Family keeps rising junior focused:: Sun-Sentinel.com

Family keeps rising junior focused~~~

I mentioned in my Ryan Sweeting post that Charlie Bricker covered the Junior Orange Bowl one day last month, and this story about Boys 14 Champion Rhyne Williams is the result of that visit. Peter Bodo recently tipped his cap to Bricker in his blog and this story amply demonstrates how deep Bricker's tennis knowledge runs.

Mike DePalmer Junior, Williams' uncle, was ranked in the top 5 in the USTA's 18 and under rankings in 1980, and the year before he won a national doubles title in Kalamazoo with Rodney Harmon, who is now the USTA High Peformance Director of Men's Tennis. They were among the first juniors to use the revolutionary Prince racquet, and I remember after that match Mike Senior, Williams' coach, took the microphone and thanked Howard Head, the racquet's inventor, for changing his son's life. Not surprisingly, Williams plays with a Prince racquet.

Bricker refrains from hyping Williams, and he's certainly seen enough talented fourteen-year-olds to know they all aren't going to be Andre Agassi or Pete Sampras. However, Bricker's comparison of Williams to Donald Young in their game's "maturity" doesn't make sense to me; they both win often and know how to construct points, but most champions at any age are adept at that. I do like the Jim Courier analogy, and was interested to learn that he was a role model for Williams five or six years ago. The physicality of Williams' game is reminiscent of Courier's, but I'm not going to go any farther than that. Everybody's different, and that goes double for tennis players. No one should ever be saddled with being the "next" anyone.