An L.A. tennis star revived his pro career — as a | College News

When Karue Sell actually rips a serve, it seems like a tactical shotgun, the ball kicking up shoulder high. His backhand is like a precision laser carving up the baseline.

To the informal observer, he’s the mustachioed model of Roger Federer. Yet he lives in a world far totally different than the one the Maestro glided by means of on the best way to twenty Grand Slam singles titles.

So far this yr, Sell’s match winnings have added up to much less than half the annual minimal full-time wage in California. Federer’s web price exceeds $500 million.

A local of Brazil, Sell lives with his spouse, Sarah, and their two canines in a rental home close to the mall in Torrance. He travels the world to play in second-tier tennis tournaments run by the Assn. of Tennis Professionals and International Tennis Federation. With the ATP, he competes on the Challenger Tour, the namesake of “Challengers,” a latest Zendaya-starring movie that highlighted the difficulties of life as a middling pro.

A former UCLA tennis standout, Sell is making his second run at a skilled career. He moved to the United States from Jaraguá do Sul, Brazil, at 18, and nonetheless competes internationally for his home nation. A number of months months earlier than he gave up taking part in professionally six years in the past, Sell’s rating peaked at No. 371.

Now he’s 30 in a sport full of youthful gamers. But since he went full-time in January, Sell has competed in 21 Challenger and ITF males’s World Tennis Tour occasions on 4 continents, profitable twice. He began the yr at 858th on the planet. Could he crack No. 371?

Prize purses are solely half of how Sell earns a dwelling. He’s additionally a social media star who has leveraged his persona and tennis abilities to construct a YouTube viewers of practically 150,000 followers, serving to him to secure model partnerships and financial stability.

His well-produced classes are widespread with beginner gamers who’re drawn to his his blunt appeal and direct approach of instructing and who respect that he had a earlier pro run of his own.

Sell is serving up a new solution to success for gifted pro tennis gamers who’ve elite-level abilities however aren’t fairly good enough to crack the highest 10 or win Wimbledon.

For a number of years, Sell labored primarily as a coach. He made tennis coaching videos, gave classes to amateurs and was former world No. 1 Naomi Osaka’s follow hitting associate, together with when the Beverly Hills resident gained her second U.S. Open trophy in 2020.

Then final yr, Sell made a listing of the professionals and cons of returning to the tour. The listing hangs on the Sells’ fridge to at the present time. The execs gained out, partly as a result of he was excelling within the smaller competitions he had began getting into, and partly as a result of of the success of his tennis videos.

Beyond creating a area of interest for himself as an influencer, he’s dwelling each tennis nerd’s dream, touring the world and sharing courts with some of the best gamers within the recreation.

Sell’s journey has change into the source materials for his widespread “Turning Pro at 30” YouTube sequence, which options match playback, post-match evaluation and behind-the-scenes footage. He can hardly stroll 10 yards at a tennis occasion with out somebody stopping him, asking “Are you Karue?”

“We love his videos,” one fan, 13-year-old Ella Ramos, stated after taking a image with Sell at a match in Las Vegas final month. “It’s just cool how he took a break and now he’s building his ranking back up.”

Former teen phenoms such as Rafael Nadal — who introduced that he’ll retire subsequent month after a legendary tennis career that noticed him win his first skilled match at 15 — have long dominated the game’s higher echelons. The Challenger tour, based practically 50 years in the past, presents an alternate path to the highest 100 for gifted gamers who take longer to develop their abilities and begin profitable constantly.

With more expertise and higher financial and emotional assist than he had during his first pro run, Sell has managed to realize what nearly no one has: restarting a dormant tennis career from scratch and succeeding. “I’m on the back nine of my tennis career,” he says after a latest follow session.

Now it’s simply a matter of seeing how many aces he can hit.

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Tennis pro Karue Sell, left, stretches a coaching band with coach Andrew Mateljan on the courts at Redondo Union High School.

As this new section of his tennis career blooms, Sell is concurrently building a mini-empire online, and his viewership has grown as he’s moved up the rankings. By June he had cracked the 400s, ending the month at No. 462 on the planet.

He’s acquired a natural swagger on digicam, and he produces approachable but intimate content material plagued by gems of tennis information. As a tennis podcast host put it during an interview with Sell final month, he’s “a YouTube tennis sensation” who’s “arguably the most famous personality on tennis YouTube.”

Sell is conscious that his time as an energetic skilled participant is proscribed — Pete Sampras retired at 32, Andre Agassi at 36 — and he’s leveraging his abilities to make sure he can transition easily into a post-tour career after his physique breaks down or he tires of the grind.

“There are lots of parts of this that I don’t like. I don’t like the tour at all,” he says. “I like playing tennis, I like playing matches, I like the practice. But I really don’t like the lifestyle, the traveling around living out of a suitcase.”

Karue Sell trains on the courts at Redondo Union High School.

Unlike many different gamers at his stage, Sell has a number of funding sources that help cowl coaching, journey and dwelling bills. Chief amongst them is a partnership with MprooV, a self-improvement platform co-founded by his former UCLA tennis teammate Clay Thompson. Sell additionally has an online merch store the place he sells signature strings and garments. Plus there’s his content material creator partnerships with manufacturers together with a sports activities drink company and a remedy app.

The various income streams have helped insulate Sell from the financial uncertainty many face on tour, as typified by a character in “Challengers” who lives out of his car whereas chasing elusive pro tennis glory.

“Right now, I have the freedom to play, which is really great,” Sell says. “I don’t know how guys do it” with out financial backing.

Before he determined to go pro final yr, Sell says, he felt like he was hitting effectively with pals — together with at the very least one high 100 participant — so he entered some lower-stakes competitions. He began profitable matches, together with the revered Ojai Tennis Tournament in April 2023.

Another think about his atypical career has been the thriving Southern California tennis neighborhood, which has nurtured generations of stars from Sampras to the Williams sisters.

Even with his growing movie star, Sell nonetheless generally coaches people in individual.

People like Bob, a former junior participant in his 60s who Sell’s up hitting with at 7:30 a.m. one latest Saturday at South End Racquet & Health Club in Torrance. Much of the lesson is taken up by long, hard-hitting rallies between the 2 of them, interspersed with Sell’s chides and phrases of encouragement.

“Don’t open yourself up so much. Throw the shoulder first,” Sell says, critiquing his charge’s forehand. “There it is,” he provides as Bob makes seemingly minute adjustments to his mechanics.

“You need to stay balanced,” Sell tells Bob during a break. “You’re always in motion, but you’ve got to stay balanced, too.”

Sell primarily practices at Redondo Union High School, hitting the royal-blue exhausting courts by 8 many weekday mornings.

One afternoon in late August — on the heels of his win at a $25,000 ITF match in Londrina, Brazil — he’s laboring away underneath the marine layer, biking by means of dumbbell workout routines, agility drills and torturous rounds of medication ball manipulation.

Tennis coach Andrew Mateljan, proper, watches as Karue Sell tosses his racket in frustration.

(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

“Well, that was awful,” Sell deadpans to his coach, Andrew Mateljan, dripping sweat after a significantly intense set of modified push-ups. “You’re overestimating my athleticism.”

But three days earlier, Sell had hit a new career-high ATP rating: No. 329.

Last yr, Sell reached out to Mateljan, the founder and director of the Laguna Beach Tennis Academy, to improve his fitness, a should if Sell needs to get previous some of the next-gen gamers.

“I saw the potential and I like to invest the time into him because he can play at a high level,” Mateljan, 35, says.

Sell additionally calls on a rotating solid of freakishly gifted pals to help keep him sharp.

There’s Gustavo, a school participant Sell hits with when he’s on break, and a few former Bruins teammates, together with Thompson and Marcos Giron, the latter Sell has recognized since they met as youngsters on the Junior Orange Bowl in Florida.

Sell traveled to tournaments final yr as a coach for Giron, who’s probably the most completed of the crew. When they hit collectively on the Redondo Union High courts one blue-sky afternoon final month, Giron was ranked forty fifth on the planet, sizzling off his first ATP title in Newport, R.I., in the summertime.

A 2011 photograph of Karue Sell during the Australian Open in Melbourne. He competed within the match that yr as a junior.

Giron, a 31-year-old from Thousand Oaks ticked off his busy calendar the previous few months — Roland Garros, Wimbledon, the Olympics, the U.S. Open. It’s the sort of itinerary that might be on the horizon for Sell if he continues his rise. Already, there’s buzz building about a potential Sell look in Melbourne in January, although there’s a long highway between now and the Australian Open.

Sell has spoken out concerning the low pay, long season and heavy bodily toll of the Challenger and ITF tours. Giron agrees the approach to life is troublesome.

“Karue is a good player and he’s been good for many years,” Giron says. “Everybody thought he’s got the ability, but the tour is brutal.”

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Sell strikes a discordant body in opposition to the center America bedlam of Fremont Street in downtown Las Vegas.

As vacationers stumble by with tall cans of Bud Light Lime and cigarettes in hand, Sell’s tattooed, sinewy limbs stretch a matching Lacoste tee and shorts, with the requisite crocodile emblems and matching bright-red sneakers.

Tennis pro Karue Sell jumps during drills with coach Andrew Mateljan, proper, on the courts at Redondo Union High School.

Sell’s not right here in Vegas to gamble or get together. He’s right here for tennis, and when he arrives round midday on Sept. 10 on the Darling Tennis Center, 10 miles northwest of the Strip, it’s 101 levels.

Sell’s acquired the late match right this moment, so he has to attend for the prior one to finish, the rating ticking by slowly on his cellphone. Sell stays fueled by ingesting water with a sports activities drink powder blended into it and choosing at a protein bowl.

This is what it takes to make one’s goals come true in opposition to such long odds. These mundane duties and long hours of repetitive coaching culminate in aggressive outbursts the place careers are made and damaged.

To keep progressing, one has to remain forward of the 1000’s of others scrambling to get a toehold within the sport.

This afternoon in Vegas, when he lastly takes the court docket, Sell has what it takes. He goes down love-30 in his first service recreation, however comes back to win it earlier than breaking his opponent, Strong Kirchheimer, the subsequent recreation. He by no means appears to be like back on the best way to a 6-1, 6-2 rout that takes simply 66 minutes.

Karue Sell hits a shot whereas coaching in Redondo Beach.

There’s a clear solution to attain the highest 100, and that’s by profitable, constantly, in opposition to great gamers. It’s a meritocracy in that the very best reap the majority of the reward, whereas the remainder jockey for place, making an attempt to grit by means of to the subsequent tier.

An ITF championship or two is the best many gamers ever do. Even that’s a dream. But Sell has larger ambitions.

“Don’t sell him short. Karue Sell with an epic third-set tiebreaker, takes out the eighth seed, Juan Pablo Ficovich, and books a spot in the quarterfinal,” the announcer intones after Sell ekes by his subsequent opponent in a long three-setter that ends in a wild 13-11 tiebreak.

The following day, Sell breezes previous fellow former UCLA star Kaylan Bigun in straight units.

Sell comes out robust in opposition to Altadena-born Tristan Boyer within the semis, profitable the primary set 6-4 as his spouse and coach cheer him on from the stands. But he can’t fairly close out the match.

Boyer is seven years his junior, and Sell struggles to return Boyer’s oppressive flat serve, profitable solely the primary recreation of the second set. He regains his confidence they usually go 6-6 within the third earlier than Boyer wins the tiebreaker 7-4 with a second serve down the center.

Sell’s run in Vegas is over.

He and Mateljan are back on the courts at Redondo Union three days later, doing a post mortem of his efficiency in Vegas: his low volleys, his coaching routine, his capacity to learn the ball. Then it’s back to work, with hours of resistance bands, rallies and serve follow.

Sell headed into his subsequent match — a Challenger in Antofagasta, Chile — with some additional confidence. On Sept. 23, he reached one other milestone when he broke the highest 300 for the primary time. His rating: 299.

“A year ago I was still posting lessons on YouTube. Now I have a 2 … in front of my ranking for the first time,” he posted on Instagram to mark the event. “What a ride.”

Karue Sell relaxes after coaching on the courts at Redondo Union High School.