Geoff Abrams (born May 10, 1978) is an American former tennis player.
Abrams was ranked # 1 in the U.S. in the Boys 14s singles in 1992. In 1994, he finished the year ranked # 1 in doubles in the
USTA
The United States Tennis Association (USTA) is the national governing body for tennis in the United States. A not-for-profit organization with more than 700,000 members, it invests 100% of its proceeds to promote and develop the growth of tennis, ...
Boys' 16 rankings with
Michael Russell. That year he was also the Boys 16 Doubles National Champion. In 1995, he was the USTA National Indoor 18 Champion. He competed in the 1996 juniors in the U.S. Open, French Open, and at Wimbledon.
Playing in college for
Stanford University
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
, he had a 26–0 record in singles in 1998, the best in Stanford men's tennis history. He was an
All-American in singles and doubles in his senior year, as well as the
Pac-10
The Pac-12 Conference is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference, that operates in the Western United States, participating in 24 sports at the NCAA Division I level. Its College football, football teams compete in the NCAA D ...
Champion. That year he was also part of the # 1-ranked college doubles team in the nation, and the 8th-ranked college player in the U.S. in singles. His college team won the
NCAA
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...
national championship his freshman, sophomore, and senior years.
Abrams as a professional had a high ranking in singles of 501, on July 16, 2001, and a high ranking in doubles of 397, on August 6, 2001.
Biography
Abrams is the son of Nancy, a travel consultant, and Gil, an engineer.
He grew up in
Newport Beach
Newport Beach is a coastal city in South Orange County, California. Newport Beach is known for swimming and sandy beaches. Newport Harbor once supported maritime industries however today, it is used mostly for recreation. Balboa Island, Newport ...
, California.
At 11 years of age, he was already tall.
Because of Abrams' height, parents of some of his opponents insisted on seeing his birth certificate.
By the age of 13 he was tall, and by the age of 14 he could serve a tennis ball at .
Junior tennis career
Abrams was ranked # 1 in the U.S. in the Boys 14s singles in 1992.
In March 1992, he defeated
Bob Bryan
Robert Charles Bryan (born April 29, 1978) is an American former doubles world No. 1 tennis player. He has won twenty-three Grand Slam titles: 16 in men's doubles and 7 in mixed doubles. He turned professional in 1998. With his twin ...
in the finals of the Long Beach Junior.
He defeated him again in the semifinals of the Easter Bowl Junior Boys 14 Singles Tennis Championship, which he went on to win.
He then won an
Ojai Tennis Tournament
The Ojai Tennis Tournament, often shortened to The Ojai, is an annual tennis tournament in Ventura County, California, headquartered at Libbey Park in downtown Ojai, about north of Los Angeles. The event, first held in 1896, is the oldest and la ...
title by defeating Bob's brother
Mike Bryan
Michael Carl Bryan (born April 29, 1978) is an American former doubles world No. 1 tennis player. With his twin brother Bob, he was the world's top doubles player for more than nine years, first achieving the top ranking in Septemb ...
in the semi-finals, and Bob in the title match.
In April 1993 he won his second consecutive Ojai title.
In 1994, he finished the year ranked No. 1 in doubles in the USTA boys' 16 rankings with
Michael Russell, and was the Boys 16 Doubles National Champion.
He won the 1994 USTA National Boys' 16 Championships doubles title with Russell.
In 1995, he was the USTA National Indoor 18 Champion, and reached the doubles final with Russell at the 1995 USTA National Boys' 18 Clay Court Championships.
He competed in the juniors in the 1996 U.S. Open, French Open, and at Wimbledon.
High school and college tennis careers
Abrams starred in tennis at
Newport Harbor High School
Newport Harbor High School is a public high school in Newport Beach, in Orange County, California, in the United States. It is part of the Newport-Mesa Unified School District. The school primarily serves students in western Newport Beach and sou ...
, from which he graduated in 1996.
He also attended Palmer Tennis Academy.
He then attended
Stanford University
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
where he had a 26–0 record in singles in 1998, the best record in Stanford men's tennis history, and was an
All-American in singles and doubles in his senior year.
In 1998, he also won the Mercedes Benz Cup Wild Card. That year he also won the USTA Amateur Champions Men's Doubles, with Edward Carter.
In his senior year in 2000 he was named to the USA Tennis Collegiate Team – an elite training program for the top American college players, was the
Pac-10
The Pac-12 Conference is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference, that operates in the Western United States, participating in 24 sports at the NCAA Division I level. Its College football, football teams compete in the NCAA D ...
Champion, and the eighth-ranked college player in the U.S.
And – along with teammate
Alex Kim
Alex Kim (born December 20, 1978) is a professional tennis player from the United States.
Early career
In the 1996 US Open, Kim and Mexico's Mariano Sánchez made the boys' doubles semi-finals, where they lost to the Bryan brothers.
He bega ...
– he was part of the top-ranked doubles team in the nation, which also was named the
ITA National Doubles Team of the Year.
He was team captain that year, and also received Pac-10 Co-Player of the Year honors.
Abrams became the first player in the Pac-10 tournament's 100-year history to win the boys' 14, 16,
California Interscholastic Federation
The California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) is the governing body for high school sports in the U.S. state of California. CIF membership includes both public and private high schools. Unlike most other state organizations, it does not have a s ...
, and men's Pacific 10 singles titles.
Stanford's head coach
Dick Gould
Dick Gould is an American tennis coach. He was the Men's Tennis Coach at Stanford University for 38 years from 1966–2004. His Stanford men's tennis teams won 17 NCAA Men's Tennis Championships, and 50 of his players won All-American honors. ...
said in April 2000: "He has the best winning percentage ever, of anyone who's been here four years. He's risen from 5 or 6 on the team to No. 2 in singles, and from No. 3 in doubles to No. 1 in the country."
The team won the NCAA championships his freshman, sophomore, and senior years (1997, 1998, and 2000).
At Stanford he was pre-med, and had a 3.3
grade point average
Grading in education is the process of applying standardized measurements for varying levels of achievements in a course. Grades can be assigned as letters (usually A through F), as a range (for example, 1 to 6), as a percentage, or as a numbe ...
, but his coach said he might never reach his full tennis potential due to his pre-med career.
Abrams graduated in 2000 with a B.A. in Human Biology –
Neuroscience
Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system (the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nervous system), its functions and disorders. It is a multidisciplinary science that combines physiology, anatomy, molecular biology, development ...
.
Pro career
After graduating from Stanford, Abrams began playing in the Futures circuit. In June 2000, he won the doubles title with Alex Kim at the USTA Chandler Cup Futures. He also won the 2000 Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center USTA Pro Classic in Claremont, California.
Abrams had a high ranking in singles of 501, on July 16, 2001.
His high ranking in doubles was 397, on August 6, 2001.
He finished his pro career in November 2001 with one singles title and two doubles titles.
Post-tennis
Abrams attended the
University of California, San Diego
The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Insti ...
, from 2003–07, where he obtained an M.D.
In 2009, Abrams was back at Stanford as an intern at
Stanford Hospital
Stanford University Medical Center is a medical complex which includes Stanford Health Care and Stanford Children's Health. It is consistently ranked as one of the best hospitals in the United States and serves as a teaching hospital for the ...
, where he completed his residency in
orthopedic surgery
Orthopedic surgery or orthopedics ( alternatively spelt orthopaedics), is the branch of surgery concerned with conditions involving the musculoskeletal system. Orthopedic surgeons use both surgical and nonsurgical means to treat musculoskeletal ...
, and thereafter he trained further in
orthopedic sports medicine and
shoulder surgery
Shoulder surgery is a means of treating injured shoulders. Many surgeries have been developed to repair the muscles, connective tissue, or damaged joints that can arise from traumatic or overuse injuries to the shoulder.
Dislocated shoulder
A d ...
at
Rush University Medical Center
Rush University Medical Center (Rush) is an academic medical center in the Illinois Medical District neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship hospital for the Rush University System for Health, which includes Rush Oak Park Hospital an ...
in Chicago, Illinois.
He specializes in
sports medicine
Sports medicine is a branch of medicine that deals with physical fitness and the treatment and prevention of injuries related to sports and exercise. Although most sports teams have employed team physicians for many years, it is only since the ...
and
arthroscopy
Arthroscopy (also called arthroscopic or keyhole surgery) is a minimally invasive surgical procedure on a joint in which an examination and sometimes treatment of damage is performed using an arthroscope, an endoscope that is inserted into the jo ...
,
upper extremity
The upper Limb (anatomy), limbs or upper extremities are the forelimbs of an upright posture, upright-postured tetrapod vertebrate, extending from the scapulae and clavicles down to and including the digit (anatomy), digits, including all the musc ...
joint replacement
Replacement arthroplasty (from Greek ''arthron'', joint, limb, articulate, + ''plassein'', to form, mould, forge, feign, make an image of), or joint replacement surgery, is a procedure of orthopedic surgery in which an arthritic or dysfunctional j ...
, and
ligament
A ligament is the fibrous connective tissue that connects bones to other bones. It is also known as ''articular ligament'', ''articular larua'', ''fibrous ligament'', or ''true ligament''. Other ligaments in the body include the:
* Peritoneal li ...
reconstructive surgery
Reconstructive surgery is surgery performed to restore normal appearance and function to body parts malformed by a disease or medical condition.
Description
Reconstructive surgery is a term with training, clinical, and reimbursement implica ...
of the shoulder, knee, hip, and elbow.
References
External links
Stanford bio*
*
"Musculoskeletal Injuries in the Tennis Player" in ''ACSM's Sports Medicine: A Comprehensive Review'', Marc R. Safran and Geoff Abrams, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins (2012)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Abrams, Geoff
1978 births
Living people
American male tennis players
Sportspeople from Newport Beach, California
Tennis people from California
Stanford Cardinal men's tennis players
University of California, San Diego School of Medicine alumni
American orthopedic surgeons
Newport Harbor High School alumni