UCLA’s Gimelstob Keeps Team Spirit

Unlike most collegiate athletes, tennis players, if they are good enough, can sample the professional tennis tour. They get some exposure to the limelight and luxury--but not the prize money--then return to the dorms and exams.

If they pay close attention, college players might discern the advantages offered by the cocoon of college and postpone the reality of the professional world. Justin Gimelstob has chosen to do that.

A sophomore at UCLA, Gimelstob has been playing pro tournaments for two years. He has earned 107 ATP Tour points this year and ranks 299th, having beaten Jonas Bjorkman last month when the Swede was ranked No. 31. At 6 feet 5, Gimelstob’s power game should survive the transition to the tour, which he says he will play full time next year.

But first there’s his final college season. The top-ranked Bruins will play host to No. 2 Stanford today at the Los Angeles Tennis Center on the UCLA campus at noon. Gimelstob is ranked No. 3 in college singles and, with teammate Srdjan Muskatirovic, No. 1 in doubles.

How well UCLA does this weekend will serve as a barometer for the team’s chances to win the NCAA title May 18-26 at Athens, Ga. The lure of playing for a team--not a usual concept in tennis--is what brought Gimelstob, 19, back to UCLA this season after a highly successful summer on the ATP Tour.

“We have a very close team, we all live in the same apartment,” he said. “It’s been a goal for us to win the team title. There was never any doubt, once the season started, that I would fulfill my commitment here. I came here with a goal.

“I think because I have been at professional events, I can enjoy my college time so much more. I think you realize that much more when you lose. Here, you have your teammates pulling for you.”

He didn’t make many friends as a junior player in New Jersey. The national junior champion developed a tennis temperament and berated opponents and officials.

“I was expending way too much energy on negative things,” he said. “I think I’ve worked through it. I’m trying to comport myself in a professional manner all the time now.”

His resolve has been tested. Gimelstob weathered family upheaval earlier this season when his older brother, Josh, was arrested and charged with negligent homicide and obstruction of justice in connection with an auto accident on Jan. 20.

Josh, a tennis player at Tulane, is alleged to have struck and killed a campus police officer after having been ordered to stop. The car allegedly sped up, hit a parked car and bounced into the officer, who was knocked down and dragged about 50 feet, then pinned under a parked vehicle.

Gimelstob is very close to his brother, his sometime doubles partner.

“He didn’t take it well; nobody did,” said UCLA Coach Billy Martin. “It was terrible. We all know Josh, he’s out here training. Justin talks to Josh every day.”

Gimelstob had to fight through the guilt of continuing to play while his brother is not free to.

“It’s been quite difficult for our family,” he said. “I talk to him and he keeps telling me that it would be the best thing for me to keep doing what I’m doing. I can help him the most by playing.”

Earlier this month, when UCLA was playing at Stanford, students in the stands delighted in harassing Gimelstob.

“They said stuff like, ‘Hey, Gimelstob, are you going to kill [his opponent]?” he said with a shrug. “They really gave it to my dad. My parents were in the stands and my mom had to hear that.”

Tasteless taunting is the order of the day in college tennis, and the rowdiness is one of the differences Gimelstob adjusts to when he moves from the pro tour back to college.

“It’s really so personal in college,” he said. “the players really take everything so personally. I think there’s a lesser degree of professionalism. Of course, on the tour everyone understands that it’s a job.”

For now, it’s the camaraderie that’s fun. Gimelstob remembers his biggest victory, beating Bjorkman at a tournament in Scottsdale, Ariz., then returning to his hotel room.

“I just had a really exciting win, but I was sitting in my hotel room alone, watching TV,” Gimelstob said. “I was lonely. I called Paul Annacone [former player and coach to Pete Sampras]. We talked about it. He said, ‘Better get used to it. It’s the tour.’ I was glad to get back to school and the team.”