Old Masters Return for U.S. Open Event
N E W Y O R K, Sept. 5 -- — In 12 years as a professional athlete, Richey Reneberg earned $4.4 million in prize money with an investment strategy that maximized his skills and energy on a tennis court.
Now, from an eighth-floor office above Park Avenue, he talks to investors, accountants, financial advisers and business associates about the latest twists and turns of hedge funds.
Unlike most of his former adversaries, Reneberg, winner of three singles titles and 19 doubles crowns, has escaped the gravitational pull of the tennis world.
As he takes the court at Flushing Meadows this week for the U.S. Open's Masters Doubles Championship, Reneberg is a rare commodity: Someone who earns a living outside tennis.
Annual Return
The Masters competition is financed with $394,000 in prize money from the U.S. Tennis Association. Once a year, dozens of former top men and women players, now in their 30s, 40s, and 50s, step back onto the U.S. National Tennis Center courts for a week of camaraderie and competition.
Organized by Vic Kasser, a Philadelphia club player and former USTA director, the tournament is part reunion, part flashback.
"The invitations go to former Grand Slam champions [meaning those who won the U.S. Open, Wimbledon, the French Open or the Australian Open], former top 10 players, and world-class former players who are still competing at a high level," Kasser says.
This year, he invited 68 male and female players. Their Masters' matches are played on outside courts as a sideshow to the U.S. Open championships, largely out of sight of the tens of thousands of fans who watch the younger stars in the Arthur Ashe and Louis Armstrong stadiums and grandstand.
"It's a good way to see the guys," says Reneberg, who maintains friendships with a handful of fellow retired players, but sees many more of them during the U.S. Open Masters event.
As a businessman, husband, and father of two children, Reneberg limits his tennis workouts to once every week or two. As a player in the Masters' events, he says, the lack of practice means "there's a much higher risk of making an idiot of yourself."
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