Is Alex Michelsen the next big American star? | TenniStory

Learn more about rising American tennis star Alex Michelsen while he competes at he 2024 Australian Open in Melbourne.
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when I started playing tennis I was 3 years old and uh both my parents played in college so they they taught me from a young age how to play tennis especially my mom I went out every single day to hit tennis balls with her and she’s my hero she’s the biggest influence in my life we didn’t want to push tennis on him but he enjoyed it I remember one time it was raining and I had to tell him we won’t be able to play and he started crying I started with tier one when I was 16 you know my old coach Jason was great and my parents were great and then these guys took me to the next level I feel like over the last 2 and a half 3 years balance post shop balance post shop first initial thing was this kid’s a competitor you could really see how much each point really meant to him in that moment four more cut it nice ball he’s a great competitor he has a will to win that I haven’t seen from many kids his age did day that was good that was really good 1400 I was around 30 in the country in the USA rankings you know pretty good and then it was 16 17 and 18 when he started to I guess separate himself and that was when you kind of recognized okay this kid is this kid’s pretty good I think Alex is a bit confused on whether he is a righty or a lefty I would say he’s a little more Lefty just because I was his coach in soccer and little league and he was uh left-handed and left footed for the most part the ongoing joke that he always says is that he’s oh I’m left-handed yet for me it’s if you’re best at something and it’s right-handed that makes you right-handed I think I’m a left-hander you know my coaches might have told you differently but I think I’m left-handed the thing that he’s really comfortable with obviously is his backand the left hand dominance is is huge for the backhand I think there’s a lot of left hand involved with backand and I’ve just I’ve really used that to my advantage my my whole life when he was younger he just wanted to hit two hand and back hands for years and years and was like okay just you know it’s fine and then when he was 6 years old I said you need to start you know hitting forehand where most kids are taught you know hit your backhand crosscourt keep it in play develop your forehand as your weapon Alex was the opposite his ability to defend backhand Corner because of his competency on his left hand is as good as anyone in the world I always kind of wanted to play Division One tennis that was kind of the goal of my parents and myself try to get a scholarship to you know a solid division one school college was always the play and then everything kind of started to change once you turned 18 summer of 2023 was great I went to Chicago had a really tight first round and then played really really well the rest of the tournament I was not expecting that at all he won that Challenger in Chicago and beat K or shakuri so that was a really big win after I won Chicago I was about 1990 in the world and I kind of called my parents I was like what what do you guys think about going pro and I told them uh yeah you’re going to go pro but it’s going to be in real estate and then he got to that finals of the Newport Road Island and the four really good players Cressy Duckworth McDonald and Isner beating John was probably the solidifier of this kid is real so it was a really hard decision in August for us as parents to figure out if he was going to go to University of Georgia or go pro believe you me with me being an attorney and my wife being a teacher we put up uh a lot of resistance but with his recent results it was just um it it was it was hard to say no and he really wanted it at the end of the day we made the decision together as a family to go to this next step and we are 100% behind him it’s started to sink in ever since I turned Pro I kind of realized that this is going to be the lifestyle in living and I’m I’m fully I fully embrace it and I’m I’m ready for for the grind Alex has jumped up about a thousand places in the last year you know he went from pretty much an ordinary Junior to a pro Within in the span of a year which I mean probably hasn’t happened in 20 years we’ve seen him kind of transition from level to level to level where he hasn’t really found like that firm hard ceiling which is something that’s special because that speaks I think a little bit to the mind I think he has a great belief in himself he’s believed that this all was going to happen the way it’s happened and we as parents didn’t quite see that but I think Alex did