THE CULT OF NICK : He Shouts, He Struts, He Makes Champions--Inside Nick Bollettieri’s Tennis Prodigy Hothouse.

THE LITTLE GIRL IN THE WHITE TENNIS DRESS stands hunched over, shifting her weight left-right, left-right on the balls of her sneakers. She waits, perspiring under the Florida sun, her forehead furrowed, her tiny hands squeezing and squeezing her big tennis racket, her narrowed eyes following the flight of the ball until it is level with her waist. She swings, cries out, “Ah-eeee!” whacking the ball with such ferocity that the momentum from the swing of her racket yanks her head to the right where she glances, anxiously, at a man standing at the net with his back to her.

The man is watching another, much taller girl, whacking a tennis ball on the adjoining court. There is another court adjoining hers, and another, and another, ad infinitum, all the courts with boys and girls whacking tennis balls back and forth, so that looking down that line of courts, from net to net to net, creates the illusion of looking down a hall of mirrors.

Finally, the man turns to watch the little girl through his Darth Vaderish sunglasses, his trademark, which reflect the colors of the rainbow. He is shirtless in the sun, dressed only in tennis shorts, hung low on his waist, and sneakers. The little girl is also being watched from the sidelines by her mother, about 30, with sandy blond hair, who is chewing gum and wearing her own Darth Vaderish sunglasses. Camcorder rolling, the mother yells at her daughter in a foreign language. The little girl looks at her in disgust. The man calls out: “Baby! Baby! Don’t throw so much body into it. Let the racket speed do it for you.” He smiles for emphasis. Not a smile really, more a grimace, a pulling back of his lips to expose his teeth, as if, for this man, smiling does not come easily.

The little girl flashes him a big child’s grin and says, “Hokay, Nick.” She has that Southern California, South Florida perfect tan, blond hair tied in a braid bouncing against her back and coltish legs. She swings at the next ball with less force. It bounces beyond the reach of her opponent’s racket. The older man flashes his grimace again and says, with great enthusiasm, another trademark, “Be-ooo-tiful, Anna! Be-ooo-tiful!”

The man is Nick Bollettieri, 63, tennis guru, the personal coach of Andre Agassi and, at one time or another, Jim Courier, Pete Sampras and Monica Seles, not to mention thousands of other, unknown players who have passed through the revolving doors of his tennis academies in France, Italy, Spain and the United States. On this fall day, he is at the capital of his empire, the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy in Bradenton, Fla., where he is training, among others, the tall girl, Tracy Singian, a Filipino-American from New Jersey who is 13; two Russian teen-age boys who desperately want a scholarship to the academy; Mary Pierce, 17, one of the top 20 players on the women’s professional tour, and the little blond girl, Anna Kournikova, an 11-year-old Russian who, Bollettieri says, is a tennis prodigy of such potential he has called her “the best I ever saw.”

Everyone calls him Nick, then they smile, as people do when talking about a character. He looks like an aging Las Vegas lounge crooner: bald spot, droopy bags under his sad eyes and a low-slung jaw. He has a hairy chest and bowed, hairy legs; when he moves around a tennis court, hunched over in his player’s stance, he looks vaguely simian, with none of the grace of the children he trains.

Which is irrelevant. Those who can’t, teach. Bollettieri has been voted the World’s Best Tennis Coach in a fan survey at the 1988 U.S. Open; Sharp Electronics’ Sharpshooter Professional Coach of the Year in 1989 and ‘90, and the United States Professional Tennis Assn. Pro of the Year in 1991.

“Nick Bollettieri is truly a legend in the game of tennis,” according to Mark McCormack, CEO of International Management Group, which just happens to own the academy. And Dr. James E. Loehr, a sports psychologist who once worked at the academy, has said: “Nick and the academy are the best in the business.” But even supposedly objective observers of the tennis scene remark upon Bollettieri’s abilities. He is one of the sport’s “greatest motivators and teachers,” according to Neil Amdur, sports editor of the New York Times.

Bollettieri, however, likes to think of himself as more than just a teacher. The cover of the academy brochure shows a photograph of him wearing the trademark sunglasses--Oakleys--beneath a quote that reads: “A man of ideals in a world of compromise.” Which is not precisely how everyone in tennis views him. Bollettieri has been called a “hustler” whose programs are nothing more than “production lines” specializing in “quantity” not quality. He has been accused of rarely visiting his academies, and of not even knowing the names of most of his students.

But most criticism of Bollettieri rests on his practice of thrusting children as young as 8 into a highly structured and highly competitive environment far from their parents and friends. Bollettieri acknowledges the pitfalls of sending children away from home to live a life devoted primarily to tennis. “This kind of a life is a shock,” he says. “Maybe they’re too young.” But still they come--and still he accepts them--occasionally at 7--because, as a young student at another academy put it: “You leave home, your friends, your family life for a career move.”

THE FIRST THING VISITORS SEE UPON ENTERING THE NBTA is a huge green sign proclaiming Andre Agassi’s 1992 victory at Wimbledon. Then other signs for Mitsubishi Motors, Donnay rackets, Adidas tennis shoes, Penn tennis balls--all sponsors of the academy. In the center of the compound--dorms, recreational center, school and training facilities, even a psychologist’s office--is a cluster of low, wood-framed buildings that house the offices, from which 75 tennis courts fan out like petals of a huge flower. The north courts are where the weaker players practice, players whose stay here is an exercise in vanity and a testament to their parents’ wealth. On the western courts, the stronger players practice. And close to them, there are indoor courts where the more famous players, like Mary Pierce, can practice in private. The southern courts are reserved for the up-and-comers, like Anna, whom Bollettieri trains personally.

The entire operation runs under the Cult of Nick, as the old Soviet Union ran under the Cult of Lenin. Bollettieri’s picture is everywhere--photographs by the hundreds, paintings done in the style of Leroy Neiman. Bollettieri’s style pervades every facet of the academy. The Oakley sunglasses are on every face, and the coaches shout instructions at their students at the same decibel levels that Bollettieri normally employs. There seems to be a consensus that kids pay attention best to shouting--that if everyone in the compound can hear you, you’ll never have to repeat yourself.

No one who knew Bollettieri in his hometown of Pelham, N.Y., could have possibly predicted his eventual canonization in the world of tennis. Pelham is a workingman’s town outside New York City, and the Bollettieris were a middle-class Italian family--his father was a pharmacist. In the late ‘40s when Bollettieri was growing up, tennis was a country club sport, and country clubs did not welcome members whose names ended in vowels.

Not until college did he compete in tennis, joining both the tennis and football teams at Spring Hill College in Mobile, Ala. Then, as a paratrooper in the Korean War, Bollettieri started on the path that would eventually make him a millionaire, teaching his fellow troopers tennis for pocket money. After the war, he landed at the University of Miami law school, but that didn’t last. In the ‘60s, he ran a “two-tennis-court-and-soda-pop-machine” teaching business in North Miami Beach, eventually teaching at resorts, a Long Island academy and for the Rockefeller family. When one of his students, Brian Gottfried, became the No. 3ranked player in the world in 1977, Bollettieri’s reputation was sealed. A year later, he started a junior tennis academy in Longboat Key, Fla., and in 1981 he opened the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy in Bradenton.

What distinguished Bollettieri as a coach had a lot to do with his Italian temperament, his working-class background, his stint as a paratrooper and his rough-hewn style. He was hot, not cool; passionate, not phlegmatic like most tennis coaches. His success had less to do with his technical expertise than his ability to motivate students, the same way football coaches motivate linemen before a big game. He jammed his face up close to theirs and screamed at them about hard work, discipline, perseverance and attention to detail. He was, in short, the kind of coach who might approach a grinning student after he had just won a match 6-0, 6-0, 6-1, to berate him unmercifully for losing that single game. He was like a hot-tempered drill sergeant, trying to shape up hotshot, college-educated, wanna-be officers at boot camp. They would surpass him one day in rank, but they would never forget that it was all because of him.

“He expected hard work; he was very demanding in a positive way--a good motivator,” remembers Wayne Johnson, 28, a high school tennis coach in Plantation, Fla., who trained at the academy in the early days. “You learn from Nick how to be mentally tough, aggressive.”

Bollettieri’s real brilliance, however, what he has called his “vision,” was to see where tennis was going in the ‘70s and ‘80s. He anticipated the tennis explosion of fame and wealth and its attendant cult of personality. He was a relentless promoter, starting with himself. “Personality,” he says, “brings you as much money as talent. We teach students how to be marketable.” Today, everyone, including Bollettieri, says he has mellowed. But motivation is still considered to be his strong suit as a coach, and there is still something of the boot camp at the the academy. His 295 full-time students, 60% of them from foreign countries, adhere to a rigid timetable of weekday activities from September through May. Breakfast: 6:50 a.m. School: 7:30 a.m. Lunch (in tennis dress): 11:45 a.m. Tennis: 1:30 to 6 p.m. Dinner: 6 to 7 p.m. Study: 7 to 8:30 p.m. Socializing: 8:30 to 10 p.m. Lights out: 10:30 p.m. Saturdays: tennis half day. Sundays: off. Students may not smoke, drink alcohol, use drugs, chew gum, use profanity or engage in obvious displays of affection (i.e. sex) with each other.

For these privileges, most students, or their parents, pay the academy close to $25,000 a year. Ten percent of the students are on scholarships; even fewer, like Anna, are bankrolled completely in anticipation of future pay-backs. Bollettieri also offers other instruction packages for adults and juniors, ranging from one day to two months, from $90 to $7,160. And, of course Donnay, Mitsubishi, etc. also pay the pied piper of tennis. They contribute cash and products totaling in the millions, says Bill Rompf, vice president of the academy.

Bollettieri is in fact the first tennis coach in history who’s made himself into a media and corporate star, and a millionare, without benefit of his own tennis career. The secret of Bollettieri’s success, according to Kevin O’Connor, who runs a rival academy in Florida, is simple: “Nick sells Nick. He’s in your face, larger than life.”

WHEN ANNA KOURNIKOVA IS FINISHED PRACTICING, BOLLETTIERI, SPEAKING SLOWLY in pidgin English, tells her mother, Alla, that “she’s coming along nicely.” Alla smiles, then asks if Bollettieri would pose with Anna for a photograph. Bollettieri puts his arm around the little girl and leans down with his face close to hers. He flashes his grimace. The mother shoots. His 8x10 glossy grimace instantly disappears. Then the mother hands him a poster. It shows Anna on Bollettieri’s lap--definitely a burgeoning-superstar shot.

Bollettieri has a reputation for being able to spot hot properties and make them famous beyond mere talent or accomplishment. Years before Agassi’s first major victory, at Wimbledon, a lady friend of Bollettieri’s said, “That’s a fine-looking boy, Nick, and he has a great game, but the hair has to go.” “Go?” Bollettieri shouted. “The hair is $5 million a year! That hair is what gets him commercials!”

Bollettieri likes to talk about Anna’s attitude and her strokes--the overhead, volley and serve of someone five years her senior, he says. Although neither the academy nor her agent wants to talk about her current competitive record, the New York Times reported that in her first Florida age-group tournament, Kournikova, starting unseeded, blew away the 14-and-under competition. And in her next outing, she lived up to her top seeding.

Certainly one of her biggest victories to date has come in garnering some great PR. The New York Times story didn’t hurt. It ran through her humble beginnings--”discovered” by an International Management Group agent shagging balls on a court in Moscow. But it also filled in the details: The agent had heard about her, and he saw her compete at the 1991 Kremlin Cup before he signed her to a contract and shipped her and Alla to the academy in short order.

Bollettieri rolls up the poster and promises to sign it when he finds a pen; then he’s off, hurrying to his next student in his bowlegged way. He stops to talk to a groundskeeper about some bushes. “I want them planted right here,” he yells, and then he disappears inside the enclosed courts where Mary Pierce is hitting tennis balls.

At 17, Pierce is tall and elegant. She has none of Anna’s androgynous, loose-limbed, pigeon-toed style. She moves languorously on the court, her head high and her back straight; she hits the ball in silence, no grunts or screams. Despite her size, strength and bearing, there is something delicate about her, in contrast to Anna’s determination.

Pierce has had problems this fall. She lost in straight sets to Mary Joe Fernandez at the U.S. Open. The problem, people say, is her father--her coach until she bagged him in favor of Bollettieri. Jim Pierce, with the people skills of Attila the Hun, berates Mary from the sidelines while she stoically plays on.

Now Bollettieri observes her moving regally toward the net to return a drop shot. He calls out, “Mary, Mary! You’re straight up! You’ve got to bend your back!” He waddles toward the net himself to show her what he means. She watches impassively, a graceful young woman being taught how to move by a gnome-like middle-aged man. She nods, and tries to approach the net hunched over, but it seems as impossible for her as it would for a high fashion runway model. Still, Bollettieri says: “That’s better, Mary. That’s be-ooo-tiful.”

In a minute, he hurries outside, where he bumps into a staff coach. He shakes his head in despair. “It’s terrible!” he says. “Terrible! Mary runs straight up!” Then he’s gone again, scurrying back to the south courts where the two Russian boys are practicing. He watches them for a few moments, then shakes his head again and says, “No forehands. I wouldn’t be interested in giving them a scholarship. You have to watch yourself, you know.”

Once more he takes off, heading toward the parking lot, where his white Mitsubishi 3000 is being hand-waxed. “No! No! No!” Bollettieri shouts, waving his arms wildly. “The black one in the garage! I haven’t driven that one in months!” (The black one is a Corvette, and he has recently owned a couple of Mercedes-Benzes. When asked if that annoyed his Mitsubishi sponsors, Bollettieri says: “I don’t give a shit!”)

In the parking lot, a heavy Russian woman in a white Perry Ellis tennis outfit and her husband, wearing plaid Bermuda shorts, approach Bollettieri with deference. They ask him about their son, one of the two Russian boys Bollettieri has just seen. “You’ll have to check with Jose on that. Check with Jose.” He flashes his grimace and hustles off.

At lunchtime, the long conference table in Bollettieri’s office is laden with food: cold cuts, salads, fresh fruit. Bollettieri is on the phone, talking loudly; around him, eight of his clean-cut young coaches and administrators are eating in silence. When he finally hangs up, someone hands him a plate of food, and he eats, still talking. This is the first time he has been at the academy in four months, and he will be here only three days. He is trying to cram as much as he can into every minute.

“In order to cut the payroll,” says one man, “we’ll have to give some guys unpaid vacation time.”

“I’d tell you kiss my ass if I didn’t want to go on vacation,” Bollettieri snaps. “How much money we talkin’ about?”

“Twenty-five hundred a month each. The payroll’s higher this year than last. We’ve got to streamline it.”

“Well,” Bollettieri says, “if they feel comfortable taking three weeks off. I don’t want them to feel forced to do it. On the other hand, the money factor’s extremely important.”

“I already asked them. They said it’s OK.”

“Good, it’s settled,” Bollettieri says. “Now what about Boca Raton?” Boca Raton, it turns out, is a reference to a coach they’re thinking of hiring.

“I told him to take it or leave it. But his wife wants $150,000,” says one man.

“Jesus Christ!” Bollettieri shouts. “Forget it!”

“I think she’ll be OK. Give ‘em till the rest of the day.”

“Don’t tell me that!” Bollettieri says. “She’s gonna be a problem. It’s not gonna work. If you got the wife involved, we all know what that means. I know ladies!” (He does, and he doesn’t. He has been married, and divorced, five times and has five children from three of the marriages. At present he is a bachelor again.)

After dispensing a few more orders and, wolfing down the last of his sandwich, Bollettieri says, “Is that it?” Everybody nods. They get up to go back to work. One coach stops beside the boss on his way out. “You’re speaking to students on the back courts at 1 p.m., OK, Nick?” he asks. Bollettieri nods. “And tomorrow, Nick, it would be good for you to walk around. You know, Give everyone 20 minutes.”

When the room is deserted again, Bollettieri takes care of one more piece of business, talking on the record about his proteges. “Anna has all the strokes,” he says. “A natural talent. And she has an animal instinct. My job is to make her believe she’s the best. Now it’s just a question of her growing up. It’s important that her talent not be corrupted. If everyone is patient, and we have fun, she has a chance to be a top player. She’s very competitive.” What about Pierce? “Mary’s future will be determined by her father,” is all he says. “If he lets her go. He’s very difficult to deal with. Counterproductive.”

He shakes his head and purses his lips. He is remembering those parents and students who, he claims, have burned him. Monica Seles was one.

“I’ll never forget the first time I saw her,” he once said. “I saw her just attack every ball. You don’t often find girls like that, so concentrated and fierce and zoned in.” Bollettieri immediately offered to train her, and Seles and her family moved to Bradenton from Yugoslavia shortly afterward in 1986.

Seles moved quickly up the professional rankings until she became No. 3 in the world in 1990, then abruptly left the NBTA. Bollettieri was furious. He claimed that Monica had abandoned him because she demanded that he train only her and Agassi, and that Bollettieri pay her father a coaching fee. “It’s not a case of goodby and God bless, I can tell you that,” Bollettieri said at the time. “There are monies and expenditures here that shouldn’t be forgotten, all of them documented. (My) financial investment (in Monica) was in the six figures. This academy was their domain; I’m talking about carte blanche.”

At first, Bollettieri hinted at a lawsuit, but he’s mellowed over the years concerning Seles, too. “It bothered me she didn’t say thank you,” he says now, “But at the Open this year, Chris Evert said every time Monica hits a ball it’s part of Nick’s teaching.”

Another of Bollettieri’s former students is Jim Courier, who spent more than three years at the Bradenton academy. Courier was a young, struggling pro, a contemporary of Agassi, who could never beat Agassi when they were young teen-agers. When Courier traveled to tournaments, he was accompanied by one of Bollettieri’s assistants. When Agassi travels to tournaments, he was--and still is--accompanied by Bollettieri. This gnawed at Courier for three years, until the 1989 French Open, when he played and defeated Agassi in the third round. In midpoint, Courier glanced toward the stands and saw Bollettieri cheering for Agassi. “I realized Nick didn’t want me to win,” said Courier. “It kinda hurt me.” Shortly afterward he left the academy.

A lot of people with hindsight say that Bollettieri’s touting Agassi over Courier was one of his few mistakes in the tennis business. Until Agassi finally took the Wimbledon title, he had never won a grand slam tournament, despite all his promise. He hovers among the Top 10 in the pro rankings, while Courier, who has won three grand slams this year, is the first U.S. player to be ranked No. 1 since 1984. Courier ended 1992 as the top player in the world, but he’s not one of the most charismatic players on the tour.

Agassi, on the other hand, is Mr. Charisma. Which is precisely what first attracted Bollettieri to the young player from Las Vegas. “Andre’s a character and I’m a character,” says Bollettieri in his office. “He appeals to me. You don’t ever know what’s gonna happen with Andre. He makes it exciting.”

At Wimbledon this summer, Bollettieri was right there beside Agassi the champion. “They said I couldn’t close out a big match,” Agassi said, “that I wasn’t a fighter.” The two men hugged and cried. “It’s the happiest day of my life,” Bollettieri said. Agassi said: “Nick, if we retire now, we’ve done it.”

Sitting in his quiet office now, Bollettieri contemplates his famous relationship with Agassi. He lowers his eyes almost deferentially, which is not an attitude anyone much associates with him. And for once, he speaks softly: “He’s more to me than just a tennis player. I wouldn’t be where I am today if Andre wasn’t my friend.”

JIMMY EVERT HAS A TINY, CRAMPED OFFICE AT THE HOLIDAY PARK PUBLIC tennis courts in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., where he has been a tennis coach for more than 40 years, including the years he coached his daughter Chris, before she became one of the greatest women players in history.

“Chris was born in ‘54, and in the ‘60s when she was playing tennis there were no academies. It was before the big money. Tennis was just for fun.”

“I used to coach Chris twice a week,” Evert says, “but mostly she played with her friends after school. I wouldn’t have sent her to a tennis academy, and besides, she wouldn’t have wanted to go. She had too many friends here.”

Evert is about as different from Nick Bollettieri as night is from day. He is a shy man in his 60s with a big head and big ears that make him look a little like Mr. Magoo. He speaks softly, surrounded by broken rackets and scuffed tennis balls, while outside on the courts, housewives hack away.

Even though Chris Evert was in her time the youngest winner of many a tournament, the pace of her career today seems positively snail-like. “I brought Chris along slowly so she’d peak in her 20s,” her father says. “Today, kids peak in their teens. They reach their potential quicker if they go to an academy, but you don’t know how long they’ll last.”

It’s just one of the criticisms leveled against live-in tennis schools like the academy. Mary Carillo, a former pro, a mother and a tennis sportscaster, has said, “The only mature thing I see in some players (who spent their childhood at academies) is their tennis.”

Despite his high regard for Bollettieri’s school, sports psychologist Loehr agrees: “It’s not normal for a 10-year-old to be on a tennis court for four or five hours a day.”

Not surprisingly, Bollettieri is quick to defend the atmosphere at the academy. “We can’t make them all top pros like Andre, but we can help them make their high school team or get a college scholarship. We’re upfront about giving our kids realistic expectations. We don’t expect them all to come out of the same mold. We’d like them to learn more than just tennis here,” he says. But he also admits it wasn’t always that way. “I’ve learned to adjust more to the needs of the children,” he says, “other than just in tennis.”

And, he says, he has also learned to treat his students as individuals rather than like boot camp recruits. He must be very slow and deliberate when explaining something to Agassi. And he had to speak quietly and calmly when instructing Courier, who gets stubborn when yelled at. Anna he calls “feisty.” “I can yell at her,” he says. “I can never yell at Mary Pierce. She’s very delicate.”

To be fair, of course, Bollettieri doesn’t impose tennis madness on anyone, and he can’t be blamed for the intrinsic problems of intensive sports training. The children and their parents seem to have fallen prey to tennis obsession long before they arrive in Bradenton. They plead with Bollettieri to turn that obsession into consistent results, fame, wealth. So he tries.

That damage can be done, however, has been documented. Lori Kosten was one of Bollettieri’s students in 1978. She was by all accounts highly talented, ranked No. 2 in her age group at the age of 12, and she begged her parents to be allowed to go to the academy. But by the age of 21, Kosten had been out of competitive tennis for six years, with little of her potential realized. “I was burned out,” she said. “Going there (the NBTA) was the worst mistake I ever made. I think Nick is the best coach anywhere, a real motivator, but I lost my identity down there.”

Bollettieri admits that Kosten suffered from the pressures at the academy. But that was before he mellowed: “If I knew then what I know now, I think I could have done better with Lori Kosten.”

A 1986 HBO documentary, “Kids in Sports: The Price of Glory,” talked about children “giving up the carefree joys of youth” and “sacrificing” their childhoods. It offered up a few case histories. One was 11-year-old Brian Gardner, who was shipped by his parents from their home in Southern California to Florida and Bollettieri. The camera showed his mother crying at the airport and the boy crying in his seat on the airplane.

“Brian?” says Nick. “Yeah, I remember Brian. He should be about 18 now. Where is he? I don’t know.”

JIM PIERCE, THE FATHER OF MARY, IS STANDING AGAINST THE WALL OF THE DESERTED enclosed courts of the the academy, after his daughter has left practice for the day. He’s a gruff man, with a big belly, dressed in the kind of shorts football coaches wear.

“Listen, Nick’s a great guy,” he says, with a slight lisp and a Southern drawl. “He’s helped a lot of people. But he’s not good for Mary’s game. He doesn’t believe in hard work like he used to. He works Mary maybe an hour and a half a day. For seven years, eight hours a day, I hit 700 serves at Mary. We used to work until midnight. My son slept by the net and I wouldn’t let Mary leave unless she got it right. Sure, she cried. I cried, too. So what?”

When Jim Pierce begins talking about his daughter, the injustice she’s done him, he can’t stop. He keeps poking his listener in the chest with his forefinger has he ticks off matches Mary won, when she listened to him, and matches she lost, when coached by Bollettieri. “In the Open she struggled like a broken dog,” he is saying. “Her mother said she was gonna beat Fernandez, but I told her she was dreaming. I was good enough as Mary’s coach to put $500,000 in Mary’s savings account, now I ain’t good enough to coach her. Now her mother’s got her name on that account. All my life I tried to protect Mary from the wolves, and I just hope my wife doesn’t become one of them.

“Listen, it’s normal Mary wants to be independent. It’s like a girl runs out of the house and marries the first guy that comes along. Now, I’m not saying Nick’s not a good coach. But every great player comes through the family. How many thousands come through Nick’s camp, and how many of them become champions? And as for this Anna, she’s the size Mary was at 6. I watched her game. Maybe she’ll be God someday, but right now somebody’s blowin’ smoke up someone’s ass. This girl ain’t close to what Mary was at 11.

“If Mary stays with Nick I told her she’d better get a button made and put it on her shirt. ‘Hi, I’m Mary Pierce! Would you like fries with that burger, sir?’ ”

Jim Pierce grabs his listener by the arm. “Come on, I’ll introduce you to Mary and her mother.”

Mary Pierce, wearing only bikini bottoms, her body coated with oil and glistening in the sun, is lying on her stomach beside the adults’ swimming pool. Her mother is seated beside her. Jim Pierce bellows at them. “Talk to this guy, will you? Tell him how bad I am for Mary!” Mary raises her head languidly and turns slightly to stare over her shoulder at her father. She blinks once, as if to erase an unpleasant vision from her sight, and lays her head back down on her towel.

Her father walks away, still bellowing, “Tell him! Go ahead, tell him how I put $500,000 in Mary’s bank account and I ain’t even got a checking account!” Finally, he is gone.

Mary does not raise her head or make any attempt to put on her bikini top while she talks. “My father dwells on the shots I miss,” she says. “It always bothered me. Now I say it, but before I didn’t. It’s not that I’m older, it’s just that I’m tired of it. Dad’s hard to talk to.” Her mother laughs. “He’s not very understanding. Nick tries to motivate you more.”

“He makes you believe in yourself,” her mother says.

The Pierces lead a curious existence. They have no permanent home. They live in rental condos, or in hotel rooms when Mary is playing tournaments throughout the world. Mary does not go to high school but rather takes correspondence courses. She has no friends outside of tennis, nor any interests outside of tennis. Except one. “I like to sit by the pool,” she says.

And soon, Mary would not even have that recreational option, at least not at the Bollettieri school. Within weeks she would be gone from the Bradenton academy, gone from the ranks of Nick’s personal charges. She would have given up her “independence” and returned to the full-time care and coaching of her father.

“AH--EEEE!” IT IS LATE AFTERNOON. ANNA IS HITTING tennis balls while Bollettieri and her mother watch behind their Oakley shades. Nearby, Tracy Singian is hitting with two boys much older than herself. She is more than holding her own. Anna rarely hits with anyone other than her coach. Is he keeping her under wraps so as not to expose a weakness, or maybe to bolster her fragile confidence? “ No ,” he snaps. In fact, he is scheduled to showcase Anna in the Rolex Orange Bowl International Tennis Championships in Miami Beach in December--a top junior tournament.

In any case, Anna does not look strong enough to hit with the boys Tracy is hitting with. She looks small and slight, even though she does have all the strokes of a more advanced player. She resembles a perfect miniature of a pro, like those Little League boys with all the Big League mannerisms. And Bollettieri is clearly trying hard to keep the perfection intact. Providing her with the complete academy cocoon, nurturing and protecting her, making her a star before she ever plays a major pro match, preparing for the day she bursts forth as a beautiful butterfly. His new Agassi.

“I’ve seen them all,” Bollettieri has said, “but this one actually frightens me. She knows everything. She’s not only the youngest real prospect I’ve ever had, but the best. Could she set a precedent and turn pro by 12? I’m not sure I can hold her back.”

Anna swings, cries out, “Ah-eeee!” her trademark.