Most college tennis players will never have the opportunity to dine with the top-100 players in on the ATP.
 In addition, prepare for a dual-match in the same dressing room as the McEnroe brothers or hit on the same courts as eventual Grand Slam Champions. 
   Thanks to Tennis Australia and a partnership with Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA), the University of South Carolina men’s tennis program did just that. 
“[Director of the Australian Open] Craig Tiley understands the importance of college tennis,” men’s tennis head coach Josh Goffi said. “It’s huge to be the first college team to be a part of a Grand Slam.”
With a pair of dual-match wins under their belt, the Gamecocks departed on a 2-day journey to Melbourne, Victoria Australia last month. Upon their arrival Down Under, the South Carolina tennis team would spend the next seven days training on Australian Open practice courts while immersing themselves in the festivities of “the unreachable Grand Slam”. 
“We couldn’t really use our cellphones,” senior Yancy Dennis said. “But we watched a lot of tennis and made a memory of a lifetime.”
Dennis, a native of Reisterstown, Md., was given the unique opportunity to reconnect with a childhood friend and current world number 35th ranked singles player Francis Tiafoe.  
“We’ve been best friends for over a decade,” he said. “I said, ‘if you have any extra tickets, I’ll be available'.”
Tiafoe would go on to reach his first quarterfinals at a Grand Slam. He defeated the likes of 6th-ranked Kevin Anderson and 28th-ranked Grigor Dimitrov with Dennis just a short distance away in his player box. 
Tiafoe’s burst onto the big stage wasn’t the only tournament run in which a Gamecocks men’s tennis player was provided a front-row seat.  South Carolina true freshman Patrick Cacciatore had the opportunity to spar with former NCAA singles champion and eventual Australian Open semifinalist  25th ranked Danielle Collins in the hours just before her dominant 6-0, 6-2 win over former world number 2 Angelique Kerber.  The Gamecocks won 7 straight matches upon their return to the United States with a rejuvenated attention to detail.
“(The biggest takeaway from watching professionals is) the intensity on every point,” said Dennis in an interview with WACH Fox’s Matt Dowell earlier this month."Every single ball, they’re really on point and they’re always locked in mentally, physically and emotionally.” 
Dennis, the elder spokesman of the young 2018-19 Gamecocks roster, believes the trip has directly fueled their impressive non-conference record. 
“You can see (a difference) from the moment when we got back to training,” he said. “The intensity has been better. We’ve been supporting each other, improving our diets and a lot of us have been getting extra (tennis) work in. This trip has definitely had a massive impact on our program and the way that we think. That’s a part of the reason why we’ve started so strong this spring.”
The Gamecocks (11-3, 1-2) suffered its first home loss this spring at the Carolina Tennis Center this past Monday, falling 4-3 to 10th-ranked Mississippi State. They now head on the road to face Tennessee on Friday and Georgia on Sunday.