The Journeymen Part 1

[johnyandell]

Let's hear your thoughts on Geoff Grant and Mark Keill in "The Journeymen Part 1"

[klacr]

I have this DVD and remember watching this years ago. It's a tennis classic. Raw, honest and charmingly awkward. The tour is not as glamorous as some would imagine.

Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton

[kenh]

I would take this film as being representative of the pro tour with caution. Trying to be tactful and saying that the film makers sometimes lived on the outer edge. Definitely not good or accurate for kids.

[bottle]

I would take this film as being representative of the pro tour with caution. Trying to be tactful and saying that the film makers sometimes lived on the outer edge. Definitely not good or accurate for kids.

Yeah, it's very self-indulgent. And what is it saying that hasn't been said before? Or said more interestingly? I like true stories especially where the celebrity player feeds the aspirant who has spent his last dollar getting to the tournament. The joking around with Goran is okay, but wouldn't the film have been stronger if Goran presented his losing doubles partner with a huge medium-rare steak as just one course of twelve in a total meal?

There's been an awful lot done about how tough life is on the tour-- too much. This fact is overly well known. My sense of it is best exemplified not by expensive plane flights-- though I get the message of that-- but by a personally told story from my friend Jim, who played Jimmy Connors in a first round match.

First they had a nice hit. Then they started to play. Connors put the ball in one corner. Jim got to it. Then Connors put the ball in the other corner. Jim reached that one, too, and said to himself, "Hey, I can hit with this guy."

After two more corners, however, Jim (but not Jimmy) began to gasp. And shortly after that everything fell apart.

[johnyandell]

The point is these guys were good. Top hundred in any other sport is worth millions. I've known a lot of tennis players at all levels. The successful ones tend be eccentric in various ways to various degrees. Mark is the extreme.

[klacr]

Geoff Grant and Mark Keil were good enough to play in the majors, good enough to have exceptional doubles partners, good enough to be known by the top players on the tour. They would outhit and out maneuver 99.9% of tennis players out there. They were not perfect and certainly did not pretend to be. Mark Keil was born in the Mountain View, California but played in college at USF and was based in Tampa near where I grew up. I have watched the DVD at least 15 times. Never gets old.

Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton