Brian Joelson (born September 30, 1961) is a former professional

tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball c ...

player from the United States.

Biography

Joelson was born in Georgia and grew up in

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populou ...

, attending Aloha High School. While playing a junior tournament in Texas at the age of 17 he caught the eye of the

Texas A&M University Texas A&M University (Texas A&M, A&M, or TAMU) is a public, land-grant, research university in College Station, Texas. It was founded in 1876 and became the flagship institution of the Texas A&M University System in 1948. As of late 2021, T ...

coach who was in attendance to watch another player. From 1979 to 1983 he attended Texas A&M and played collegiate tennis in the

Southwest Conference The Southwest Conference (SWC) was an NCAA Division I college athletic conference in the United States that existed from 1914 to 1996. Composed primarily of schools from Texas, at various times the conference included schools from Oklahoma ...

. For the remainder of the decade he spent several years as the head pro at a

Mercer Island Mercer Island is a city in King County, Washington, United States, located on an island of the same name in the southern portion of Lake Washington. Mercer Island is in the Seattle metropolitan area, with Seattle to its west and Bellevue to ...

tennis club and made an attempt in 1987 to play on tour, but was only able to feature in

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Professional career

Joelson made a return to the professional circuit in 1991 and that year reached the main draw of an ATP Tour tournament for the first time at the age of 29, the doubles at the OTB International Open in Schenectady. At the same tournament in 1992, he and partner

Richard Matuszewski Richard Matuszewski (matt-too-CHef-ski), born September 7, 1964, in Newark, New Jersey, is a former tennis player from the United States. Matuszewski won the Van Nostrand Memorial Award in 1986 and is a four-time All-American. He was named All ...

reached the doubles semi-finals. He played in the men's doubles at both the 1992 Wimbledon Championships and

1993 Australian Open The 1993 Australian Open was a tennis tournament played on outdoor hard courts at Flinders Park in Melbourne in Victoria in Australia. It was the 81st edition of the Australian Open and was held from 18 through 31 January 1993. Seniors Men's ...

, both with

Mike Bauer Mike Bauer (born June 29, 1959) is a retired American tour professional tennis player. Bauer won three singles and nine top-tier doubles titles during his career. He reached a career high singles ranking of world No. 29 in November 1984. Car ...

. At

Challenger Challenger, Challengers, or The Challengers may refer to: Entertainment Comics and manga * Challenger (character), comic book character * ''Challengers'' (manga), manga by Hinako Takanaga Film and TV * ''The Challengers'' (TV series), a 1979 ...

level he was a losing doubles finalist on four occasions. As a singles player he never featured on the ATP Tour but did qualify for the

1993 Wimbledon Championships The 1993 Wimbledon Championships was a tennis tournament played on grass courts at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in Wimbledon, London in the United Kingdom. It was the 107th edition of the Wimbledon Championships and was held from ...

. In the qualifiers he started with tight wins over Clinton Marsh and

Kenny Thorne Kenny Thorne (born January 24, 1966) is a former professional tennis player from the United States. Thorne played collegiately for Georgia Tech from 1985 to 1988, and then played professionally from 1989 to 1997. He is currently the head coach o ...

, the latter match decided 11–9 in the final set, before securing a spot in the main draw with a straight sets win over

Mark Knowles Mark Knowles (born 4 September 1971) is a Bahamian professional tennis coach and former professional tennis player, becoming the former number 1 in world as a specialist in doubles tennis. He won three of the four Grand Slam tournaments in ...

. In the first round he came up against Israeli

Amos Mansdorf Amos Mansdorf ( he, עמוס מנסדורף; born 20 October 1965) is an Israeli former professional tennis player. His career-high singles ranking was World No. 18 (achieved in November 1987), the highest ever for any male Israeli tennis playe ...

, who had a world ranking of 28. Joelson began well and got to a two set lead, before Mansdorf fought back to claim the third in a tiebreak and the final two sets 6–3, to eliminate the American and book a second round match-up with

Stefan Edberg Stefan Bengt Edberg (; born 19 January 1966) is a Swedish former professional tennis player. A major proponent of the serve-and-volley style of tennis, he won six Grand Slam singles titles and three Grand Slam men's doubles titles between 19 ...

. After retiring he spent some time as a travelling coach of the Jensen brothers,

Luke People *Luke (given name), a masculine given name (including a list of people and characters with the name) * Luke (surname) (including a list of people and characters with the name) *Luke the Evangelist, author of the Gospel of Luke. Also known a ...

and

Murphy Murphy () ( ga, Ua Murchadha) is an Irish surname and the most common surname in the Republic of Ireland. Origins and variants The surname is a variant of two Irish surnames: "Ó Murchadha"/"Ó Murchadh" (descendant of "Murchadh"), and "Ma ...

Personal life

Joelson and wife Teresa have three children. The eldest, Brett, was a finalist in the boys' doubles at the 2001 US Open and made it to 226 in the world as a doubles specialist on the professional tour. His daughter Ashley played for UCLA. He works as a financial advisor in Portland. In 2008 he was inducted into the

Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (sometimes Cascadia, or simply abbreviated as PNW) is a geographic region in western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Though ...

Tennis Hall of Fame.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Joelson, Brian 1961 births Living people American male tennis players Tennis people from Oregon Sportspeople from Portland, Oregon Texas A&M Aggies men's tennis players