From US Open to classrooms: Teenage stars juggle school and professional tennis

The Labour Day weekend marks the end of the summer in the United States with kids and teens all over the country heading back to school and college. But for the tennis world, not much changes. Players in New York head into the final stretch of the US Open, and then have a couple of months more of tennis events to compete in. But some teens, who came into the spotlight during the past week at the US Open, will instead go back to the classrooms and continue to juggle the demands of their educational and professional tennis aspirations, grappling with the decision of when to head full-time into the world of pro tennis. [caption id=“attachment_1689911” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File picture of Catherine ‘Cici’ Bellis. Getty Images[/caption] No one made a bigger impact in the first few days of this year’s Open than 15-year-old Catherine ‘Cici’ Bellis, who became the youngest player to win a round at the Open since 1996 and the youngest American to do the same since 1986, stunning this year’s Australian Open finalist Dominika Cibulkova in three sets before going down to 48th ranked Zarina Diyas in the second round. But Bellis, like many of her contemporaries, is in no hurry to cash-in and make a full-time commitment to professional tennis just yet. (The WTA Tour anyways limits the number of tournaments that players can enter until they turn 18 in order to avoid teenage burnouts). The Californian teenager will instead go back to being home-schooled, retaining her amateur status so that she could still go the college route if she chose to, forfeiting more than $60,000 in prize money that other second round losers earned for their efforts in New York. And the Californian teen is not the only one. 18-year-old Noah Rubin, another young American, had a break-out summer in which he won the Wimbledon boys title as a qualifier in July, made his ATP debut in Winston-Salem, and went on to win the USTA U-18 National Tennis Championships singles & doubles titles, securing him a wild card into the men’s singles and doubles event at Flushing Meadows. After losing in the first round of both, Rubin insisted that he would stick to his decision to go to college (he has signed up for Wake Forest University where he will study art history, writing, astrology and Judaism ) and explained his thought process behind the decision. ”I’m going to school, going to college to get in the best physical condition and to mature as a person and a tennis player. I definitely think Tony (the coach) with the people who work at Wake Forest can definitely help that out. Whatever else comes along with that, that would be great. But that’s why we go there.” 20-year-old Danielle Rose Collins, who studies at UVA and earned her wild card by winning the NCAA title, does not even have a world ranking, but had the honour of opening the first day on the main Arthur Ashe Stadium against world No. 2 Simona Halep. The Romanian has had a meteoric rise over the past 15 months and not many gave Collins much of a chance. But the American surprised the crowd and herself by winning the first set in a tie-breaker before going down in three sets. Twenty-four hours later, she said she would be back in college preparing for the tough life in school. “Summer was too much fun. You know, I love UVA, but school’s tough. School is very tough. So back to work for me.” John Isner, the leading American player for the past couple of years, went to college himself before turning pro at the age of 22 and is considered by many as the player who showed that the college tennis route may not be a bad idea even in this day-and-age. Isner, who lost to India’s Somdev Devvarman in the NCAA Singles final in 2007, certainly approves of the choices that Bellis, Collins and Rubin have made. “Yeah, it’s cool to see. You know, I just played a college guy. A guy like Steve (Johnson) went to four years, just like I did. He’s arguably the best college player ever. You can argue that. He did so well at USC. So it’s encouraging to see. You know, the way the men’s game is now, you don’t have any 18, 19 year olds doing really great things on the tour. So as far as the men’s game is, it takes a little bit more time to develop. I think college is a good way to do that.” Another young American, 21-year-old Nicole Gibbs, who was majoring in economics in Stanford, decided to turn pro with one year still left for her degree. She is currently ranked no. 135 in the world and may be considered a late-bloomer when compared with the likes of Ukraine’s Elina Svitolina and Switzerland’s Belinda Bencic, who are already ranked inside the top 50 whilst in their teens. But the American, who takes on last year’s semi-finalist Flavia Pennetta in the third round of the Open on Saturday, has no regrets and firmly believes that going to college was the best option for her. “Yeah, absolutely college is viable. I don’t think I’d be sitting here right now if college wasn’t a viable option. I think everybody has the opportunity to improve there. As I said, there’s just going to be a lifestyle and gamestyle adjustment that some players, like myself, have to go through to get more offensive minded, more comfortable on the road, all those sorts of things. But I feel like I have a great foundation for, you know, adapting to that new strain of stress and new level of tennis having gone to college.” Soon, Bellis, Rubin and Collins would be faced with the same uncertainty about completing college or going pro. Gibbs knows that feeling fully well, saying that she felt scared about her decision as well. “It’s kind of like a fear of what if that was stupid or like if I thought I was better than I am, like all that sort of stuff. That’s the sort of stuff you have to weed out and just focus on I made this decision, this is what I’m doing with my life, and I’m going to try to enjoy it every step of the way.” But for every Bellis, Collins and Rubin who are not moving to the pros full-time just yet, there are other Americans like Jared Donaldson and Madison Keys, who have made the decision to skip college and go straight to the tour. 17-year-old Donaldson, who lost in the first round of the singles draw but is through to the second round of the doubles in New York, started the season at no. 730 in the world but will break into the top 300 at the end of the Open. He trained with Roger Federer during the off-season in December and won 3 back-to-back ITF Futures titles in June – something he would not be able to do if he was in college. “For me personally I don’t think college was the best place for me to develop my game. I think that was basically the driving force. Obviously college offers a lot of players and people a great experience. But just for me, I didn’t think it was the best place for me to work on my game. I feel like there’s a lot of other things you have to focus on when you go to school. You go to school. You’re focusing on your schoolwork, a bunch of other things. For me it didn’t feel like it was 100% tennis. Also I feel like if I wanted to compete for slams, this was the path I needed to take. Obviously everybody’s path is different. I don’t think one path is the correct way. But I think if you look at a lot of the players now, the top players didn’t go to college. For me, I thought it was the best decision.” 19-year-old Madison Keys lost in the second round of the singles event this week, but is considered one of the rising stars in the women’s game, already up to No. 27 in the world and has been focused on becoming a pro tennis player since she was 14. “Personally for me, I never really wanted to play college tennis. I signed when I was 14. So for me it was never even really an option. I’ve always wanted to be a professional tennis player. I couldn’t imagine going to college first and then coming here. So for me it was an easy decision. But other people want to go to college first and then become a professional. I think it’s really just each person is different in their choices.” It’s hard to know exactly when the right time is to turn pro in a sport that has so many dynamic variables as tennis. But given the increased physicality of the sport and the average age of players in the top 100 gradually rising over the past decade, it may not be a bad idea after all. When asked to summarize the last few days in which she went from just another American junior tennis player to being labelled the future of American tennis, 15-year-old Catherine ‘Cici’ Bellis described them as “Unbelievable. Like this whole experience has been unbelievable, like mind-blowing. It’s been crazy. It’s been like the best couple days of my life.” Nothing at school or college is going to match up to that experience for Bellis. It will be a while before she experiences the kind of adulation and media frenzy again. Hopefully, her time away from the spotlight will prepare her and others like Rubin and Collins for the time when they do turn pro.