Rochester tennis phenom: So good ... so soon

ROCHESTER — To the casual observer, it looked like a terrible mismatch.

The high school varsity boy on the right -- a foot taller and four years older than his opponent -- seemed to squash illusions that the pair could even have a fair fight.

Shots bulleted across the net -- some unreturned, some seemingly unreturnable. Finally, the 6-love victor confidently strode out to meet the defeated player.

And she stretched out her tiny hand, tilting her head upward to face him. The winner, Ingrid Neel, was just a 12-year-old, freckle-faced girl who stood not even 5 feet tall.

"This is what I'm telling you," Rochester Mayo High School boys' tennis coach Jeff Demaray said as he watched the scrimmage unfold in the fourth practice of the season. "I've been coaching tennis for 23 years, and I've never seen a seventh-grader take the ball on the rise and dictate points like Ingrid does."

It's a strong statement, to be sure. But it's not a surprise. Neel has been eliciting compliments and drawing interest from tennis luminaries -- including John McEnroe and noted coach Nick Bollettieri.

For now, after netting scores of international and USTA tournament victories and achieving No. 1 status for girls 18 and under in the Northern Section, Neel is playing for the Mayo boys' varsity team -- a rare example of a girl competing on a boys' high school team in Minnesota.

There have been rumblings from those who find it unnatural, who cluck their tongues at a talented young girl forfeiting the chance to boost the girls' program. But to those who know Neel -- a spunky, startlingly focused preteen who has been playing with boys at the club level for years -- the decision seems completely logical.

The right coach for the situation

Earlier in the day, two giggling girls in hoodies and headbands came bobbing up the hill behind personal tennis coach Brian Christensen's house.

"Hi, girls!" he yelled from a screened-in porch overlooking public tennis courts.

The playful grins that greeted him -- from Neel and best friend Jessie Aney, another phenom who reached the girls' Class 1A state championship match last fall as a seventh-grader for Rochester Century -- haven't changed much, Christensen said, since the first lessons they shared six years ago.

Neel's fun-loving nature was one of the first inspirations for these sessions, which began when the family, after relocating from Chicago, discovered the kid-friendly Christensen at a local tennis club.

"We saw in Brian a really creative man who understood children," said Neel's father, Bryan. "He really had no other résumé to offer."

Said Christensen with a shrug: "I really never thought of her as being a great athlete or, 'Oh my goodness, this kid is going to be really good.' Her first year wasn't like that. She was running around having fun."

But the ingredients were in place. In that first year, Christensen engaged a 6-year-old Neel in a basic drill: Just get the ball over the net 10 times in a row. She couldn't do it. Finally, the frustrated coach pointed to a baseline and told the tiny girl to simply stand there and hit the ball straight into the net.

Instead, Neel ripped a laser 1 inch over the lattice. Christensen couldn't help but stare.

"Do that again," he said stiffly. And Neel obliged with the same shot, 10 times in a row.

"And that's how I found her stroke," Christensen said. "Everything changed after that. Even the way I looked at tennis, and at teaching, changed."

At age 7, Neel participated in her first 8-and-under national championship in Texas. She lost in the first round 6-1, 6-0. There's just no way she'll be able to be as good as these kids next year, Christensen thought.

"But then, between 7 and 8 things really shifted gears," he said. "After she lost, there was just this fire in her eyes that said, 'I'm going to get better.' That's when you know you have a good player."

As the pair experimented with new techniques, Neel started naturally finding her unique style. As opponents watched her consistently come to the net and dictate points with devastating returns, Neel stayed focused on getting back to the national tournament.

She did, and this time, she won it. At 9, she won again, setting off a flurry of major victories, including the international 10-and-under tournament in France.

"By age 10," Christensen said, "things were looking pretty good."

So good, in fact, that the coach had to again change his focus.

"Most coaches, they think: 'How can I get my player to win?'" he said. "For me, it's: 'How can I get Ingrid to lose?' If I get her to lose, she's going to work even harder ... and she's going to get better."

In the midst of this heavy tennis talk, Neel's mother, Hildy, interrupted.

"Will you make sure she eats this snack on the way to practice?" she asked, dangling a bag of popcorn.

Shrugging off doubts

On the ride to Rochester Mayo, Neel shook her head, dismissing any feelings of strangeness that she was headed to a boys' varsity practice.

"Most of the boys on the varsity team, I already know them, so it's normal," she said with a shrug. "And during the boys' season, there are only a few girls actually at my level [for tournament purposes] anyway. ... In order to get better, this was a really good choice."

Getting better has become a major concern for Team Ingrid.

"You can't have too many periods in your life where you go without improving yourself," Christensen said. "And the question then becomes: Where do you go? And it gets to the point of, we're not talking about Minnesota anymore."

During a brainstorming session, someone wondered, "What if she just played for the boys?" Some quick checking showed Title IX ruled that as an option by law -- as long as she didn't also play for the girls' team.

"When we found out that was even possible, it just made complete sense," Bryan Neel said.

As for naysayers?

"I guess it's their problem, sort of," Neel said. "I just feel like I want to keep getting better and better and push my potential to the max. When we found out I could ..."

She glanced over, and the confident diction paused. Popcorn in fist, a short, extended finger pointed ahead. "Go ahead and turn left at the light," she said before seamlessly picking up again, midsentence. "When we found out I could, it just seemed right. If you love something, you always want to get better. I wouldn't want to hold myself back for any reason."

After pulling up outside the courts, grinning to reveal a full mouth of braces, Neel bounded toward a group of boys who looked old enough to be her baby-sitters.

"Hi, Ingrid!" one offered enthusiastically. Later, watching Neel, assistant coach Dave Edwards shook his head.

"For boys, yeah, it can be hard to play a seventh-grade girl. But they all respect Ingrid," he said.

Added T. Connor Shives, who beat Neel 7-5 in her first set of the day: "At first, it was gonna be weird. ... It's a lot different to think about. But it's been good, I guess."

Self-driven

In cases like these, many tend to point to the parents as catalysts. But with Neel, it's easy to entertain the notion that she is simply special. Her parents also have made sacrifices to drive the expensive budget -- Bryan Neel earns a modest income working for the Mayo Clinic as a financial planner -- that goes along with national and world travel, equipment and private lessons.

But growing into a player who commands a decadelong projection seemed to come from somewhere far more intimate.

"If you love something, you don't want to quit," Neel said quietly. She and those around her acknowledge that while the family wants to remain in Rochester as long as possible, a move to a tennis academy in Florida or California is probably on the horizon, given her rising profile.

For now, Neel's résumé speaks for itself. But ask her what her biggest accomplishment has been, and the chatty girl will pause, thinking long and hard, like a perpetually unsatisfied artist critiquing her work.

Finally, Neel will turn her head back to the conversation and say this: "I guess it's getting to where I am now, to where I've improved so much ... and I still just love tennis."