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in the 1960s, and in the tennis world, the big change in 1968 was that for the first time ever, professionals could now play in the same tournaments with amateurs. The money began to flow in.
    I wouldn’t see any of it for a while. At nine, I put on my white shorts and shirt and started playing ELTA junior tournaments at clubs around the New York metropolitan area. My mother would almost always drive me. As my results improved, I became eligible to play in national tournaments. My dad would take vacation days from work, and Mom and Dad, or sometimes just Dad, would go with me to these events around the country. I still remember my first national 12-and-unders tournament in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Chattanooga, Tennessee! To a kid from Douglaston, it might as well have been Mars.
    I did pretty well in the tournaments. By the time I was eleven, I was number 18 in the country in the 12-and-unders. At twelve, I was number 7. I won matches, I got to the semis and even the finals—but I wouldn’t win a national title in singles until I was sixteen. I like to think that a lot of it had to do with my size. Maybe it’s lame of me (and maybe it’s part of what drives me), but I’ve never thought, at any level I’ve ever played, that my opponent was just better. If I lost, there was always a reason (they were bigger, they were from California, etc.).
    But losing was the hardest thing to get used to. I was never very good at it. People always ask if I had a temper when I was a kid. There’s a famous story about Bjorn Borg: When he was nine or ten years old, he lost a point and threw his racket down, and his father wouldn’t let him play for six months. He never threw his racket again.
    Maybe that should’ve happened to me! I didn’t throw my racket when I was a kid, though. I was ferocious on a tennis court, but when I lost a match, my usual reaction—until an embarrassingly late age—was to burst into tears. People used to say about me, once I shook hands after a losing match, “Here come the floods.”
    If I ever got mad at anybody back then, it was myself. When I missed a shot, I would send out a wail that could be heard clear across a tennis club. I just hated playing anything less than the kind of tennis I knew I was capable of. But my temper would have to wait a few years. For one thing, there weren’t any umpires or linesmen in junior tennis—you called your own lines, which was obviously a tricky thing. A lot of kids cheated outright. I like to think I was fair—although even back then, I was notorious for claiming to be able to see the lines better than anybody. Still, I would even make calls against myself if I knew my opponent’s shot had gone out, but felt galled at the prospect of his questioning my call.
    By the time I was twelve, the lessons I’d been taking weren’t doing much for me anymore. When my parents heard that a couple of kids from the Douglaston Club were going to a nearby place called the Port Washington Tennis Academy, they decided to check it out for me.
    Port Washington was about a twenty-five-minute drive east from Douglaston, and Antonio Palafox was the head pro. Tony had played Davis Cup for Mexico, won the Wimbledon doubles title in 1963, and (very significantly, to me) was one of only two men who beat Rod Laver in 1962, the first year Laver won the Grand Slam. I remember going to meet Tony with my mom—I was so shy that I hid behind her legs.
    I hit with Tony a little, and he let me in, but not in the most advanced group: The Academy took kids up to the age of eighteen, and—national ranking or not—I was only twelve, and a small twelve at that. Tony felt I had some work to do. There were a lot of strong players at Port Washington (including another talented twelve-year-old, a kid from Great Neck named Peter Rennert); I would have to establish myself.
    There were three groups: The most advanced kids played from five P.M . to seven, the next-best came from seven to nine, and the