Giving It Your Best Shot Years before my dad bought the doomed hot dog stand I discuss in Chapter 4, I watched my mom start and run a successful business out of her bedroom closet of our San Fernando Valley home. It was the early 1970s, and my mom, age 35, fell hard for the sport of tennis. This was the decade of tennis in the United States. Its popularity was fueled by the televised championships at Wimbledon as well as the US Open and the French Open, with competitors like John Newcombe, Ken Rosewall, and Chris Evert. Backyard tennis courts, country clubs with strong tennis programs, and tournaments popped up all across the country. In sunny southern California, tennis became an integral part of the upper-middle-class lifestyle. While I attended elementary school, my mom dragged my little brother in his playpen to the local park where she took lessons. She was a natural who developed a powerful slice return, and six months after starting lessons, she won her first ladies double tournament trophy (see Figure 7- 3).