Drucker Reflects on the Life and Death of a Fellow Junior
If you've been reading zootennis for any length of time, you know I'm a huge fan of Joel Drucker, both as a writer and a person. We first connected over three years ago after I read his book Jimmy Connors Saved My Life.
In addition to working for the Tennis Channel, Drucker writes for espn.com and TennisOne, so his sometimes contrarian but always thoughtful writing is available regularly online. He now has a new online column for the Tennis Channel called Tenniscope, and the current installment is about Seth Grinberg, a top Southern Californian junior back when Drucker was also playing sectional tennis. Grinberg died recently, and this memoir/eulogy captures (as does Drucker's book), the competitive milieu of SoCal junior tennis. Although this was many years ago, much of the human dynamics remain the same, and I was particularly struck by Drucker's plea for more humane interaction between the elite and the average player.
Easter Sunday seems like an appropriate time to reflect, as Drucker does, on what it means to be in the tennis community. He closes, not very optimistically, with this:
Maybe when I think of what tennis gave and took from Seth it would be better if the lesser and the better players could put the tennis in perspective and simply value one another's company as adolescents enjoying a healthy activity with tons of physical and mental benefits.
Maybe.
Ten years ago, pondering the idea of writing a story where I'd hunt down Seth, I called his mother. Naturally we turned to tennis, and I told her how envious I was of Seth's skill and the way he and that special troupe of ranked players could play so well. "I always thought it was nice that he had made so many friends through tennis," said Mrs. Grinspan. "But do you know what he said to me? He said, "˜Mom, those guys aren't my friends at all. They'd walk right over me if I couldn't beat them.'"
3 comments:
Hi colette...
iéve noticed many Junior WC for the sony ericsson open, including Ryan Harrison... Do you have more information about that... how the kids took that notice and if they are ready to play at that level...
sory for my poor english.
Marcos
From Argentina
It's very common for IMG to give wild cards to players they've signed or are hoping to sign. Nishikori won a qualifying wild card into this year's SEO at the Luxilon Cup last year, and I don't think anyone believes upgrading that to the main draw puts him in over his head.
I think qualifying wild cards are fine in this instance, but they should be handed out very sparingly at MS events in the future if the juniors receiving them aren't competitive in their first round matches.
I read that Rhyne Williams received a qualifying wild card, but Ryan Harrison ended up getting it. Did Williams turn it down? Was it rescinded in favor of Harrison? Or was he never actually offered?
As I write this, Harrison just lost to Paul Capdeville 6-4, 7-5. He got trounced the last three games, but was with him almost point-for-point up 'til then. I'd say he acquitted himself very well. You can make a strong case that he is head and shoulders the best American junior (on the boys' side).
Getting back to Rhyne Williams, has anyone seen him play over the last six months or so? He won a Futures title last July but is now struggling to win any matches on that level. He's even losing in qualifying. His latest junior results haven't been anything to write home about either. I'm struggling to make sense of his apparent regression. He had all the makings of a fast riser who would be a dominant junior by now and a pretty good player on the Futures circuit. I thought he might even have some Challenger wins by this time. His game was very impressive the last time I saw him (at the 2007 Easter Bowl). I'm still excited about his future, but perplexed by his recent results. Thoughts?
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