Oh, the Places You Will Go and/or Have Been: A Trip Around US Open Qualifying

One of my favorite parts of any major tennis tournament is the abundance of storylines you have right from the word go.

In any given tournament, you have the story of the favorites and whether or not they will win the whole tournament. You have the story of the young hotshots looking to challenge the big names in the sport. You have the story of the journeyman looking for a career-defining run through the field and of course you have the story of the veterans just looking to hang on and give it one more good run.

The US Open is certainly no exception and I would argue that, thanks to the finality it presents as the last major of the season, it has more drama than any other.

But for my money, those stories pale in comparison to the stories that unfold on those same courts the week prior to the main draw tournament at the qualifying tournament.

As a fan of American tennis, I can’t help but feel like the qualifying tournament gives us a look at where we have been and where we are going as a tennis country.

On one court today we had Robby Ginepri. Right now, Ginepri is nothing more than a journeyman looking to add a few more years onto his career before walking away from the game. He hasn’t made the main draw of a major tournament other than the US Open since 2010 and he has only advanced past the second round of any major once since reaching the fourth round of the French Open in 2008.

But back in 2005, Ginepri was ready to take his place alongside Andy Roddick and James Blake as the future of American tennis. He made the semifinals of the US Open that year and put up a great fight for five sets against Andre Agassi in those semifinals before bowing out. He ended that year ranked 15th in the world.

He hasn’t reached those heights again and so here he is, trying desperately to maybe, just maybe milk one last magical run out of his career.

Glance over the courts again and you will find Wayne Odesnik. He was never the player that Ginepri was at his peak, but in 2008 and 2009, he was developing into a perfectly decent rank and file player on the ATP Tour. He had worked his ranking into the top 100 and it was reasonable to expect that 2010 was going to be his best season to date.

Then, while preparing for the Australian Open warmup event in Brisbane, he was found to have imported HGH into the country. He was fined and suspended for two years. The suspension was eventually reduced to one year, but the damage was done. He was officially a pariah on tour, prompting quotes from players like the one where Andy Roddick said that he should be banned from the sport.

So here is Wayne Odesnik, hoping that making a run into the main draw of the US Open will help to mend fences with those players that he has offended.

Another scan of the courts will help you to spot Bobby Reynolds. Reynolds is something of a career qualifier.

He has never come close to getting as far in majors as Ginepri has and he really hasn’t even been as consistent over a period of time as Odesnik was between 2008 and 2010. At 31, he doesn’t have time on his side either.

But he continues to plug away. He still plays challenger tournaments in small towns and in far-flung places and you can just about count on him being at qualifying for each of the major tournaments. Every so often, he will break through qualifiers and make it into the main draw, which gives him the confidence (and money) to continue to push forward.

So here is Bobby Reynolds, just trying to continue living the dream that is being a professional tennis player.

Look again a little later and you will see Donald Young. American tennis fans probably don’t need much of an introduction to Young. He is, of course, the former phenom that, to this point, has had a rough go of it as a professional.

He has had some modest success on the Challenger circuit, but a consistent run of success at the top level has thus far eluded him.

After most were ready to write him off as a bust,  he made quite a run into the fourth round at the 2011 US Open, beating Stanislas Wawrinka and Juan Ignacio Chela along the way. But just as quickly as he came out of nowhere to get to that point, he fell back down the rankings and into obscurity.

In 2012, he had a 17-match losing streak, the third-longest of its kind, behind only Andrey Golubev’s 18 and the immortal Vince Spadea’s 21. To say he is an afterthought at this point would be an understatement. He’s still just 24, but you get the feeling that the next 12 months or so will have a huge impact on the type of career Young ends up having.

So here is Donald Young, trying with all his might to fight off the “bust” label once and for all.

Pan around to the other courts and you will find Jarmere Jenkins. The recent graduate of the University of Virginia is looking to follow in the footsteps of players like John Isner and Kevin Anderson, who have carved out nice careers for themselves by completing an entire college career before going pro rather than turning pro as a teenager and working through futures and challengers.

Up until recently, this path was almost unheard-of. The thought was that if you wanted to have a long career as a pro, you had to turn pro in your teens like most players or leave college tennis after a year or so like James Blake or John McEnroe. But thanks to college tennis being as competitive as it has ever been and to players like Isner and Anderson, more and more players are considering an NCAA career.

So here is Jarmere Jenkins, working to make completing four years of college tennis a new normal among young tennis players.

Lastly, you will see the most optimistic and positive part of the qualifying tournament, the teenage kids that are just tickled pink to be competing on the grounds against real pro players.

Many of the best players on tour now got their first big break when they got a chance to play in qualifying against veteran pros.

So here are these young kids. Whether it be Noah Rubin, Mackenzie McDonald, Mitchell Krueger, Dennis Novikov, Jared Donaldson or someone else entirely, these guys are here to be the “next big thing” in American tennis.

As odd a metaphor as this is, when players convene in the locker room before their qualifier matches, I imagine the scene is not too dissimilar to what it’s like when someone new is put into a jail cell with people that have been there awhile.

Just like those people in jail, I imagine these players turn to each other and ask, “So why are you here?”