Jim courier6/15/2023 ![]() "Jose helped me see the game differently. ![]() Higueras, twice a French Open semifinalist, addressed the mental as well as physical parts of Courier's game. Tennis Association player development program. 25 in the world in 1990, he teamed that November with Jose Higueras, then working with the U.S. Under Bollettieri's tutelage, Courier went on to win junior championships in 19, turning pro in 1988 at the Via del Mar Challenger event. That victory brought a invitation for Courier to train at the famed Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy in Bradenton, Florida, a hothouse for budding American tennis stars such as Andre Agassi (the teacher's pet and at one time Courier's roommate). In 1986, Courier -a banger, not a finesse player -made good on Hopman's training and won the 14-and-under Orange Bowl championship, the World Series of junior tennis. Courier inherited a strong arm from his father, an executive of a juice processing plant who had spent his college years pitching on a scholar-ship at Florida State University. She was a former women's tennis coach at the University of Southern California. Growing up in Dade City, Florida, Courier was introduced to tennis by Emma Spencer, a great aunt who ran Dreamworld Tennis Club out of her home in Sanford. Impressed by Courier's tenacity, Hopman convinced him to enroll for two years. He attended a tennis camp in Bardmoor, Florida, run by Harry Hopman, the successful coach of strong Australian Davis Cup teams in the 1950s and 1960s. By age 11, he decided to forsake a promising Little League pitching career for tennis. Raised in FloridaĬourier had the benefit of working for responsive coaches. ![]() He also sported a 16-10 record in seven years in Davis Cup competition for the United States. $13.5 million in prize money and was ranked No. Davis Cup captain Patrick McEnroe.Ĭourier finished with a 506-237 record, 23 singles titles and the four Grand Slams. Courier, about a year later, increased his tennis world profile when he agreed to assist U.S. Courier introduced himself to the newest generation of tennis fans in summer 2001 when he signed a multi-year deal with Turner Sports to work as a television analyst, initially covering Wimbledon. He is again involved with the game he once dominated, while still pursuing other passions such as rock music.ĭespite retiring from competitive tennis in 2000 at age 29 -following a successful 12-year career -the temperamental and tenacious Courier continues to stay in the public eye. Although he has not been the toast of the tennis world since the beginning of the first Clinton administration, Courier, who won both the French Open and Australian Open twice, has found a comfortable role on and off the court. Jim Courier, arguably the world's best men's tennis player for one all-too-brief period in the early 1990s, has always managed to keep things in perspective.
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