Why the 503rd-ranked player in men's tennis continues an endless journey

It’s the first week of January. For those who dream of becoming a professional tennis player, this time of year surely conjures up visions of Australia.

But for 27-year-old Gage Brymer, January means time on the campus of Pepperdine University. Ranked 502nd in the world, Brymer is seeded sixth at an ITF event being played here, in Malibu, Calif. Offering a total purse of $25,000, this tournament is part of the SoCal Pro Series, a set of eight tournaments created in large part so that Americans needn’t travel too far to earn ranking points.

Malibu is approximately a 90-minute drive north of Brymer’s home in Orange County. He and his father Chuck, also Gage’s coach, headed up the Southern California coast on Tuesday morning for his first-round match. Chuck estimates he accompanies Gage 75 percent of the time.

Malibu is far closer than the vast majority of pro tournaments the Brymers have traveled to since Gage graduating from UCLA. Last year, Brymer played 37 tournaments—six more than Carlos Alcaraz and Rafael Nadal combined. His odyssey included five straight weeks of competition in Cancun throughout January and February and, in April and May, a similar seven-week long stint in Monastir, Tunisia. Immediately after winning the final event in Monastir, Brymer flew 6,600 miles west for three straight weeks of tournaments in the San Diego area. In August, Brymer played three consecutive ATP Challenger Tour events in Nonthaburi, Thailand—called "Bangkok Open 1, Bangkok Open 2 and Bangkok Open 3."

His career high ranking of 444 happened back in early 2020.

“It’s not how I expected a professional tennis career to go,” Gage says. “But with that being said, there are similarities at all levels. You see guys stuck in eddies and then they move up to the next level.”

Gage earned a degree in sociology, a discipline focused on the study of specific sub-cultures. Over the course of the last half-decade, he’s also participated in a sub-culture far different than the one associated with professional tennis we see on television. At the tournaments Gage plays, in most cases, one single chair calls all the lines. Ballpersons are rare. And don’t expect to have someone from tournament transportation fetch you at the airport for a brief excursion to some local attraction or a chic restaurant.

“It’s pretty straightforward,” Chuck says. “You fly in, you get to the hotel, you sign in, and your day is made up of all business—breakfast, stretching, practice, matches, recovery.”

As a junior, in 2013, Brymer was seeded No. 1 at the USTA Boys 18 Nationals in Kalamazoo. Though he lost in the semis, over the course of that tournament, he earned wins over future pros as Mackenzie McDonald and Noah Rubin. Earlier that year, Brymer beat Taylor Fritz.

Asked how it feels to see players he’s beaten occupy far higher spots, Gage said, “It’s frustrating at times, but it also shows me that guys I’ve competed against can have success at the highest level. But it’s also reassuring. It’s cool.”

Adds Chuck, “It just shows that at any given time, players can win. You look at those guys. They’ve worked hard to get there. When you look at it, the numbers don’t always match up. It’s more about being there on that day. That’s a day-in-and-day-out thing that’s tough to do.”

Let it be noted that Gage and Chuck discuss all this without a trace of anger. More accurately, they speak with relentless passion and optimism. As Clay Thompson, a UCLA teammate of Brymer’s, says, “There are so many players devoid of any feeling or any love of the game He loves it. I can’t have enough respect for Gage for his mentality and approach. He has a heart of gold.”

Gage figures that once he’s finished playing pro tennis, he’ll likely coach. “I absolutely love the game,” he says.

The four years at UCLA were tricky. In January 2015, in the middle of Gage’s sophomore year, his mother Mary died. “She’d been sick for a while, and it all rattled my family,” says Gage. “I was in and out of playing that during that time.”

In the wake of Mary’s death, Gage practiced extensively—and perhaps excessively, to the point that he fractured his wrist and missed most of a season. The wrist healed, but in the spring of Brymer’s senior year, he suffered a blood clot in his shoulder that took him out of action for the season-ending NCAA Championships. Not until the fall of 2017, fully recovered from the blood clot, did Brymer resume playing tennis.

Gage credits many for aiding his journey. Chuck is the head coach, with Lewis, Erik Nyman, Jeff and Shannon Meyers as vital members of his support team. One of Chuck's business partners, 1983 Wimbledon finalist Chris Lewis, also offers critical input. To subsidize the start of his career, Brymer was given a loan by UCLA alums John and Carrie Mapes.

Brymer’s first match of 2023 was scheduled to take place on the afternoon of Tuesday, January 3. A rain delay pushed the start time back to nearly 5:00 p.m. Of course, those kind of scheduling challenges will happen even if you're playing at Wimbledon. But unlike at the All England Club, Brymer and his opponent, Kyle Kang, played with four balls and called all of their lines. Just after 6:00 p.m., at 6-6 in the first set, the lights went out. Play resumed 15 minutes later. A few minutes before 8:00 p.m., Brymer closed out the match, 7-6 (1), 7-6 (5).

Amid various rain delays, Brymer next played on Friday, losing 6-2, 6-2 to Gabi Adrian Boitan, a 23-year-old Romanian ranked 818th in the world.

But the ups and downs of one tournament pale compared to Gage’s journey playing ITF and Challenger tournaments. Patience has long been his strong suit inside the lines, and he figures it will continue to be his watchword.

“I haven’t given myself a timeline,” he says about measuring success. “For me, if I can’t see a way to improve, then I’ll consider hanging it up.

“For us, we see constant areas of potential. When I have consistent weeks, this feels like I can be consistent. This keeps me going.”

The balance of the SoCal Pro Series—seven more events—doesn’t start until late May. So with that circuit months away, Chuck and Gage examined their travel schedule. They’d considered heading to a Challenger event in Thailand, perhaps followed by Jakarta. But upon further deliberation, the Brymers opted to stay at home to train. There’s a two-hour ball machine drill that Gage has honed to perfection, as well as many other practice partners throughout Southern California. The plan now calls for Gage and Chuck to fly to Florida on January 22 for an ITF 25 event in Wesley Chapel.

Gage and Chuck are also extremely frugal. They always fly coach and rarely check baggage. Gage estimates his 2022 expenses were approximately $15,000-20,000, while he earned $19,500. Both admit, though, that despite all the flights they’ve taken, neither sleeps particularly well on airplanes.