Let’s begin here: three miles. two in the afternoon and one at night.
Three miles. Two in the afternoon and one at night. Approximately five hundred forehands and five hundred backhands, give or take, all against the wall. One thousand skips of the jump rope. Side-to-side lateral “running” for eight minutes. For nostalgia, I took a quick peek at a classic match—Serena v. Steffi Graf from the 1999 Evert Cup Final; and I also caught the tail end of Medvedev taking the second set at Indian Wells from Alcaraz in a tie-break.
The morning was colder than I expected after all of the wind in Central Indiana yesterday. My dad’s birthday was today, and the memories of him showing me how to play tennis for the first time on Hilton Head Island, SC back in the mid-nineties feels very alive for me tonight. Yes, ultimately I picked soccer over tennis and had to come back to tennis in my thirties, but still—there’s something inside of me—a calling toward tennis that my inner child heard but did not know how or when to fully step into, which is being answered now.
Yes, this is the first post on the APTL’s website, and yes, this moment feels incredibly significant, like a night I could remember for the rest of my life. Not because my words here go that deep or say that much, but because I can remember everything that it took over the last four years (when I first found the job at Sutton East Tennis Club in New York) in June of 2022, to tonight.
Belief has taken me a long way, but belief by itself cannot take anyone all the way there. No, without our team: JoAnn, Paul, John, Nico, Rhonda, Rachel and Elizabeth... none of this ever happens.
Belief and work are everything, but anyone who’s walked this road knows something else is missing for so many players: real infrastructure, real support. There are hundreds—maybe thousands—of players out there with the talent, the discipline, and the drive, but not the resources, connections, or backing to turn that grind into a real chance. That’s why the APTL exists— for everyone who is still putting in the work, still waiting for their shot.
For me, the goal is still the classic one—to break through the traditional way, growing my own game in parallel as the league grows and expands. I won’t be suiting up as a player in the APTL, but I will be putting everything I have into building a foundation so others with potential have a place to chase their dreams, too.
And as for our team: in our own ways, we all have our work cut out for us, and we have a mountain to climb. We’ve already come so far, having started putting plans together for what the APTL might look like as early as around this time last year, but still—now that this site is live and we’re stepping into a deeper commitment, the ball, undeniably, is up in the air and the real work, at last, can begin.
