Part 1 of 3: After nearly a decade on the circuit, ATP pro Paul Goldstein has learned some valuable lessons – hit the gym, keep wins and losses in perspective, and don't spend too long sleeping on a friend's couch.

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By Paul Goldstein with Joel Drucker

Paul Goldstein, 31, is trying to follow the Andre Agassi recipe for a lengthy career.                                  © Harry How/Getty Images

This change in approach has been critical to my (relative) success in recent years. Last year, for example, I could point to several matches where being fit was the key factor that helped me win. In two of them, on very hot days in Hawaii and Miami, my opponents were retired early in the third set due to fatigue. In another, on clay in Houston, I started off the match grinding my way through 30-ball rallies. That kind of patience sent a message to my opponent: I'm not going away. And soon enough, he was the one bailing out early on the points. Those efforts make me proud to be a professional tennis player – a direct payoff between hard work off the court and positive results.

But while I know guys like Andre were intent on being pros from an early age, for me the path has been different. Growing up in Rockville, Maryland, I never had expectations of being a pro. My siblings and parents never pushed me. School was far more important. Throughout my amateur career, my focus was on balancing tennis, academics and a healthy social life. Even after I won the national juniors, I had no thoughts about turning pro.

My tennis education took a turn once I started playing ATP events after graduating from Stanford in 1998. My first coach, Scott McCain (a former pro and onetime UC Berkeley head coach) helped me see the difference between college tennis and the pro tour. Our mission was both simple and challenging: change my playing style from a runner and a bunter into a runner and a hitter. I’m proud to say that after nine years, Scott’s still my coach. Our relationship extends far beyond the tennis court.

Being a pro can mean living at tournaments more than living at home.           © Manuela Davies/www.doubleXposure.com

 While the physical challenges are tremendous, the emotional rigors of the tour are greater than I had ever anticipated. I lost my first four matches as a pro – main draw ATP event, challenger, future, and qualifying for a challenger. I had never before lost that many consecutive matches. That's what kids who are so eager to turn pro don’t understand: you're going to lose a lot, so you better be mature enough not to get too high or too low.

Fortunately for me, 1998 started to go pretty well. Following my inauspicious beginning, I won a Challenger event and took a set off Pete Sampras at the U.S. Open. At the ’99 Australian Open, I qualified and reached the third round, beating Greg Rusedski, then ranked nine in the world. Just a year out of school, I found myself in the top 100, a feat that far exceeded my expectations. At the time I was pleased, but when I look back I realize I hadn’t appreciated how difficult it was to succeed as a professional tennis player. Instead, I was 23 years old and wondering if tennis was really what I wanted to do. This “quarter-life crisis” was nothing more than a concocted distraction that in retrospect was quite naïve.

Not surprisingly, my naïveté led to the most unsuccessful period of my career. I allowed the lifestyle nuisances of being a professional tennis player – most of all, the constant travel – to take a toll on me. For example, during weeks when I wasn’t playing a tournament, I would often go down to Florida to train. Since I didn’t have a place of my own in Florida, I would usually sleep on Jim Courier’s couch. While I will always be indebted to Jim for his kindness and counsel during those visits, I still felt like a visitor in someone else’s home. Traveling over 30 weeks a year to play tournaments and spending 12-15 additional weeks on the road for training purposes left sparingly little time at home feeling settled.

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