Fuji Syuusuke's US Open

Summary: Fuji gets an invitation to the US Open Qualifiers! Will he make it through the qualifiers and into the Open? If so, how far will he make it? Well, with help from his friends, he's got good chances! Here is the story about Fuji's journey to the US, and his experience in the Qualifiers and, possibly, the US Open!

A/N: This is set with Fuji at age 19 and in 2008 (I know it doesn't match with the timeline in the manga/anime, but I hope no one gets angry about that). Also, I hate how a ton of PoT fanfiction authors make Fuji gay, so I'm going to have Fuji have a few girlfriends throughout the story. Also, I'm sorry about the short chapter, but it's just a prologue, and the remaining chapters will be longer. R&R, please! Okay, onto the story…

Fuji walked outside of his house and headed toward the mailbox. He was the only one home at the moment, for his brother was out with some of his friends, and his parents and sister were all at work. He opened the mailbox, and pulled out a thick stack of mail. As he walked back inside, he flipped through all of the different envelopes.

He set all the bills and mail for his sister on the table as he headed upstairs to his room. He had a few envelopes himself, but not many. He assumed before looking at them that they were the usual letters he was getting recently, which were letters from universities offering him tennis scholarships. He hadn't decided where he wanted to go for college yet, so he just put the ones he was getting in a large stack to search through once he narrowed down his choices.

He had had an excellent high school tennis career. He had upgraded his six counters through the four years, and created a new serve similar to his disappearing serve. Many college scouts had been to the championship that his high school attended in his second year, where he defeated the 5th nationally ranked senior of the opposing school.

But, as he discarded all of the letters into the stack, one of the letters caught his eye. It was a yellow, red, and blue heading, which is probably why it caught his eye. He picked it up, and automatically recognized the heading as the flaming tennis ball with the red line showing a path that always accompanied the US Open, which was obvious with the blue lettering 'US Open' in the middle. He wondered why he'd gotten a letter from the heads of one of the four Grand Slam Tennis Events.

He turned the envelope over and ripped through the enclosing, pulling out a folded letter. He opened it and read what it said.

Dear Syuusuke Fuji,

The US Open Qualifiers are occurring this year on July 25th through July 29th, one month before the US Open. Annually, eight qualifying players are invited to participate in the US Open Qualifiers to attempt to advance on to the US Open. Each of the eight players are drawn into a bracket to play throughout the five days. If a player is to win all the matches in the bracket, he or she will advance to participate in the US Open this year.

You have been selected as one of the eight players to participate in this year's US Open Qualifying Matches. If you wish to participate, please send your reply by April 1st, 2008.

Sincerely,

Jane Brown Grimes, United States Tennis Association President

Fuji stood shocked, letter in hand. He never dreamed to participate in a Grand Slam Event, especially not at only 19. Yet, he shouldn't be surprised. Many tennis players were entering at young ages, like Novak Djokavic, who entered professional tennis at the age of 16.

He was also surprised how early the letter had arrived. It was early February, and the US Open did not begin until August 25th. Yet, he could understand considering that they needed to make preparations and that Tokyo was so far away from New York.

He decided to wait and ask his parents and friends about what they thought he should do. And he almost immediately got the phone and dialed the number of someone who he thought could help him with this decision…