Storm’s King enjoys sport more after grind of Challenger Tour
When Evan King was 10, several years after one of his first tennis lessons involved rolling a ball back and forth to his father, he served as a ball boy for John McEnroe.
Evan’s father saw him talking with one of the sport’s most notable bad boys. Like a dutiful son, Evan recounted the conversation.
“Dad, McEnroe wanted a Pepsi,” Evan said. “All I had was Coca-Cola.”
Then Evan mentioned something else: “Dad, he plays grumpy.”
King’s temperament and style, both vastly different, will be on display for the Orlando Storm, a new team competing in World TeamTennis. The Storm’s 14-match regular season is set to begin against the Vegas Rollers at 7 p.m. on Sunday at the USTA National Campus in Lake Nona.
A Chicago native, King, 27, moved in December to Central Florida to train here year-round.
“You’re playing a match and you’ve got people behind you,” King said of World TeamTennis. “You’re cheering for other people. That kind of energy is fun, and it’s very quick.
“It’s a different tennis than you see on TV. There will be more emotion, more speed, more things going on on changeovers.”
Ranked 294th in the world, King (6-1, 175) plays on the ATP Challenger Tour. Players on the developmental circuit confront obstacles that their big brothers on the ATP Tour don’t.
The purses are considerably
smaller. Players often share hotel, coaching and other expenses to survive. The TV and media coverage can be nonexistent. Agents and others don’t rush to fulfill their every request.
Challenger Tour players don’t wear hats and shirts with their personal logos on them.
“You have to put your head down and grind your way through it, try to look at the big picture and try to see there’s a light at the end of the tunnel,” said Storm coach
Scott Lipsky, a former Challenger Tour player. “You go to some places you don’t really want to be, that really aren’t glamorous, but all of these guys are really good players.”
Lipsky once traveled to Russia for a couple of Challenger Tour events. At one, the hotel was near a strip club — “We definitely got knocks on our doors in the middle of the night, asking if we wanted girls,” he said — and at the other, Lipsky cut his hand when a sink shattered after falling in the shower.
Don’t ask.
King’s journey is not that colorful,
but the bumps are real. About a year-and-a-half after turning professional in 2013, the former University of Michigan standout stepped away.
“I think I got to 400 or something in the world, and it really bugged me that literally everything I made went directly back into the sport,” King said. “Just little pleasantries that I wasn’t able to comfortably do. … There was pressure, so that was tough.”
Van King, a tennis coach who taught the sport to his son, said struggling while adjusting to becoming a pro is not uncommon.
“They go out on the tour, and
they think it’s going to happen in an instant,” Van said. “It’s sort of like, ‘You’ve got to roll up your sleeves and you’ve got to earn it.’ ”
King returned to playing in the summer of 2015.
While McEnroe is at Wimbledon this week, King played an event in Winnetka, Ill.
One still can be grumpy. The other still plays on the Challenger Tour — with no complaints.
“My mindset was in a different place than it is now,” King said. “I didn’t appreciate the career I had and how awesome it really is. You get paid to hit a tennis ball in cool places, and that’s pretty sweet.”