By Randy Walker
@TennisPublisher
What does two-time Australian Open champion Johan Kriek have in common in professional tennis with both James and Joseph van Deinse of the Vero Beach Tennis & Fitness Club?
All three have been first round losers in the qualifying tournament for a “Futures” level pro tennis tournament in Vero Beach, Florida!
Kriek, who was at the Vero Beach Tennis & Fitness Club on Monday, February 3 for a special day of clinics at the club owned and run by the Van Deinse brothers, spoke in his engaging and entertaining story-telling way of his first ever visit to Vero Beach (which was in his first-ever trip to the United States) in between giving lessons to members of the club.
At the age of 19 and with $280 in his pocket, Kriek said he started his pro tennis career when he traveled to the United States in 1978 to play in a six-week circuit of entry-level pro events, then the pre-cursor to today’s “Futures” level events. He was scheduled to fly into New York City but because of a blizzard, his flight was diverted from New York to Montreal where he said he was forced to live in the airport for four days because the Canadian government would not allow him out of the airport and into the country due to the apartheid policies of his native South Africa at the time. Eventually, he was able to get a flight to Miami and from there took a bus to Vero Beach.
Kriek remembered that he lost in the first round at the Vero Beach tournament, which was then played at the old Westside Tennis Club and part of what was called the WATCH tour (World Association of Tennis Champions.) Kriek subsequently played events on the WATCH satellite circuit in Lakeland and Naples and also Hialeah, Florida and earned some ranking points to get him into more events. Kriek’s career then sky-rocketed from there in a way that is seldom seen, moving from No. 278 in the world all the way to the quarterfinals of the U.S. Open and in a Stadium Court match against Vitas Gerulaitis in front of 20,000 fans.
Kriek, of course, went on to have a stellar career, winning two Australian Open singles titles (1981 and 1982) and reached the semifinals of both the U.S. Open and French Open and the quarterfinals of Wimbledon. He reached a career-high ranking of No. 7 and won 14 career singles titles.
While James and Joseph van Deinse also lost in the first round of the Futures event in Vero Beach, now called the Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation Tennis Championships on the U.S. Tennis Association Pro Circuit and International Tennis Federation World Tennis Tour, they did not catapult into the world’s top 10 shortly after like Kriek!
Joseph Van Deinse lost in the first round of the qualifying in Vero Beach in 2017 and in 2018. James van Deinse lost in the first round of qualifying in 2018, 2021, 2022 and 2024.
For more information on the Vero Beach Tennis & Fitness Club go to www.VeroBeachTennis.net The club will also host for a third straight year the $15,000 Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation Tennis Championships USTA Pro Circuit ITF World Tennis Tour event April 21-25. For more information go to www.MardyFishChildrensFoundation.org
