From the desk of Deryck Cheney & Sean Doran, ATP experts and player analyst of ATP tennis pros.

Player: Michael Russell

Current World Ranking: 68

Player Stock Rating:

Summary: Michael Russell is currently ranked 68 in the world and is now the 5^th ranked American tennis player in the world.  Russell’s 2010 season has shown significant promise and he is playing the best tennis of his life, recently reaching the quarterfinals of the SAP Open in San Jose.  At the Australian Open, Russell’s match, a tight four set battle, against the reigning US Open champion and fifth ranked player in the world, Juan Martin Del Potro.  This was a premier match on primetime and was featured on the worldwide broadcasting feed seen by over 100 million viewers.  Immediately following the Australian Open, Russell won the next ATP event he entered in Honolulu, Hawaii.  Based upon his strong start to the 2010 season, as well as our projections for the remainder of the year, we are initiating a “buy rating” on Michael Russell for all potential investors of his brand.

Future Outlook: Based upon Russell’s current level of play, we are projecting that he will defend his ATP points this spring and maintain his current ranking heading into the summer season.  Russell’s best surface is clay, as evidenced by his 4^th round appearance at the French Open where he nearly defeated eventual champion Gustavo Kuerten.  Based upon these projections, this will position Russell to be in a strong position leading into Wimbledon with no additional points to defend through the summer hard court season in North America.  He has tremendous upside potential at this juncture, with a very realistic possibility of entering the top 50 leading into the premier Grand Slam, The US Open, in late August.   We are projecting that he will be one of the top five ranked Americans, which will position him for prime International television exposure.

See below for his rankings trajectory since late 2008, during which time he has moved up the rankings quicker than any other ATP pro.  We do not see any reason why his path will flatten out and feel confident that the time is now to buy the Michael Russell brand.

Top-seeded 31-year-old Michael Russell of Texas played unseeded Grega Zemlja today in the final of the inaugural Honolulu Challenger winning 6-0, 6-3.

The $50,000 tournament is a USTA Pro Circuit event held at the Pasty T. Mink Central O’ahu Regional Park.

Juan Martin del Potro defeated Russell earlier last month during the Australian Open’s 1st round. Russell ranked number 74^th on the ATP World Tour rankings list beat Donald Young in the semifinal match, when Young retired with a back injury after being down three games in the second set.

“After my first match, I went to eat and I sat down and my back was killing me,” said Young, who completed a 7-6 (5), 6-4 victory over No. 4 seed Robert Kendrick. “Then when I cooled off it went away.”

Russell is an American tennis player best known for holding match point in the 4^th round of the 2001 French Open against eventual champion Gustavo Kuerten.

Michael Russell win 2009 JSM Challenger (Photo from the University of Illinois - FightingIllini.com)

Michael Russell defeated Taylor Dent 7-5, 6-4 to win the 2009 JSM Challenger at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana this past weekend. Find out more information: http://www.fightingillini.com/sports/m-tennis/spec-rel/112109aaf.html

Playing golf for the first time in four years, Michael Russell is spraying his 3-wood all over the Horseshoe Bay Resort course just west of Austin, Texas. It’s a best-ball competition with Andy Roddick — who is finding most of the fairways with 300-yard drives — and two buddies on a drizzly day in mid-July. Somehow, Russell is in position to win the match with a 5-foot putt for par on the 18th hole. But he misses, barely, to the left, and must pay off the lost wager. “I owe him an hour of my time. That was the deal,” Russell explains. “If Andy wants a box of rubber bands, I’ll have to drive to Staples and get it.”

You might not have heard of Michael Russell, Andy Roddick’s temporary errand boy, but his meandering 10-year journey through the world of professional tennis has been marked by a string of bullet-point highs unimaginable to most of us.

• Practicing with in-his-prime, 14-time Grand Slam champion Pete Sampras as a 17-year-old at the Saddlebrook Tennis Academy in Florida.

• Holding match point against three-time (and eventual) champion Gustavo Kuerten in the fourth round of the 2001 French Open.

• Leading Lleyton Hewitt, two sets to love, on center court in the first round of the 2007 Australian Open.

• Hitting balls with the U.S. Davis Cup team in the Czech Republic in February.

• Facing No. 1-ranked Roger Federer three months later in the first round of the French Open.

• Flying with Andy Roddick in a private jet to a summer tournament in Indianapolis.

All of this, leavened by a frustrating series of less-than-stellar results and a run of sometimes-unfathomable bad fortune.

• Serving to Andre Agassi during a 1997 practice session in North Carolina and suffering a spiral fracture of the humerus bone in his right arm.

• Undergoing three knee surgeries in 2003 and 2004 to resolve a long-undiagnosed condition in which bone and cartilage separated from the rest of the knee.

• Tearing a hamstring that aborted a comeback in 2005.

• Enduring 10 days of injections to relieve blood clots in both lungs after the 2006 Australian Open.

• Struggling to the top of the tennis ladder, and losing 57 of 81 ATP career matches.

Michael Russell’s
Year-by-Year Breakdown

Despite losing more than 70 percent of his ATP Tour singles matches (24-58), Michael Russell has been able to carve out a living on tour, earning $646,619 since turning pro in 1998.
Year Rank ATP W-L Prize Money
2007 67 9-15 $183,740
2006 145 0-2 $56,735
2005 363 0-0 $18,715
2004 244 0-0 $15,620
2003 496 1-1 $11,591
2002 160 5-15 $100,412
2001 88 8-17 $152,300
2000 156 1-6 $64,482
1999 228 0-0 $20,031
1998 288 0-2 $22,993

Russell’s decade-long career is defined by this pitched peaks-and-valleys dichotomy. The 29-year-old has lived “the life” so many envy — a travel-the-world dash with the jet-set crowd on the pro tennis tour. Yet in 10 years as a professional, he has gone five entire seasons without a single ATP-level match victory. In February 2004, the lowest point, Russell’s ATP ranking was tied for 1,339th.

He has rallied tenaciously, and today he finds himself ranked 67th. That’s down from last week’s career-best 60th, but it’s still a relatively lofty position that allows him automatic entry into the tournaments for which he once struggled to qualify.

At this week’s Pilot Pen Tournament in New Haven, Conn., compelling stories are everywhere: 18-year-old American Donald Young won his first ATP match after going 0-for-11; Nikolay Davydenko, dogged by a betting scandal, is the top seed; 6-foot-9 John Isner and his big serve have created a serious buzz.

But when Russell won his ninth ATP match of the year Sunday afternoon (his best total ever), there were no headlines, not even a paragraph in the local newspapers. That’s too bad. For Michael Russell is professional tennis. The Federers and Roddicks win the trophies and receive most of the attention, but their successes would not be possible without players like Russell.

So when the U.S. Open begins to unwind next week in Flushing, N.Y., take a moment to watch Russell play. And try to savor and appreciate the remarkable backstory of this seemingly unremarkable player.

In 10 years, Russell has won roughly $750,000 in official prize money. But when the hundreds of airfares, the unreimbursed hotel bills, a multitude of meals, rental cars, taxes and, yes, dozens of pairs of Adidas shoes — the discontinued Climate Cool Ultimate 3 — that cost him $50 a pop with a discount from Tennis Warehouse … When all of that is factored in, 750 grand doesn’t go very far.

In fact, it’s an astonishing thought: In terms of net income, a minimum-wage worker at McDonald’s did better financially than Russell did during the nine years before 2007.

Then again, a burger flipper probably hasn’t ever traded shots with Sampras, Agassi, Federer or Hewitt.

“That [burger-flipping] guy has probably saved more than me,” Russell said on Monday in New Haven, his sun-scorched eyebrows rising. “That’s not good.

“It’s been frustrating. I’m very competitive, almost to the point of being obsessive-compulsive. For the last eight weeks, it seems like every guy I’ve played has been [ranked in the] top 20. You have to find ways to cope, mentally. I’ll tell you, it’s not easy.”

Russell, who stands 5-foot-8 and weighs 160 pounds, is one of the smallest players in the professional game. His lack of size, power and natural ability is offset by startling acceleration, precise footwork and, most important, a voracious work ethic.

“He is a tremendous overachiever,” said recently retired Todd Martin, who won both matches against Russell. “To lose once a week — every week — to be able to adopt that personality and perspective without becoming cynical, without feeling sorry for yourself … well, it’s very admirable.”

Russell’s father, too, not surprisingly, is an unabashed fan.

“He reminds me of Don Quixote … [tilting] at those windmills,” said George Russell. “For every success, I can tell you, there’s been hours on the couch with ice bags on his knees. After the third knee operation, most people would have thrown up their hands and said, ‘I’m star-crossed, I can’t do it.’ But Michael has persevered. That’s why he’s our hero.”

“Most people don’t see my playing out here as a rational decision,” Russell said. “But I just can’t see myself in a working environment like everybody else. Not yet, anyway.”

Working harder, out of necessity
Snapping Wrigley’s Doublemint so hard you can see his jaw muscles flex, George Russell feeds balls — he’s ripping shots as hard as he can — to his son across the net on Court Philippe Chatrier. This has been their teacher-student routine for more than two decades. But in some ways, this Paris scene represents the triumphant arc of their relationship. In two days, Michael will face No. 1-ranked Roger Federer on this blood-red center-court in the first round of the 2007 French Open. “Truthfully,” Michael says, “I think I got more of a kick out of it, watching him watch me, than he did. It was something I’ll never forget.”

Growing up in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., a suburb of Detroit, Russell had little chance of not getting sucked into the vortex of tennis. His father was a member of the University of Michigan’s Big Ten Conference championship team in 1965 and a successful club professional. His mother, Carole, played club tennis at Michigan and, together with George, won a handful of state titles coaching at Detroit Country Day School.

At age 5, following his brother David — a successful junior — Michael spent many hours banging balls with a wooden Dunlop racket against the garage door. By the age of 14, he was already ranked among the nation’s top 30 juniors. Two years later, he was the No. 1-ranked junior, winning the hard court national in Kalamazoo, Mich., and playing around the world in the junior Grand Slams. Midway through his senior year of high school, Russell enrolled at Saddlebrook Tennis Academy, where Sampras, Jennifer Capriati and Jim Courier were regulars. He graduated as valedictorian in the spring of 1995.

But a loss to Jared Palmer in his first professional event — a Challenger tournament in Indian Wells — told him he wasn’t ready to turn pro. Russell played No. 1 singles at the University of Miami, won the Rolex national indoor tournament and finished the year as the No. 1-ranked freshman and No. 7 among collegiate players.

A week before he was set to turn professional in 1997, he broke his arm and spent the next five months rehabbing back home in Michigan, wired to electronic stimulus machines and beginning a long and fruitful relationship with ice. In 1998, Russell played 30 matches in 12 Futures events, the Double-A minor leagues of tennis. He also played 15 matches in eight Challenger events, the equivalent of Triple-A.

“I didn’t have a game plan then,” Russell said. “I just ran down a lot of balls. I had no court sense, no idea of how to set up a point. I never really attacked my opponent. To get in the top 100, I needed to beef up my game.”

That didn’t happen until the summer of 2001. Beginning with Wimbledon in 2000, Russell qualified for majors four times in a row to become the first man in the Open era (since 1968) to qualify his way into four consecutive Grand Slam main draws. The fourth major, the 2001 French Open, was the charm.

He’d lost three straight times in the first round of majors, but at Roland Garros that year Russell defeated Nicolas Mahut, two-time champion Sergi Bruguera and Xavier Malisse in a five-set, third-round match. Kuerten, the world’s No. 1-ranked player and defending French Open champion, was Russell’s opponent in the fourth round. Russell won the first two sets and held a match point serving at 5-3 in the third. The Brazilian prevailed in a 26-stroke rally, hitting a forehand winner set up by a backhand that took Russell off the court and, somehow, went on to win the 205-minute match and, eventually, his third French Open title.

The defeat crushed Russell. But in the seemingly seamless dark days that followed, the loss to Kuerten grew to sustain him.

“He was so close,” said his brother, David. “He was playing a top player and holding his own. I think that’s where he started to believe that it was all worth it, just to keep grinding it out.”

Early in his career, Russell enjoyed relatively good health. But in 2002, his right knee began to bother him, and he sought a doctor’s advice. Nearly two years, four more doctors and one exploratory surgery later, a Jacksonville orthopedic surgeon finally made the correct diagnosis: It was osteochondritis, a genetic disorder usually found in 16-year-olds in which bone and cartilage separates from the rest of the knee. Dr. Steven Lancaster performed surgery on the right knee as well as the left one, which had also started to deteriorate.

After he competed in an Auckland, New Zealand, tournament in January 2003, Russell went more than three years without playing an ATP event. He lived with his parents in Ponte Vedra, Fla., and generally scuffled, appearing in the events that would have him. He spent a lot of time on his favorite tennis Web site: stevegtennis.com. Russell was playing in the River Oaks tournament in Houston in April 2004 when he met his soon-to-be wife, Liliana Justo, at the restaurant she manages, Vito’s. The marriage is set for Nov. 10, after the season ends, at the Houston Hilton Galleria. With financial support from his parents and Justo, who clears $80,000 at the restaurant, Russell worked himself back into competitive condition.

Realistically, a player needs to be ranked inside the top 100 to make a decent living. The exceptions are players ranked first or second in their country, Davis Cup stars who have access to national funding, private sponsorships and endorsements. Consider the amenities of an ATP event such as the Pilot Pen in New Haven. Russell was met at the airport by a driver in a Mercedes-Benz and taken to a high-end downtown hotel, paid for by the tournament. He received a gift bag that included a pricey razor, Pilot Pens and a mayor’s passport, enabling him to eat free at 25 of the city’s finest restaurants. Pilot Pen players, who have access to a high-quality cafeteria on the tournament grounds, also receive the services of two trainers and two masseuses and receive two cans of balls. The winner of five matches will receive $84,000 and 200 rankings points.

Contrast that with Russell’s experience last year at the Bronx Challenger, where he won with five match victories, receiving $7,200 and 50 points. Russell took a $60 taxi from JFK Airport to the New Yorker, a modest $160-per-night hotel he paid for with his own money. In the mornings, he bought a deli turkey-and-ham sandwich and a bunch of bananas — his food for the day — and boarded the bus to the site. The Challenger staff consisted of one trainer (who handled massages), and players received one can of balls each. After the bus ride home, Russell was on his own in Manhattan for dinner.

Top 10 players, of course, live in a different area code. They fly in private jets and commonly command six-figure appearance fees in addition to a full-time car service, hotel suites for themselves and their full-time entourage, which usually includes companions, a coach, a personal trainer and a racket stringer.

Russell usually travels alone, but still runs up annual expenses — largely coach airfare — in excess of $80,000. Without help from his parents or fiancée, he would have launched another career, probably in business, long ago.

In June 2005, working with a rare thrust of momentum, he had his ranking up to No. 264 … until he tore his right hamstring playing a Challenger in Cuenca, Ecuador. Faced with mounting evidence that his body wasn’t built for the rigors of the professional game, Russell started taking courses through the Cal-Berkeley extension program via the Internet. Between physical therapy sessions, he wrestled with macroeconomics and Spanish.

“The rest of us were like, ‘Geez, is this really going to work out for him? Should he just move on?’” said his brother, David. “But he kept on rehabbing, trying to get healthy. He thought about stopping, yes. But because of the nature of the injuries, we never knew how long he’d be out.”

Ivo Karlovic on Court 6 at Wimbledon’s Orangi Park. The 6-foot-10 Croatian hammers serves so hard they bounce off the grass and sail over Russell’s head. He’s probably hit more than a million balls in his life, but this last one sounds different to Russell. When he retrieves it, sure enough, there’s a slice in the ball the length of a quarter. “Hey, Ivo,” Russell says, holding it aloft, “you broke this one.”

After he lost in the last round of qualifying at the 2006 Australian Open, Russell’s prospects were bleak. Flying home, they got worse. He developed blood clots in both lungs.

“Scary at first, very scary,” Russell said. “But, really, it wasn’t that bad in the scheme of things.”

Ten days of injections of the blood thinners Coumadin and Lovenox solved the latest physical problem. But the competition problem? The medicine couldn’t help him with that. Of the 52 official matches Russell played from Jan. 2 to Nov. 27 last year, only two were ATP-level matches.

He opened 2007 with another Challenger victory, in Noumea, New Caledonia, an island between Australia and Fiji. Two weeks later, drawing national hero Hewitt in the first round of the Australian Open, Russell went through 13 shirts in an exhausting five-set match in which he had been up two sets to love. He lost, but once again, he had hung with a former No. 1 player.

A week later, playing a Challenger in Waikoloa, Hawaii, Russell defeated five lesser players, all in straight sets. His ranking, not surprisingly, soared into the top 100 for the first time in six years. He had now won three of his last four events, all Challengers played on islands.

Michael, David said, laughing, “is the Roger Federer of island Challengers.”

Since the beginning of his far-flung career, Russell’s mother, Carole, has observed a ritual: For every tournament her son plays, she presses a pushpin into a big world map on the wall in her workout room in Ponte Vedra. For every Paris (blue) and London (green), there is also a Casablanca, Morocco (red); a Joplin, Mo. (white); or an Estoril, Portugal (yellow).

The 2007 season, finally, finds the world traveler relatively happy and healthy, although back spasms have been a recurring problem as the summer has lengthened. In March, Pacific Life Open officials gave him a precious wild card. Rested because he didn’t have to qualify, Russell handled Frenchman Marc Gicquel 6-3, 7-5 in the first round. He stunned Tomas Berdych — ranked No. 12 in the world — in the second round, 7-6 (2), 6-4. Guillermo Garcia Lopez went quietly in the third, 6-1, 7-5. Then Russell played well against Juan Ignacio Chela, ranked No. 31, but lost his fourth-round match 6-4, 6-4.

In a single week, he beat three players ranked in the top 70 and earned 75 rankings points, the second-highest total in his career after the 165 he received for winning three matches at the 2001 French Open.

But after he won a first-round match in Austria, Russell went nine weeks without a victory in an ATP event.

That doesn’t mean he didn’t have some successes. In mid-July, he was asked to be a last-minute replacement for Sampras in the Kennedy Funding Invitational in New York. He defeated Bruno Echagaray (ranked No. 176) in the first round, Paul Goldstein in the second and, in the final, Somdev Devvarman, a junior from Virginia and the 2007 NCAA singles champion. For this, he received $40,000.

“Most dream to win,” brother David said. “He dreams to compete. He didn’t allow adversity to change his mind.”

Clichés are, by nature, tired and hackneyed. But in the end, as often as not, they are true. Michael Russell is very much the overnight sensation, 20 years in the making.

“I’m 29, sure. But this is my first full year since 2002,” Russell said. “It’s easy to dwell on the negative, but I just appreciate the opportunity to be here. I always believed I could be one of the best 50 players on the planet. I still do.”

“He exceeded all expectations — but not his,” David said. “He still hasn’t reached his expectations. I don’t know if he ever will.”

Greg Garber is a senior writer for ESPN.com.

The number 13 isn’t so unlucky for Michael Russell. Russell lived up to his top seeding last week at the Brownsville, Texas, Futures, where he notched an easy 6-2, 6-1 win over Brendan Evans in Sunday’s final to give the 27-year-old veteran his 13th career singles title on the USTA Pro Circuit. With the victory, Russell became the all-time leader in USTA Circuit singles wins, moving past the winningest player ever, Paul Goldstein, who has a total of 26 titles – 12 in singles and 14 in doubles.

Russell is coming off a successful year in 2005, in which he won singles championships at the Orlando Challenger and the Arlington Futures and captured the doubles title at the Tunica Resorts Challenger. He also finished runner-up in singles at the McAllen Futures, reached the semifinals at the Waco Futures, and advanced to quarterfinals at Challengers in Sacramento and Forest Hills, as well as the Harlingen Futures.

A 5-foot, 8-inch right-hander who turned pro in 1997, Russell became the first player ever to qualify for four Grand Slam events in succession – Wimbledon and the US Open in 2000 and the Australian Open and Roland Garros in 2001.

He is perhaps best known for his appearance at the 2001 French Open, in which he defeated former French Open champion Sergi Bruguera in the second round, Xavier Malisse in five sets in the third round, and then nearly pulled off one of the greatest upsets in Grand Slam history in his fourth-round match against top-seed and defending champion Gustavo Kuerten. Russell led two sets to love and had a match point at 5-3 in the third set, before falling in five sets to Kuerten, who eventually won the championship.

– Sally Milano, USTA.com

RANKING HISTORY
2005 – 363 (ATP)
2004 – 250 (ATP)
2003 – 502 (ATP)
2002 – 159 (ATP)
2001 – 88 (ATP)
2000 – 156 (ATP)
1999 – 228 (ATP)
1998 – 288 (ATP)
1997 – 346 (ATP)

2006 HIGHLIGHTS

• Won the singles title at the USTA Futures event in Brownsville, Texas, defeating Brendan Evans, 6-2, 6-1, in the final… The victory gave Russell the all-time lead in singles titles on the USTA Pro Circuit with 13.
• Reached the quarterfinals at the Waikoloa Challenger… Retired in the second set of his match against Bobby Reynolds, with the score at 2-6, 1-1.

CAREER HIGHLIGHTS

2005

• As a qualifier, won the singles title at the Orlando Challenger, defeating Todd Widom, 6-4, 6-2, in the final.
• Qualified into the Nashville Challenger and reached the second round, before losing to Bobby Reynolds, 3-6, 6-2, 7-5.
• Advanced to the singles semifinals at the USTA Futures event in Waco, Texas, where he lost to Scott Oudsema, 2-6, 6-1, 6-4.
• As a qualifier, won the singles title at the USTA Futures event in Arlington, Texas… Defeated Benedikt Dorsch, 6-1, 6-3, in the final.
• Reached the singles quarterfinals at the Sacramento Challenger, where he lost to Phillip Simmonds, 4-6, 6-3, 6-2.
• Advanced to the singles quarterfinals at the Forest Hills Challenger… Retired in the second set in his match against Dusan Vemic, with the score at 1-6, 5-3.
• Won the doubles title (with Dusan Vemic) at the Tunica Resorts, Miss., Challenger.
• Finished runner-up in singles at the USTA Futures event in McAllen, Texas, losing to Todd Reid, 6-3, 6-0.
• Was a singles quarterfinalist at the USTA Futures event in Harlingen, Texas, falling to Ryan Newport, 6-4, 1-6, 6-2.

2004

• Won his third straight singles title at the Granby Challenger in Canada, defeating Davide Sanguinetti, 6-3, 6-2, in the final.
• Won his second consecutive USTA Futures event in Pittsburgh, defeating Kean Feeder, 6-1, 6-0, in the final.
• Won the USTA Futures event in Buffalo, N.Y., defeating Jorge Aguilar, 6-3, 6-0, in the final.
• Captured the singles title at the ITF Futures event in Quebec, Canada.
• Reached the doubles final (with Robert Lindstedt) at the Ljubljana Challenger in Slovenia.
• Advanced to the semifinals at the Forest Hills Challenger, before falling to Edgardo Massa, 6-4, 6-1.
• Qualified into the USTA Challenger in Joplin, Mo., and advanced to the second round before falling to Yeu-Tzuoo Wang.

2003

• Was hampered by right knee problems most of the season, playing in only five tournaments through June… Underwent arthroscopic surgery in May and returned one month later at the Braunschweig Challenger in Germany, where he lost in the opening round… Pain persisted, and he was sidelined again.
• Qualified into the Heilbronn Challenger in Germany and advanced to the second round.
• In his only ATP appearance of the year, qualified into the main draw at Auckland and advanced to the second round, losing to eventual champion Gustavo Kuerten in three sets.

2002

• Advanced to the semifinals of the USTA Challenger in Burbank, Calif., where he lost to Robby Ginepri, 6-3, 6-4.
• Reached his second straight semifinal at the USTA Challenger in Tulsa, Okla… Lost to Daniel Melo, 3-6, 6-4, 6-4.
• Reached the doubles semifinals (with Diego Ayala) at the USTA Challenger in Tyler, Texas.
• Was a semifinalist at the USTA Challenger in Waco, Texas, falling to Jan Hernych, 6-4, 7-6 (3).
• Qualified into the ATP event in Washington and advanced to the second round, before losing to Thomas Enqvist, 7-6 (13), 6-0.
• Advanced to the round of 16 at Queen’s Club, where he fell to Wayne Arthurs, 6-4, 3-6, 7-5.
• Reached the quarterfinals at the Furth, Germany, Challenger and the Bermuda Challenger.
• Was a quarterfinalist at the USTA Challenger in Waikoloa, Hawaii.

2001

• Finished in the top 100 for the first time and improved his year-end ranking for the fifth straight year.
• Reached the quarterfinals at the USTA Challenger in Tyler, Texas.
• Advanced to the round of 16 at the Tokyo Outdoor, where he lost to Lleyton Hewitt, 6-1, 6-1.
• Reached the doubles semifinals (with Justin Gimelstob) at the ATP event in Shanghai.
• Qualified into Bastad and advanced to the second round before falling to Christophe Rochus.
• Had a career-best performance in a Grand Slam in his French Open debut, where, as a qualifier, he advanced to the fourth round… Defeated Nicolas Mahut in the first round, Sergi Bruguera in the second and Xavier Malisse in his first career five-set match in the third round, before facing No. 1 Gustavo Kuerten… Led by two sets and held match point at 5-3 in the third set, before losing, 3-6, 4-6, 7-6 (7), 6-3, 6-1… Became the first player to qualify for four different Grand Slam events in succession (2000 Wimbledon, US Open; 2001 Australian Open, Roland Garros).
• Advanced to consecutive ITF Circuit semifinals in Birmingham, England, and Edinburgh, Scotland.
• As a qualifier, advanced to the semifinals of the Bermuda Challenger.
• Finished runner-up at the USTA Challenger in Calabasas, Calif., where he fell to Andre Sa in three sets.
• Won both the singles and doubles (with Robert Kendrick) titles at the USTA Futures event in Mobile, Ala.
• Qualified into the Australian Open but dropped a four-set, opening-round decision to Andrei Pavel.
• As a qualifier, reached the second round at the ATP event in Auckland, New Zealand.

2000

• Reached quarterfinals at the USTA Challengers in Knoxville, Tenn., and Urbana, Ill… Also reached the doubles final (with Noam Behr) in Urbana.
• Finished runner-up to Andy Roddick at the USTA Challenger in Austin, Texas.
• Qualified into the US Open but lost in the first round to Hernan Gumy of Argentina, 4-6, 7-6 (6), 7-6 (1), 6-4.
• Was named a practice partner for the U.S. Davis Cup team for its semifinal against Spain.
• Qualified into the Wimbledon main draw but lost in the first round to Sebastien Lareau.
• Won the doubles title (with Tommy Robredo) at the Edinburgh, Scotland, Challenger.
• Won his first ATP match on his 22nd birthday, defeating Hugo Armando, 6-4, 6-2, in the first round of the U.S. Men’s Clay Court Championships in Orlando, Fla… Lost in the second round to Gianlucca Pozzi.
• Won the USTA Challenger in Amarillo, Texas, defeating Stefano Pescosolido in the final.
• Advanced to consecutive semifinals at the USTA Futures events in Altamonte Springs, Fla., and Boca Raton, Fla.

1999

• Qualified into the Guadalajara Challenger in Mexico and advanced to the quarterfinals.
• Advanced to the doubles semifinals (with Mark Nielsen) at the Winnetka, Ill., Challenger.
• Was a semifinalist at the Granby Challenger in Canada.
• Won USTA Futures events in Vero Beach, Fla., and Weston, Fla… Also reached the doubles final (with Diego Ayala) in Weston.
• Reached the doubles semifinals (with Andrew Painter) at the USTA Futures event in Boca Raton, Fla.
• Reached the semifinals at the Tallahassee, Fla., Futures.

1998

• Made his debut at the US Open as a wild-card entrant, losing in the first round to Giorgio Galimberti.
• Advanced to the semifinals at the Aptos, Calif., Challenger.
• Reached the singles and doubles final (with Jan-Ralph Brandt) at the Montreal, Canada, Futures.
• Finished runner-up in doubles (with Jocelyn Robichaud) at the ITF Futures event in Mississauga, Canada.
• Was a doubles finalist (with Jocelyn Robichaud) at the USTA Futures event in Tallahassee, Fla.
• Reached the singles semifinals and the doubles quarterfinals (with Kevin Kim) at the Boca Raton, Fla., Futures.
• Advanced to the doubles semifinals (with Kevin Kim) and the singles quarterfinals at the USTA Futures event in Vero Beach, Fla.
• Won the singles title at the USTA Satellite in Mobile, Ala.
• Qualified for the Canadian Open, but fell to fellow Michigan native Todd Martin in the first round.

1997

• Won USTA Satellite Circuit events in Waco, Texas, Springfield, Mo., and St. Joseph, Mo.

1995

• Debuted on the ATP Tour singles rankings at No. 1,282 after finishing in a tie for 24th at the 1995 USTA satellite segment No. 6 in California.

COLLEGE HIGHLIGHTS

• Played one season (1996-97) at the University of Miami… Finished No. 7 in the collegiate rankings – tops among freshman – before turning pro in the summer of 1997.
• Earned All-American honors… His 39 singles match wins were a school record.
• Became the first freshman since Joey Blake of Arkansas in 1986 to win the Rolex National Intercollegiate Indoor Championships, defeating Middle Tennessee State’s Fred Niemeyer, 4-6, 7-6, 6-4, in the final.
• Finished the fall season with a 17-1 match record.

JUNIOR HIGHLIGHTS

1996

• Reached the singles semifinals at the 1996 USTA National Boys’ 18 Championships in Kalamazoo, Mich., losing to doubles partner Kevin Kim… Lost in the doubles final (with Kim) to Bob and Mike Bryan.
• Advanced to the singles final at the 1996 USTA National Boys’ 18 Clay Court Championships, losing to Bob Bryan.
• Was a doubles quarterfinalist (with Kim) at the 1996 Wimbledon junior championships… Lost in the second round of singles to Bob Bryan in a re-match of the Easter Bowl final.
• Won the 1996 Easter Bowl boys’ 18 championships, defeating Bob Bryan in the final.
• Reached the singles semifinals at the 1996 Banana Bowl in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
• Won the doubles title (with Kim) at the 1996 Asuncion Bowl in Asuncion, Paraguay.
• Reached the round of 16 at the 1996 Australian Open Junior Championships.

1995

• Reached the singles semifinals at the 1995 USTA National Boys’ 18 Championships… Defeated Ryan Wolters for third place.
• Won the singles title at the 1995 USTA National Boys’ 18 Clay Court Championships, defeating Kevin Kim in the final…
• Reached the doubles final (with Geoff Abrams).
• Reached the semifinals at the 1995 Easter Bowl boys’ 18 championships, losing to Kim.
• Reached the second round in singles and the quarterfinals in doubles (with Kim) at the 1995 Australian Open Junior Championships.

1994

• Finished 1994 ranked No. 1 in singles and doubles in the USTA boys’ 16 rankings (ranked in doubles with Geoff Abrams).
• Made his debut in a junior Grand Slam, upsetting No. 6 seed Paul Goldstein in the first round of the 1994 US Open junior boys’ singles championships… Lost in the second round.
• Won the 1994 USTA National Boys’ 16 Championships, defeating Kevin Kim in the final… Won the doubles title with Geoff Abrams.
• Was a finalist at the 1994 USTA National Boys’ 16 Clay Court Championships, losing to Kevin Kim.
• Won the 1994 Easter Bowl Boys’ 16s Championships, defeating Kevin Kim in the final.

1993

• Won the 1993 USTA National Boys’ 16 Indoor Doubles Championship (with Kevin Kim).

1991

• Reached the final of the 1991 USTA National Boys’ 14 Indoor Championships… Lost to Rafael Jordan.

PERSONAL

• Father, George, is manager of the ATP Tennis Club in Ponte Vedra Beach, where Mike practices. He was a member of the University of Michigan’s Big 10 Conference 1965 championship team. Mother, Carole, is an English teacher and tennis coach at Episcopal High School in Jacksonville, Fla. Older brother David, played tennis at Princeton and attended Harvard Business School.
• Began playing tennis at age five with his father.
• Full name is Michael Craig Russell.
• Grew up in Michigan and graduated as valedictorian at Saddlebrook (Fla.) High School in spring 1995.
• Favorite playing surface is clay.
• Nicknames include “Mighty Mouse,” “Spanky” and “Iron Mike.”
• Is considered one of the wittiest players on tour.

Source: USTA

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Every investigative journalist eventually faces the question: How far are you willing to go? For Woodward and Bernstein, the answer meant following a petty hotel burglary all the way to the White House; for Geraldo Rivera, it meant bringing a living, breathing medical examiner to the prime-time excavation of Al Capone’s empty vault.

For me, it means deciding if I should rub my face against Lleyton Hewitt’s sweat-soaked match towel.

Actually, it could be Andy Roddick’s towel. Or maybe John Isner’s. Perhaps it belongs to Juan Martin del Potro, who in a few days will capture this tournament on the hottest, steamiest day of the year behind a flurry of one-shot, one-kill winners, later explaining his heat-beating, go-for-broke tactics with a succinct, “If you run, you die.”

Point is, the towel is legit. The real, extra-absorbent deal. And really, really gross. I’m standing in the walk-in, closet-sized laundry room at the William H.G. FitzGerald Tennis Center, home to the Legg Mason Tennis Classic, almost certainly the wettest event of tennis’ perspiration-drenched summer season. (No. 1A? Cincinnati.) All around me are soggy towels — crumpled on the floor, draped across wooden benches in the adjacent locker room, piled high in white plastic hampers.

And, of course, the Hewitt/Roddick towel, plucked from a hamper, held between my thumb and forefinger, limp and disturbingly weighty.

“You sure you want to see this?” asks Alex, the tournament laundry guy.

I do. Er, did. After all, this is a story about sweat. Icky, sticky sweat. The utterly unfathomable, borderline obscene amount of sweating done by pro tennis players, a veritable exudation monsoon, even by the waterlogged standards of pro sports. You think you have a clue? Trust me: You don’t.

“Sweat cost me cash and victories,” says former pro Justin Gimelstob. “There’s no athlete on the planet who sweats more than I did. I don’t say that to brag. That’s a concession. Sweating is incredibly healthy for a normal human, but for an elite athlete it’s a liability.”

Gimelstob isn’t joking. Never mind the abnormally cool temperatures in New York this year — on tour and in the Grand Slams, sweat can be the difference between winning and losing. Between winning and losing one’s lunch in the courtside flower pots. Between smacking an ace and sending your racket into the opposing service box, as a perspiration-palmed Novak Djokovic embarrassingly did during his third-round Open victory over Jesse Witten.

“I get the sweat a lot,” Djokovic told reporters afterward. “And then I just didn’t squeeze the racket. You know, when you want to make it faster, obviously you have to pop it with the wrist really fast, and then I just dropped the racket. It was embarrassing.”

I wanted embarrassing. I wanted first-hand — first- face — experience. Only sitting in a sauna seemed inauthentic.

So I came to the Legg Mason, where Alex works from 8 a.m. to midnight, cleaning, drying and folding about 400 towels a day. Just from practices. (Matches produce 30-40 more towels per session). Hanging from a wall are smashed rackets: one from Marat Safin, two from Roddick, a stick from Gael Monfils that appears to have perished in a fistfight with a Grizzly bear. Against the opposite wall sit a large commercial washer and two dryers, all three running nonstop. By week’s end, Alex will go through five 1.4 gallon bleach bottles and two 28-pound tubs of powdered detergent, plus numerous cans of air freshener (too numerous to count, he says).

Alex drags a hip-high blue plastic bag across the room. He asks me to pick it up. I try one hand. I need two.

“They’re heavy,” he says of the towels inside. “It’s amazing how wet they get just from the sweat.”

Amazing. That’s one way to describe it. Patrick Ewingesque would be another. I decide that holding a sack of used match towels is enough — from a journalism standpoint, there’s nothing to be gained by burying my nose in one, no matter what Geraldo would do. Just then, Hewitt drops off some laundry. He’s wrapped in a towel. I feel even better about my choice. Alex points to a metal shelf loaded with smaller plastic bags, each about a foot and a half high. The bags contain players’ dirty, sweaty clothes. They get heavy, too.

“I would have to pack like I was going away for the summer when I would go to the U.S. Open. In a five-set match, I’d go through 15 shirts, 12 wristbands, three shoes, three socks. I’d have a pile that looked like a fraternity house next to my chair. TV used to get a kick of it. I literally could have changed my shirt during every single changeover. One time I changed right after the warm-up. True story. The chair umpire looked at me like I was crazy.
” — Former pro Justin Gimelstob

I ask Alex if he does his own laundry.

“I have a fiancée; she does the laundry at home,” he says with a laugh. “I get enough of it here.”

Gonna Make You Sweat

Sweat happens. It’s the unified field theory of tennis, linking the dark spots on Jo-Wilfred Tsonga’s crimson microfiber shirt to Robert Kendrick’s glistening white wristbands; sleeveless tees and shirtless, leather-skinned coaches to the Mary Poppins umbrellas held, Fonzworth Bentley-style, over players during changeovers; fans in the stadium court box seats to the paper fans in their hands, flapping like butterflies during a shade-free late afternoon match.

Sweat is why retired great Ivan Lendl and former Thai star Paradorn Srichaphan curiously kept sawdust in their pockets (to minister slippery grips). Why big-serving big man Ivo Karlovic drinks a bigger-gulping 10 liters of water a day (the equivalent of 2 1/2 gallons, just to replace the fluid he’s losing). Why Mardy Fish wakes up to use the bathroom “five or six” times a night (unfortunately, fluid replacement isn’t a 1:1 deal). Why Gimelstob regularly packed as many as 10 shirts in his bag for three-set matches (because 11 would have been overkill).

“I would have to pack like I was going away for the summer when I would go to the U.S. Open,” Gimelstob recalls. “In a five-set match, I’d go through 15 shirts, 12 wristbands, three shoes, three socks. I’d have a pile that looked like a fraternity house next to my chair. TV used to get a kick of it.

“I literally could have changed my shirt during every single changeover. One time I changed right after the warm-up. True story. The chair umpire looked at me like I was crazy.”

Just how much sticky, sweaty runoff do tennis players produce? There are two ways to measure it. Method No. 1: Find a scale and do the math. According to Dr. Michael Bergeron, a University of South Dakota professor and director of the National Institute for Athletic Health and Performance, a heavy-sweating junior player can lose up to three liters of fluid in a hour, while a heavy-sweating pro can excrete an entire gallon. Tour pro and former NCAA champ Somdev Devvarman says he’s lost six pounds during a three-set match. Retired four-time Grand Slam winner Jim Courier recalls sweating out eight pounds. The 6-foot-9 Isner, who trains in steamy Tampa, once dropped nine pounds … during a two-hour practice.

Sweat assessment method No. 2: Talk to the ball kids. Like Catlin, who works at the Legg Mason. Catlin can’t tell you how much a major league sweater like Roddick weighs after a match. But she can tell you what kind of undergarments the pros wear. At least the pros who favor white shorts.

“Mario Ancic used to have polka dots,” Catlin says, laughing. “We had a Polish player yesterday wearing neon stripes. It’s like, wear black, gray, anything but white. The players get so wet, it’s pretty gross. Sometimes they leave a spot on the ground.”

She frowns.

“Radek Stepanek used to pour out his shoes. His socks would be yellow.”

As in, he had yellow socks?

“No, they were white. That’s what made it disgusting.”

In the world of tennis sweat, ball boys and girls are the first responders — which is to say, they have to catch and hold towels. Towels soaked with perspiration, saliva (some players bite) and snot (other players blow their noses). Towels the pros depend on, like security blankets, often in obsessive-compulsive fashion.

Greg Rusedski asked for a towel after every point. Andre Agassi wanted towels on both sides of the baseline. Courier needed one in each corner. Arnaud Clement refused to take towels unless they were held wide open, the way stage flunkies offered James Brown his signature cape.

During the third set of a steamy, late-afternoon Legg Mason match, Michael Russell calls for a towel. He wipes his face. His neck. The back of his head. His face. The back of his head. His face again. He performs the same routine between each point. Meanwhile, opponent Yen-Hsun Lu wipes his forehead with his (relatively) dry sleeves, having already soaked through the rest of his shirt and his now-translucent white shorts.

(No polka dots, in case you’re wondering).

“Sometimes you hand off towel duty to the new kids,” admits a veteran Legg Mason ball boy. “The hardest thing for me is when I sweat so much on the court that I want to wipe my own face. But we’re here to serve the players.”

Nuisance to Nemesis

When it comes to sweat, there are three types of tennis players:

1. Those for whom perspiration is an annoying nuisance — like toss-altering breezes, or whistling Frenchmen — requiring simple, mostly effective work-arounds, such as water-resistant grip tape.

2. Those who never seem to sweat, ever, because they are actually genetically engineered tennis super-soldiers sent from the future to mock humanity’s susceptibility to heat and humidity. Think Bjorn Borg and Gustavo Kuerten. Mats Wilander and Wayne Ferreira. The perpetually arid Roger Federer. “You see Federer in the middle of fifth set at Wimbledon and he looks like he’s sitting in an air-conditioned room watching television,” Gimelstob says. “Borg goes five years without a drop of sweat on his shirt. Those guys have a huge advantage. They’re not losing nearly as much.”

3. Those for whom sweat is an existential nemesis, a foe that can never be defeated, merely fought to a draw. Or not.

“For sure, sweating cost me matches,” says former pro Alex O’Brien. “I played in Philadelphia once, 100 degrees, 92 percent humidity. You walk onto the court and you think you’re going to die. It was against Brett Steven. He gave me a pasting, 6-0, 6-1. I couldn’t even hold onto my racket.

“Sweat can be a nightmare sometimes. It’s pretty insane trying to replace the fluids. Sometimes my shoes got so wet, they’d create a puddle. Water would slosh out when I would step. I’d pour the sweat out during changeovers and just start laughing. It was ridiculous.”

O’Brien’s perspiration problems became so unmanageable he sought help from an expert. So did Patrick Rafter, whose Hall of Fame career was marred by cramping (most notably during a 2001 Australian Open semifinal loss to Agassi). In fact, both players saw the same guy: Bergeron, who also worked with Gimelstob — the same Gimelstob who cramped his way to a 2003 Australian Open loss to Younes El Aynaoui, then had to hear John McEnroe publicly lambaste his fitness during a television broadcast.

“I was an incredibly hard worker!” Gimelstob protests. “But I used to cramp unbelievably badly. I couldn’t figure out why.”

Bergeron put Gimelstob on a laboratory treadmill. Room temperature? A climate-controlled 98 degrees. Gimelstob ran for an hour. No breaks. No water. The treadmill ended up slick. His shoes ended up squishy. Afterward, Gimelstob stepped on a scale.

He was nine pounds lighter.

“It was a huge mess,” Bergeron recalls. “Justin had the highest sweat rate I’ve ever measured.”

Sweating can be good. It helps the body cool itself. But sweating can also be bad, because it leads to dehydration. Not kinda-thirsty, have-a-headache dehydration. Pain dehydration. A player with a high sweat rate can secrete more than three liters per hour, approximately 6.6 pounds of liquid. As a general rule of thumb, any fluid loss greater than 2 percent of total body weight results in decreased performance: reduced hand-eye coordination, impaired decision-making, and up to a 20 percent drop in strength and aerobic capacity.

Worse still is the cramping, which starts as innocuous twitching and ends as pure agony. O’Brien recalls playing against Aaron Krickstein in Miami, up 5-3 in the third set, hitting a return at 30-all. His quad cramped up. Then his back. O’Brien fell to the ground. Tournament staff tried to pick him up. Full body cramps ensued. He left the court on a stretcher.

“I drank a ton before matches,” O’Brien says. “But sometimes it didn’t matter how much I drank. You lose it more quickly than you can replace it.”

Rafter drank lots of fluids, too. He still suffered cramps, because cramping isn’t simply a function of sweat. It comes from sweat-induced mineral loss. And just as differences in sweat rate are largely genetic — and also related to fitness level and muscle mass — so too does salt secretion vary among pros.

To wit: A player who loses 1,500 milligrams during a three-set match can likely make up the resulting salt deficit with a normal diet. No worries. But a player such as Rafter, who loses 9,000-plus milligrams over the same time period, needs to be more strategic. Eating and drinking becomes a round-the-clock equation: How much am I losing, and how much do I need to ingest?

Bergeron put Rafter on a plan that had him literally counting water bottles while watching the clock during U.S. Open changeovers. He told Gimelstob to drink specific amounts of salty fluids at specific times, even during warm-ups. (When Gimelstob subsequently defeated Jonas Bjorkman in Thailand despite brutally sultry conditions, he sent Bergeron a note of thanks).

Today, it’s not uncommon to see players such as Roddick sprinkle salts into their water bottles. Some players gulp pickle juice, and Isner swears by coconut-spiked water that’s high in potassium. Like Fish and Karlovic and everyone else on tour, Isner is constantly, incessantly pounding fluids — the night before a match, two days before a match, even on the airplane heading to a tournament.

“My goal,” he says with a laugh, “is to use the bathroom on the plane. A few times.”

“There’s Not Anything You Can Do”

Blood everywhere. Only Courier couldn’t have been happier. The former world No. 1 had just won a tournament in Orlando, enduring stifling, sapping heat. Now he was cramping, drenched in his own runoff, barely able to stand. He accepted his trophy, stopped for a post-match interview, staggered to the locker room. A tournament doctor attempted to give him intravenous fluids.

The doctor picked — and pricked — the wrong spot.

“I was not only dehydrated, cramping and in extreme pain, but also now covered in my own blood,” Courier recalls. “Then the IV hits, and it’s a relief. An absolute relief. One of the sweetest feelings.”

Other methods of dealing with tennis sweat are decidedly less extreme. To build a better wristband, the long-armed Isner goes MacGyver: He takes a normal-sized band, flips it inside out and cuts it along the seam, creating a larger, Allen Iverson-like forearm sleeve. For his part, Gimelstob wore the biggest, thickest wristbands he could find. He never put sunscreen above his cheeks — otherwise, the ointment would run down and sting his eyes. He also mastered changing his shorts without taking a bathroom break, placing a towel over his lap and having ball kids stand in front of him. Boom!

And that’s not all.

“I would check the towels before the tournament and see if they were up to snuff,” Gimelstob recalls. “If they weren’t, I would bring my own from the hotel.

“Try serving out a match where you have to serve 130 mph down the line, only you’re not sure if your racket is going to slip. It’s a nightmare. Sometimes, it’s B.Y.O.T.”

As a sweat-mastering measure, Karlovic jokes that he tries to spend daily time in the sauna. In reality, he concedes, he can wring his shirt like a washcloth following a summertime match. More often than not, coping means enduring.

“If it’s really hot, there’s not anything you can do,” he says. “It’s just difficult for everyone.”

Is it ever. While working as a television analyst in 2007, Gimelstob tried to interview Svetlana Kuznetsova during a steamy May day in Paris. The rivulets of sweat running down Gimelstob’s face — first salty trickles, then shimmering streams — reduced Kuznetsova to uncontrollable laughter and forced a reshoot.

A reshoot that took place after Gimelstob toweled off and changed his top, of course.

“Hey, I’m easy to find in the booth,” he says of his television work. “I’m the only commentator who has to bring three shirts.”

Patrick Hruby is a columnist for Page 2.