Growing up, Jackson Allen was really no different from so many other young tennis players. The Shakopee junior, who admits to being "a little bit of a late bloomer," was an undersized backboard in his younger days, content to stay anchored to the baseline and hit groundstrokes until his opponent grew weary.
All that changed about 18 months ago.
Allen grew to be 6-2 with long, whip-like arms. Those groundstrokes came back with authority. He transformed from just another good young tennis player into the top singles player for his age group in the state.
"As I've grown older, I've grown wiser," Allen said.
He'll put that wisdom to the test this week at the boys' tennis state tournament, which begins Tuesday and runs through Friday. Allen, undefeated this season, has had his sights set on the Class 2A singles title all spring, prodded by a sense of urgency not held by most high school juniors.
This will be his last chance to win a state championship. He's on an accelerated program at Shakopee and will graduate a semester early, hoping to get a jump on his tennis career at the University of Minnesota.
"It's a big deal to me because it's my last chance to get my name in the record books," he said. "One of the cool things about the state tournament is that it has an aura. You might play in a USTA tournament that's harder to win, but nobody remembers who wins those. With the state tournament, pretty much everybody remembers."
Allen's profile is not only on the rise locally, he's moving up the list nationally, too. The current USTA rankings for 18-under boys have him ranked 51st. That's a significant jump in just the past six months. He was 80th nationally as recently as late January.
