Leslie Airola-Murveit

Liane Bryson: Fit and Full of Life

Liane Bryson’s energy is never-ending and inspiring. Here’s a day in her life:  “I play three sets of doubles, followed by an hour of pickleball, then I finish up my workout with half an hour on my Peloton.” Who can sustain this level of activity consistently? Liane! She has played tennis at Balboa Park for years and often walks the 3 miles to the club and back to her home. She has run 3 marathons and taught tennis. Liane never stops moving and hasn’t let her 3 hip replacements, a back fusion, and a knee replacement hold her back. “I try not to sit down too much for fear I might not be able to get back up.”

Now playing in the 75’s, she is an accomplished player with 3 ITF world championships in doubles and a growing number of gold balls. Liane was born in Berlin, Germany, and began playing tennis there as a child. Her father encouraged her to play tennis every day after school at a local club from age 9 until 12 when she left home. At her father’s insistence, she enrolled in boarding schools in Paris and in Switzerland for 4 years to learn French. At age sixteen her father conceived a new plan to send her to Boston to learn English and enrolled her in community college so that she could eventually return to Berlin and take over the family business - manufacturing elegant fur-lined raincoats! Liane never intended to take over the business. As she tells it, “Even at age 16 I knew for certain that I didn’t want to be stuck in a store selling raincoats.” But she did move to Boston where she lived in the college dorms. (Luckily, her sister took over the business). An uncle who lived in the U.S. sponsored her and she obtained a green card. She met her husband, married, and moved to San Diego where they raised two daughters. She still resides there.

Liane wanted to further her education but had to earn a GED to be able to enroll at San Diego State. She completed the requirements, was accepted at San Diego State, and obtained a BA in Comparative Literature. Later, she received a Masters degree from UC San Diego. She returned to her alma mater, San Diego State, as a professor teaching rhetoric and writing studies for twenty years.

Early on Liane made connections with local NWTO players. One of her first tennis partners was Brenda Carter who lived in San Diego while her husband was stationed there in the service. Later, she met Cathy Anderson. Liane recalls entering her first open tournament in La Jolla at age 21 and she drew Cathy in the first round. She recalls not winning a single point! That motivated her to start taking lessons and playing regularly. Once she started competing, she played regularly with Una Davis and Colleen Clery Ferrell. We can thank our NWTO sisters for igniting Liane's passion for tennis which has continued throughout the years. Her energy for all things in tennis keeps building. Next year she'll be stepping up to become co-President of NWTO with Kathy Settles, and I predict that she won’t stop moving in that role either. Thank you, Liane!