Jay Berger
October 15, 2025
“My earliest memory of tennis was in Plantation, Florida. My dad, who is a periodontist, loved tennis. We used to hit in the street. I got seven dollars from my grandmother for Hanukkah, went out and bought my first tennis racquet, and fell in love with the sport. To be honest, growing up, there was almost never a moment where I thought tennis could be a pathway. I was always a little bit smaller; good, not great. I wasn’t a dominating player. When I was a senior in high school, I knew I wasn’t good enough to go pro. Really, everybody went to college. I think the only person that didn’t, from my era, was Aaron Krickstein, he was a phenom. It was always going to be college for me. I went to college for two years. After my freshman year of college, I actually got to the Round of 16 at the US Open, played Yannick Noah on the stadium court, and went back to school for another year. I just loved college and my teammates, I didn’t want to leave them hanging. After that, though, I think that’s when I was like, “I can do this.” Throughout my
“My earliest memory of tennis was in Plantation, Florida. My dad, who is a periodontist, loved tennis. We used to hit in the street. I got seven dollars from my grandmother for Hanukkah, went out and bought my first tennis racquet, and fell in love with the sport. To be honest, growing up, there was almost never a moment where I thought tennis could be a pathway. I was always a little bit smaller; good, not great. I wasn’t a dominating player. When I was a senior in high school, I knew I wasn’t good enough to go pro. Really, everybody went to college. I think the only person that didn’t, from my era, was Aaron Krickstein, he was a phenom. It was always going to be college for me. I went to college for two years. After my freshman year of college, I actually got to the Round of 16 at the US Open, played Yannick Noah on the stadium court, and went back to school for another year. I just loved college and my teammates, I didn’t want to leave them hanging. After that, though, I think that’s when I was like, “I can do this.” Throughout my