Lajola Lives Tennis Highlife:: Star-Bulletin.com
Thanks to the zootennis reader in Hawaii who sent me the link to this article yesterday about Easter Bowl finalist Dennis Lajola, who was home for a brief visit. It's a feature story, not a sports story, but it does give a glimpse of the challenges a world-class junior encounters, especially one who lives so far from the sport's power bases.
I encourage anyone who comes across an electronic version of a story about junior or college tennis to email it to me. No matter how much time I spend reading about tennis online, I'm bound to miss some, and zootennis will be a better resource if we can increase the eyes looking for local stories. My email is available by clicking on the Contact headline on my profile page.
3 comments:
After reading the article I hope Dennis Lajola becomes a great pro player because it doesn't sound like he attends school to often.
I cannot imagine how difficult it is for these kids and parents to be living the pro player dream. I am sure Dennis and the other up and coming US juniors have the drive, determination, and hope of becoming a successful pro player. But it seems like the kids look at high school and college as a consolation prize or even as a sign that they failed as a tennis player.
I think it would be a great study to determine how many of these kids actually make it top 50 on the pro tour who don't attend high school and college and what becomes of them when they don't make it. I mean we know what happened to Agassi, Courier, Sampras and Roddick, but how many others did not make it.
Another good article would be how many of the USTA sponsered kids achieve stardom.
I couldn't agree with "anonymous" any more...after reading the article on Dennis Lajola, I was wondering what the real numbers are on how many of these USTA sponsored kids really make it.
Are there any USTA sponsered players that have ever made it on the Pro tour? Just curious.
Thanks
P.S Do Angela Haynes, and Alexendra Stevenson count?..have seen them at the training centers, but do not know if they were "coached, and trained" as youngsters there?
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