Dennis Lajola Update; A look back at 2003
Thanks to a reader in the Philippines, I learned that Dennis Lajola recently won the Hawaiian Open, but has not yet started at the University of Hawaii. The Honolulu Advertiser says in this article about the tournament:
"the guy who would be the highest-profile tennis recruit in UH history is in eligibility limbo, dealing with the paperwork involved following his unconventional high school years."
Lajola hopes to have it straightened out so he can begin competing in January.
There is a reference to Lajola winning the Junior Davis Cup, on the same team as Donald Young, but actually it wasn't the Junior Davis Cup, which is 16-and-unders, but rather the 14-and-under World Junior Competition in 2003 that Young, Lajola and Leo Rosenberg won. It's interesting to look at the players in that 2003 competition, who would be in their final year of ITF competition this year. Quite a few of them are no longer playing junior tennis, including Rosenberg, who has been in Europe attempting to qualifying for Futures events during the past year. (The same for the girls; their list is here.)
Speaking of the Junior Davis and Fed Cups, the ITF Junior site has its preview here.
2 comments:
What on earth is the rhyme and reason on him going to Hawaii? His family and the USTA I presume have spent so much money on his tennis career and he is going to a place with barely any competition. I just don't get it. Say goodbye to the pros, not that I think he was on that level. I know that is his home state, but the choices made throughout his career on how to spend it don't point in the direction of playing tennis thousands of miles away from everybody else.
It is so utterly amusing when people make comments about people they don't even know. The decision about college is a personal one. It's really no ones business where these kids decide to go to school.
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