Newest Tennis Star Has Roots In Spokane

Wondering who will be in the next wave of U.S. tennis players after Pete Sampras leaves and Michael Chang becomes a full-time fisherman and Andre Agassi settles down in Hollywood?

Remember this name: Jan-Michael Gambill. Take a look at his soft McEnroe-esque hands. The smoking 120-mph serve. The Leonardo-Who good looks.

Check out the way he reacts to a crowd and, more important, the way the crowd reacts to him.

Gambill, who turns 21 in June, is part of the next wave. He has replaced Justin Gimelstob as the best young U.S. player and - get this - he's from that tennis mecca of Spokane.

"We had Julie Harrington, who did pretty well on the women's tour for a few years," Gambill said. "But that's about it."

Gambill is in the beginning of his breakthrough season. This time last year he was ranked 227th on the ATP tour. This week, he is 81st, with a bullet.

Last month, he reached the quarterfinals in Scottsdale, before losing to Agassi.

Two weeks later, he made his first semifinal at the Newsweek Cup, beating No. 14 Mark Philippoussis, Francisco Clavet and two former top-ranked players - Jim Courier and Agassi. He lost to moody enfant terrible Marcelo Rios, tennis' new No. 1, in the semifinals.

"I was up a break in the second set against Rios and then I was broken right back at love," he said. "That was sick."

Pay attention to Gambill. He's got game.

"It's happening a little faster than I thought it would," Gambill said. "It's like riding a wave. Floating is a pretty good word, too.

"But I haven't thought too much about the rankings. I've mostly thought more about how I could become a better player, not what would happen if I did. But now it's happening and it's definitely happening quickly.

"I've learned that I can play with the top guys. I haven't played Pete (Sampras) yet, but I know I can go out there against all of these guys and stay in the match. There's no reason why I can't go out and play well."

Before this season, Gambill was lost on the agate page of most newspapers. Just another new name buried among the Kafelnikovs and Rafters.

But Gambill began making his move up, down under, by qualifying for his first grand slam, the Australian Open in January. He lost in the first round, in four sets to Alex O'Brien. He lost, but he learned.

"It was a tight match and, I think, one of the reasons I lost was because I didn't really believe I could win it," said Gambill by telephone from Stone Mountain, Ga., where he is a practice partner for this weekend's Davis Cup matches against Russia. "After the match, I thought that was really stupid.

"I was up a set and a break and then just didn't play as well. After the match was over, I just gave myself a pep talk. I said, `You can't just go out on the court and play like that and think like that.' Maybe I just couldn't quite believe I could win a match in a Grand Slam."

It is a meandering trail from Spokane's Mead High School to the ATP's top 100. There are dozens of bad stops in places such as Bakersfield, Calif., and Lafayette, La., the backwater towns of the satellite tours.

And there have been the long, glamourless hours on the practice courts with his Seattle coach, Scott Shogreen, and on the road with his father, Chuck, a real-estate investor, who travels with him.

"I started playing tennis when I was 6 and becoming a pro player became my goal when I was 10 or 11," Gambill said. "It's always been in my head. I haven't put pressure on myself to do it, but it's always been there. It's taken a lot of drilling and a lot of playing, and a lot of hard work.

"Instead of going to an academy, we hired Scott when I was 16 on the junior circuit. I played Scott every day. . . . Playing a better player is how you get better. He would beat me up and beat me up, and finally, I got to the point where I would beat him most of the time. I learned a lot from that."

Now Gambill is beginning a life that is far from Bakersfield. He hangs out with Agassi, who was his idol and now is his friend.

During a break in their Davis Cup practice sessions, Agassi and Gambill flew to Orlando on Agassi's private jet for the opening of another All Star Cafe.

"To be accepted as one of the guys and to become friends with the guys here on the team at the Davis Cup, has been cool," he said. "It's flattering, really. It's not my goal to be a celebrity, but that kind of atmosphere is kind of fun."

The rise of Jan-Michael (his mother has a sister named Jan and a brother named Michael) has been meteoric, but not sudden. He doesn't look like some shooting star with a short life span. Gambill has the stuff of stardom.

"To me, it certainly hasn't happened suddenly," he said. "The media attention has been sudden, but I've been on the pro circuit for 2 1/2 years now and I've taken a lot of lumps. I've played a lot of tournaments and I've taken some beatings and I'm sure I'm going to take some more."

But he will give more lumps than he will take. Jan-Michael Gambill is the new best young tennis player in the land.

Pay attention.