Hiding Inside the Baseline: Part 6

After my sophomore it was time to test the pro tour.

After a successful sophomore college season, myself and hundreds of other hungry and capable college players spanned the globe to try our hands at the professional ranks. I remember the process of deciding where to go. These were the pre-Internet days.

We aspiring players would write to the USTA or the International Tennis Federation and get the schedules of futures and satellite events taking place all around the world. I would spend nights reading the schedules, looking at all the exotic places my tennis could take me.

My mom had been right. All the hard work and sacrifice had paid off. I would think about those trips we used to take to the Orlando Airport to watch the planes take off and her encouragement to work hard at my tennis so that someday I would be on one of those planes heading to a pro tournament.

But not ready to challenge myself with an exotic cosmopolitan culture, I played it safe and chose the Canadian satellite tour the summer of 1985. My grandmother lived just outside of Toronto, so I had a relative home base and security to go…