Sam Cissell, recently named by the USTA as Alabama’s junior player of the year, also has the distinction of having been across the net from three-fourths of the U.S. Davis Cup team that plays in Serbia later this week.   The 16-year-old Cissell and friend Andrew Crumm last year won a doubles tournament that gave them the opportunity to play an exhibition match in November in Pelham, Ala., against Bob and Mike Bryan.  The Bryans beat the Alabama teens 10-3 in a super tiebreaker.  “They had ridiculous hands,” Cissell said of the 2010 Australian Open champions and the world’s No. 1 doubles team. “They didn’t miss any volleys.  The ball never gets past them.”

Cissell, who spent his freshman year in high school living at the Saddlebrook Tennis Academy in Tampa, Fla., has practiced with John Isner.  Isner, who won his first ATP tournament in January and reached the fourth round of the Australian Open, now ranks 25th in the world and is making his Davis Cup debut this week.  “He’s huge,” Cissell said, adding that Isner’s serve is almost impossible to return because it rises so fast.  “I had to jump up to just get to the ball.”

Cissel’s long-range goal is to play for a top-tier college team, noting that the list of universities he would like to play for include Mississippi State, San Diego, Alabama and Auburn.  He said if he has a successful college carer, he would like to follow the path of players like Isner and the Bryans, both of whom played college tennis before turning pro.  Cissell said the Bryan brothers and Isner, in fact, had some advice for him on how to get there.  “They said work hard, keep playing tournaments and stay out of trouble.”

Photo Courtesy of Katrina Trotter