Brouwer: 'I'm On The Right Track'
Dutchman Gijs Brouwer was born in Houston, where his parents lived for 10 years. His father, Idso, worked for companies in the American city. But Idso and his wife, Jolanda, decided to move home to the Netherlands just a couple of months after Gijs was born.
From a bustling city, they moved to Hoogkarspel, where they lived in a house on a canal.
“Very small, very local. Not a lot of people dreaming big things,” Brouwer told ATPTour.com. “Just people kind of small-minded, living in their little village.”
Brouwer does not fit that description. The 27-year-old is travelling around the world competing against the best tennis players in the world.
His journey in the sport began when he would watch the Australian Open on television as a child. His parents did not have a tennis background, but enjoyed watching the sport, and Brouwer caught on. The lefty told his parents he wanted to try playing tennis, so they took him to a local tennis club.
“They just gave me to the teacher and said, ‘Hey, entertain this little kid and let's see if he likes it,’” Brouwer recalled. “I do remember some vague memories from starting at the club. Just me hitting the ball with a group of eight young kids really starting out on artificial grass.
“My parents told me I immediately liked it and I wanted to keep playing a couple times a week, maybe twice a week because I had lessons.”
Brouwer also did gymnastics and drumming until age 12. But from then on, he focussed on tennis. The Dutchman said he was “decent” for his age in the Netherlands, but did not earn notable honours internationally as a junior, so he was unable to compare himself to the best players from his age group in the world. He remained in school until he was 19.
The moment things changed was when Brouwer won the national championships in The Netherlands aged 17.
“That’s when I started playing a little bit better and I just really enjoyed it and I didn't really like what I was doing at school,” said Brouwer, who studied sports marketing and communications. “I studied for one year in university back in the Netherlands. But I didn't really like the subjects and the topics. So I decided well, I'm just going to aim high and go for the pro tennis life and ended up here.”
Brouwer’s biggest breakthrough came last year in Houston, where he was born. The lefty made the quarter-finals as a qualifier in his qualifying and main draw debut on the ATP Tour. From No. 361 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings he surged into the Top 300 in a week and has been on the rise ever since.
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The Dutchman just qualified for Wimbledon for the first time and challenged former World No. 2 Alexander Zverev in the first round. The German triumphed in straight sets, but needed two tie-breaks.
“Of course it was amazing. It was a close match, I played really good. It was just amazing. That's what I've been working for all these years,” Brouwer said. “To be on a big court at Wimbledon was very, very nice.”
Brouwer on Tuesday continued his grass success with a convincing 6-4, 6-1 win at the Infosys Hall of Fame Open against Max Purcell, who was part of the winning Wimbledon men’s doubles team last year.
“It's showing that I'm on the right track, at least that I'm doing what I wanted to do all these years [and] that I'm capable of really competing with the Top 100 guys,” Brouwer said. “That’s where I see one of my big goals, to make it to the Top 100.”
To reach that goal, he is focussing on match by match and blocking out the rest. In the end, the battle is between him and his opponent across the net. That is his favourite part of the sport.
“If you win, it's all you. If you lose, it's all you,” Brouwer said. “It's not really anybody else that can do it for you.”