Sidelines Kalani Simpson

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Lajola lives tennis highlife

The 17-year-old from Aiea is on the USTA's high-performance track

DENNIS LAJOLA and his brother, Derrick, a UH tennis player, are leaning together in conspiratorial horseplay, part huddle, part joust, the way brothers sometimes do. They laugh, pondering the following question: When did Dennis first beat Derrick in tennis? This requires a delicate answer, "Just in case girls read the paper," Derrick says, cuffing his brother on the shoulder with a grin. Come on now, don't hang him out to dry.

The answer?

"Recently," they decide, and Derrick laughs again.

Yes, he's definitely the big brother. But everybody knows Dennis is the tennis star.

He's grown a few inches, he's trained on the mainland and played all over the world. Every time you see him he seems a little more grown up.

"He matured," Derrick says, part playfully, part proud. "So now he can hang with me."

Big smiles. The feeling is mutual, behind the jokes. They seem so much closer now. "He'll travel with me for the whole summer," Dennis says quietly of his big bro.

And what a trip that will be.

This might be the summer. This might the summer to decide whether Dennis, an ace of a 17-year-old who went from Aiea to the Florida prodigy academies, might be ready to turn pro. He'll play on the clay courts of Roland Garros in the French Open's junior tournament. He'll play on the Wimbledon grass in that tournament's kid bracket this summer, too.

The junior Australian Open and U.S. Open. Return trips both.

For boys 18 and under, he's ranked 30th in the world.

"It's all up to the player," he says of his next move. He knows peers who turned pro at 15. He doesn't want to rush, wants to leave college on the table, he says. A lot of it depends on this summer. But he's leaning. Yeah, college is an option.

He's quiet. He's humble. But he's leaning toward turning pro.

DENNIS LAJOLA'S LIFE is not normal life. It seems he's left even Michelle Wie in the dust in that sense. He's lived on the mainland since he was 14 -- he was plucked out of Aiea by USTA scouts and IMG agents after a stunning showing at a mainland tournament. He enrolled in the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy in Florida, but that didn't last (Bollettieri is a tennis genius, but an acquired taste; Lajola says the coaches and the environment just weren't for him).

He went to a similar tennis school in L.A. Same result.

He's at the International Tennis Academy now, in Delray Beach, Fla. Loves it. Loved it from the first minute.

"They know how to push me," he says. It's working. Last month he finished second at the Easter Bowl, the nation's biggest youth tournament. Big time.

Real deal.

At first he was on the mainland alone, and he was homesick. Homesick and excited at once. It was insane, but it was what he wanted. It hadn't been an easy decision to leave home like this, but the USTA and IMG kept pushing, selling, and Lajola could see it in his dreams.

"I thought it would make me better," he says. "Play tennis the whole day and not worry about school -- as much."

His father lives with him when he's in Florida now. They have an apartment (his first experiences were in a tennis-school dorm). In the summers his brother joins them. Adventures that help make up for lost time.

"Actually," Derrick says, "we got closer, I guess, when he left."

There's travel, nonstop, always another tournament, all over the world. Dennis says the longest he's in one place during tennis season is three weeks. Where? "Asia," he says, "um, there's Thailand, Philippines, Malaysia. Australia. Costa Rica, El Salvador, Mexico. Canada." Soon: "France, England."

Is he as big in the Philippines as Jasmine? Nah, no, no, no. Then, "Not yet."

"She's really big there," he says. "She has like billboards."

It's crazy, this life, but, "Now I'm used to it. Traveling. I still get excited when I go to a country I haven't been to yet." It is crazy.

"I love it, though," he says.

HE'S HERE THROUGH Thursday. He got here last Wednesday, gone in a week. This is his life now. Working toward what he hopes is something great.

"I spend a lot of time with my family," he says of his short stints at home. "Not too much friends. More just family, because I don't come home often. And it's been like about four years since like I've talked with my friends."

It's hard. It's sad. It's tough, but it's just different now. He doesn't have much in common with the average teenage kid.

Delray Beach reminds him of Hawaii, he says. He's 17 but he doesn't have a driver's license because there just isn't any time. He "attends" Miami Online High, checking in with teachers through Instant Message or on the phone. It's the only way he could do school with the travel schedule he has.

What does he take?

"Athlete classes," he says.

Hey, you probably skipped calculus, too.

Now here comes his summer, Roland Garros and Wimbledon, jet-setting all over the globe. Tennis nonstop. Soon he and his big brother will be on the road together, bonding again. In Germany they'll stay at the house of Sascha Heinemann, the WAC freshman of the year, Derrick's doubles partner at UH.

It's going to be a heck of a summer.

USTA board member (and part-time Hawaii guy) John Korff says a guy who knows told him Lajola is on the track -- in the USTA High Performance program -- for those they think have a chance to win the U.S. Open someday.

Yes, little brother is no longer living an average life.

"That's what I wanted to do," Dennis says of his crazy tennis existence. "That was my dreams and goals. And now it's like it's kinda real. And," he pauses for just that split second.

"I'm kinda going with it," he says.