July 4, 2026
The stars and stripes are forever, sure, but Friday night I was up with the aquarius moon, running two miles along the Nickel Plate Trail and finishing up on the overpass walkway that stretches over 96th Street. The night was quiet but sweltering, and all I could think about was staying in motion, getting my body ready, and letting the sweat come as it may—not letting pressure or pain mean anything.
When I set out on this path three years ago I thought, surely, by now, I’d be much farther along—playing ITF matches regularly and living a day-to-day reality centered entirely around tennis. I didn’t know in 2023 that in 2026 I’d still be struggling, hanging on, trying to connect the dots and keep this vision alive.
But Friday night, there was just something wild within me that I finally allowed myself to feel—something that set me free: permission to tell the truth, to be vulnerable, and to share the struggle.
I wish I had been telling more of what it’s actually been like this whole time. To pack up and move out of New York on a hope and a whim to New London, Connecticut. I’ll have more space to train in Connecticut, right? It will be easier than New York, right? In some ways, yes, that was true. But in other ways, the same problems persisted. When is there ever time to train, to rest, to breathe when you are being pulled apart by a day job at a desk that is fighting like hell to drag you under? All while there is this inner calling, an inner knowing that I haven't given everything I have to give to myself as an athlete, to the people who’ve backed and believed in me, and most importantly, to the game of tennis itself.
I didn’t know in 2023 that it would take three more years for the APTL to start finding its audience, or to have a front-office team in place capable of bringing something like this to life. But I knew it was worth it to keep going.
When did the league actually become an idea? We went in circles for much of 2024. There was an initial plan to buy an old piece of property and turn it into a tennis club. We spent months planning and negotiating an offer to buy the land from a church here in Indy, only to have someone else swoop in with an all-cash offer before we even had a real chance.
So, we went back to the drawing board.
It wasn’t until January or February of 2025 that we could actually start envisioning and mapping all of this out. The first name I landed on was Major League Tennis. That eventually grew into the American Professional Tennis League—which was Paul Fontana's suggestion. It fit perfectly. Why call a league a "major league" if there is no clear minor league? What does major even mean without real context?
But professional—that means something. A professional is someone who has mastered their craft, who takes the game of tennis seriously, and has built their entire life around it. A professional player makes hundreds of small sacrifices every single day. Sacrifices like training when sleeping or just “chilling” feels a lot better.
To be honest, those are sacrifices that I am just now learning to make. For the last few years, I’ve had it easy. Yes, it was hard because I was trying to train while keeping a desk job to keep the lights on. But it was easy because I always had an alibi: "Well, I can’t really go hit today or get on a court because of these clients, these phone calls, these emails—these responsibilities I have to take care of." Otherwise, yeah, I’d definitely be out there sacrificing everything for this beautiful game and for what this league can grow into.
What am I really saying here? I am saying that it’s easier when there is an obstacle to hide behind. It felt safer when there was a reason why putting myself out there as an aspiring pro with a massive goal wasn’t appropriate or reasonable. I still have so many other things on my plate... there’s this, then that, then this, then that... once all of that clears up, then definitely, yeah, then I’ll commit.
I won’t ever lie to you on here. Things have shifted. There is a level of freedom that I have now that I did not have before, and I am taking the time I need to soak that in and bask in how much my life has changed in one fell swoop. But I also want to be real: even if I’ve only been fully aware of it for the last three or four years, the truth is that I’ve spent my entire life waiting for an opportunity just like this. I have full permission to drop into my authentic self, to lean into what lights me up the most, and to run with it. Literally—to just go with it, rep after rep, day after day, month after month, practice after practice, and year after year.
God, it’s so easy to say that tonight—year after year. To commit at the beginning of a race and promise myself that I’m going to give everything I have to this game, while working alongside my team to do everything humanly possible to launch the APTL next summer.
Maybe it was nice having that "if-only" shield. But it was just that—a shield, a silk screen, something that allowed me to envision, hope, and dream without risking anything real: losses, rejection, humiliation, or flat-out failure.
Maybe that’s what I needed for a while. But that’s not what I need anymore.
This week, I’ll start posting live training updates and video logs. Soon, the APTL podcast will feature interviews with other players who are on their own grueling journeys. The more honest I am, and the more stories we share, the further we all go. That is how the APTL carves out its rightful place within the collective framework of tennis in this country.
Stay tuned, and stick with us. The entry for July 4, 2027, is forthcoming.
