By Michael Lewis
WIMBLEDON, England — I was taller than Reilly Opelka when I first met him.
I tell this to people all the time and they either laugh right away or throw an incredulous look at me.
But it’s true. I was 5-foot-5 then, in 2009, and I’m still 5-foot-5 (OK fine, since my hair is mostly gone I’m probably 5’4”). He was around 5-3.
Of course, he was also only 11 years old.
In the 16 years I’ve known the 7-foot professional tennis player and former Indian Trails Middle School student, I’ve seen him in all kinds of mental states.
I’ve seen him joyous, such as when he qualified for the U.S. Open Juniors in 2013, as a 15-year-old, and his parents (George and Lynne) and I stood on a walkway inside Arthur Ashe Stadium and looked at each other and said “Can you believe we’re actually here?”
Or when he won his first ATP Tour title, on Long Island at the New York Open in 2019. I was fortunate to be in attendance that whole week, and afterwards he couldn’t stop grinning as we reminisced about his first coach, former tennis star Tom Gullikson, and their practice sessions at Grand Haven and elsewhere.
I’ve seen him surprised, and a little shell-shocked, such as when he won the Junior Boys title at Wimbledon in 2015, and he insisted to me on the phone after the match that it wasn’t that big a deal, even though it of course very much was.
I’ve seen him angry, such as when things weren’t going his way during his slow and steady climb up the ladder of the ATP Tour. Like all tennis players (except maybe Jannik Sinner, who never seems to get angry), Opelka has sometimes snapped at lines judges and chair umpires, because this tennis thing is a very frustrating sport.
So yeah, I’ve seen Opelka in just about every mood there is. But Thursday afternoon, in Interview Room 5 in the Media Pavilion here at Wimbledon, I saw a guy who looked defeated.
Depressed, frustrated and at a loss as to what’s going on with his career.
Opelka has worked so hard these last few years to come back from injury; he endured a horrific botched wrist surgery, had another operation to fix it, and was off the pro tour for more two years, until returning last July.
When Opelka finally made it back, he was thrilled just to be healthy again, and knew that he’d need a few months to shake the rust off and start moving back up the tennis ladder.
This is a guy who was No. 17 in the world just a few years ago, and on the verge of making a major Grand Slam breakthrough. Many, including John McEnroe, said he’d win Wimbledon one day, what with his rocketship of a serve that goes above 140 miles per hour and zooms past hapless opponents after hitting the perfectly manicured green grass here.
But it’s been eight months, and Thursday at Wimbledon brought another second-round loss, this time to American Brandon Nakashima, in four sets.
“I got dominated,” Opelka told me. “It sucks. I lose second round every week, and it sucks. Something has to change.”
The big 28-year-old, who has lost in the second round of his last four events, said his tough defeats lately aren’t physical. He said his body feels “really good” after ramping up and playing a regular schedule of tournaments in 2025. He entered Wimbledon ranked No. 70.
The problem, ironically, is his serve. What has long been his most dangerous weapon is betraying him. When things are going well, Opelka gets 70-75 percent of his first serves in play, and wins 90 percent of those points.
These last few months, Opelka said, he’s getting 60 percent of his first serves in, and winning only 75 percent of those points.
“Those are the only numbers that matter,” he said. “Right now my serve is just really really bad.”
Denis Kudla, a former pro who’s been a traveling coach for Opelka for the past year, is more optimistic about how his player is doing.
“There’s a long way to go but he’s getting there,” Kudla said. “Sometimes we all want fast results. Reilly understands the process, and he’s a professional. Slow and steady, he’s getting there.”
Opelka isn’t so sure.
“I’ll quit,” he said. “You don’t make any money losing second round every week. If I keep losing, I’ll just wait until my ranking drops to the point where it’s really bad, and then I’ll quit.”
I hope this was just frustration talking, because after all the work and effort he’s put in, I’d hate to see him quit.
Then again, Opelka has always been a different cat, as they say, who was never totally single-minded about tennis. He’s a lover of art, going to galleries in all the European cities he’s been to while playing, and has struck up friendships with gallery owners like Tim van Laere in Belgium.
Some players, you wonder what they’d do with themselves all day if they didn’t have tennis. Opelka isn’t like that. He’s got plenty of outside interests. He’s smart, well-spoken and could be a great broadcaster if he wanted to be.
If he’s not happy and struggling with tennis, then maybe it’s good he’s thinking of leaving. He’s still young, after all.
But I hope that’s not the case. He deserves to come all the way back and have the kind of success he was having a few years ago, the kind that seemed preordained all those years ago on the courts of the Palm Coast Tennis Center, the courts that now bear his name.
It would only be fitting for the tallest tennis player in history to reach new heights before he’s through.
Michael Lewis has covered Reilly Opelka for FlaglerLive since 2013.
