Christian Docter

By Harvey Fialkov

There are many paths to success in professional tennis. Most aspiring touring pros were prodigies who navigated the minefields of junior tennis while dominating the 18s’ divisions at just 14 years old. Many American and foreign greats honed their craft at the myriad of tennis academies, particularly in Florida.

Others used Division I college tennis to help catapult to the top of the ATP or WTA rankings. Then there are the late-bloomers, maturing on and off the courts in their mid-to-late 20s before tasting fame and fortune. That’s the category that Vero Beach teaching pros Christian Docter and James van Deinse hopes to fit into.

Docter, a 27-year-old teaching pro at Sea Oaks Beach & Tennis Club, finished runner-up to van Deinse at February’s annual King of the Hill rotating doubles qualifying tournament to earn a wild card into the main draw of this week’s Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation Tennis Championships $15,000 USTA Pro Circuit ITF World Tennis Tour event where he will make his professional debut.

On Tuesday evening, Docter will team with Deinse to play their first-round doubles match at the Vero Beach Tennis & Fitness Club at Timber Ridge. Van Deinse, 33, and his brother Joseph, 35, actually own the club, so there’s a definite home-court advantage. Main draw singles featuring young Americans’ Kaylan Bigun, Alexander Razeghi, Christian Langmo of Boca Raton, and Victor Lilov, begin Wednesday.

“I’ve been working really hard these last three years while I’ve been in Florida to get exactly where I’m at right now,’’ said the 6-foot-2 Docter, a Madison, Wisc., native who played Div. III tennis for Concordia University (Mequon, Wisc.) where he was Freshman of the Year in 2015, all-conference all four years, while winning the singles and doubles conference championships in 2016-17 season. “Just to get into a pro event is what every tennis player dreams of as a kid. You want to go pro, and now this is my first chance to play against guys who are doing it for a living.”

The top two finishers at the King of the Hill tournament earn a wild card, and last year Docter placed third. This year he tied for runner-up with local legend Robert Kowalczyk, who at 43, has played in the main draw of many minor league pro events, including several forays in this tournament. Kowalczyk, a two-time USTA National Clay Court junior champion and University of California standout, was gracious enough to forego a tiebreaker for second place, instead handing the spot to Docter.

“Robert has such a rich history in Vero Beach and even played high school tennis with Mardy,’’ Docter said. “He knew how badly I wanted to play this tournament so thanks Robert. I was pretty gutted last year just missing.”

Docter didn’t start taking tennis seriously until he was 15 and played very few junior tournaments. He draws inspiration from all-time great Novak Djokovic, who’s still ranked No. 1 at 36, or 30-year-old Danielle Collins, who announced her retirement earlier this year due to chronic illnesses, but then wins the Miami Open Masters 1000 and Charleston Open 500 back-to-back.

“It’s adversity,’’ Docter said. “Look at all the other major sports. The NFL, NBA, NHL; a lot of those great teams [and players] had to go through adversity before they finally won to get to that big dance. I see it as being all part of the process and sometimes you get knocked down, but as long as you keep trying you never really lose.”

This was the third King of the Hill title for van Deinse, so he’s hoping for that “charm” expression to kick in, enabling him to achieve his short-term dream of earning his first ATP ranking point. In 2017, van Deinse and his partner Michael Alford lost to Robert Galloway and Alexander Centenari. Galloway is now ranked 44^th in the world and won this year’s ATP 250 Delray Beach Open doubles title with Julian Cash. Last year, van Deinse and Tyler Rios of Port St. Lucie also lost in the first round to Peter Bertran and Lorenzo Claverie, the eventual champions.

“I’ve had bad luck with the draw,’’ cracked van Deinse, who grew up in Owatonna, Minn., and Williamsburg, Mich., before his family purchased the tennis club in Vero Beach in 2017. “Christian and I train together almost every night at Timber Ridge. He’s very committed. We’re best friends and that helps because we know when to have fun on the court and also how to be serious.

“My game style is all-court, calm and collected while he can be a buzzsaw when he wants to be. Certain times he gets hot, and I sit back and watch him do all the work. He’s a power player who puts the ball away with big shots while I use control and consistency. We’re a perfect complementary team.”

Docter, who thought of becoming a doctor until he was 11 when his father told him how many years of education it would take, has been nicknamed, ‘Doc’ throughout his life. He says he’s constantly reminded by strangers if he did pursue medicine he would be known as Dr. Docter. He prefers to save his slicing and operating for the courts.

“Sometimes you can’t envision the path but just keep on working,’’ he said. “My [sometimes] coach Dani Garza told me it doesn’t matter when you get there, just get there. That’s what this whole journey has been about. I always believe I can figure it out on court.”

Perhaps the best professional doubles player to come out of a Div. III college was Eric Butorac of Rochester, Minn., who starred for Gustavas Adolphus College (St. Peter, Minn.) where he won NCAA singles and doubles titles in 2003. Butorac won 18 ATP doubles titles and reached a career-high 17^th in 2011 while amassing career earnings of $1.7 million in singles and doubles.

Van Deinse, who didn’t play college tennis at Liberty University (online), instead focusing on getting his Masters’ degree in business, actually knows Butorac and hopes to follow his example.

“Our dream sounds unreasonable to most people, but we don’t care what most people think,’’ van Deinse said. “We’re not worried about being in the Top 100 of the ATP. Our first goal is to get that first ATP point. That would mean you’re an actual bona fide pro tennis player. It’s a big ask, a big goal to win a round in a tournament like this but the experience will allow us to figure it out the next time. Maybe we red-line and get a win.”