Triple A Tennis

The San Jose Mercury News has a preview of the $75,000 Challenger in Aptos this week and it's not your standard "Rising-Stars-Play-At-Local-Club" look at tennis' minor leagues. Instead, the headline is DREAMERS WAITING ON TENNIS' OUTSKIRTS, and it centers on the hopes and disappointments of being outside the ATP Top 100.

Robert Kendrick, Jeff Salzenstein, Paul Goldstein and Lesley Joseph are all quoted (unfortunately I missed the New York Times article about Joseph back in May and it's no longer available for free) on the arc of their careers, the pecking order of tennis, and the very big difference between a short stay at this level (think Andy Murray or Sam Querrey) and years and years of scraping by.

Part of Andre Agassi's legacy is his reinvention of what it means to be old in tennis terms, at least for generations who don't have any memory of Rosewall or Connors. Justin Gimelstob, for example, just reached his first ATP tour final at age 29, and he's probably played nearly as many Challengers and Futures as Goldstein has. Maybe 32-year-old Jeff Salzenstein's best tennis is in front of him. He's certainly seen enough of his competition to be the most accurate judge of that.