WATCH Circuit. It was a precursor to the USTA and ATP Challenger Tour. In 1979 Larry Turville began his 18-year men’s head tennis coaching position at Rice University.
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Written by Florida Tennis contributing writer Dave "Koz" Kozlowski.