The name Chris Guccione came across my computer screen Friday.
His name was the one that popped out when I was reading though the list of direct entries into the $10,000 Vero Beach, Fla., USTA Futures event that runs April 30-May 6 at The Boulevard Club, run by local Vero Beach tennis pied piper Mike Rahaley.
Futures events are the minor leagues of tennis and normally feature young and upcoming talents, college players, juniors and early-year pros scrapping around the world looking for ATP tour points – and money – to help them escalate up the pro tennis ladder. Every now and again you will get a player of note who is trying to get back up to a position of higher status that they once enjoyed. The 26-year-old Guccione is a prime example of that.
The six-foot, seven-inch Australian left-hander might have the best resume of anyone playing in a USTA Futures event this year. His name is linked to legends such as Rod Laver, Ken Rosewall, John Newcombe and Lew Hoad as men to represent Australia in Davis Cup – the native of Melbourne wearing the green and gold for seven years, many alongside teammate Lleyton Hewitt. Just last year, he and Hewitt teamed up to defeat none other than Roger Federer and his gold-medal-winning partner from the 2008 Olympics Stan Wawrinka 2-6, 6-4, 6-2, 7-6 (5) in Australia’s loss to the Swiss. He has an impressive 15-6 match record as a Davis Cupper, including a perfect 6-0 slate in doubles. He even was an Olympian for the land Down Under, competing in Beijing in 2008, falling in the opening round to American James Blake. He won one career ATP doubles titles – Newport, R.I. in 2010 with fellow Aussie Carsten Ball – and he reached two career ATP singles finals including the pre-Australian Open tournament in Sydney in 2008. I remember watching Guccione in person crack 14 aces in a straight-set win against British No. 2 at the time Alex Bogdonovic at Wimbledon in 2007 alongside my pal Bill Mountford, then an executive with Britain’s Lawn Tennis Association.
Guccione’s career-high ranking was No. 67 in 2008, but now he stands at No. 416.
I can share two interesting anecdotes on Guccione — good for some cocktail party conversation for those in Vero Beach taking in some of the tennis. Guccione once served an incredible 50 aces in a three-set match – taking out Olivier Patience of France in a qualifying match at Wimbledon in 2005. The other is documented in my book ON THIS DAY IN TENNIS HISTORY (www.TennisHistoryBook.com), where Guccione was involved in perhaps the only professional tennis tournament final that did not feature a break point. In the 2008 Sydney final, played January 12, 2008, Russian Dmitry Tursunov defeated Guccione 7-6 (3), 7-6 (4) without either player facing a break point. Said Tursunov of the oddity after the final, “I’m not really surprised that there were no breaks, because that’s kind of his game. He goes for a lot of risky shots on the groundstroke on the returns, and he knows that he’s not going to get broken too often. That’s pretty much the scenario. That was very expected.”