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Reese Brantmeier admits she was “old” when she started playing tennis. Unlike some of the sport’s top stars, she was already 8 when she held a racket for the first time. “No one in my family has ever played, so it was a very random happenstance for me to get into tennis,” says Brantmeier, now 21. Growing up in Whitewater, Wisconsin, she was an active child who eagerly followed around her older brothers in whatever they did. She started playing basketball, and when one of her teammates invited her to play tennis, something clicked for Brantmeier. “I really just fell in love with it from the first time I played.” By high school, she was already competing on one of the sport’s biggest stages. After first playing the junior U.S. Open at 14, Brantmeier returned at 16 in 2021 and reached the final round of the women’s qualifying tournament. Her run, along with an appearance in mixed doubles, earned her nearly $49,000 in prize money—but NCAA rules forced her to forfeit much of it in order to preserve her college eligibility. Brantmeier subsequently sued the NCAA, believing their restriction on earning prize money harmed young athletes. “It was a distinction that once was made when collegiate athletes were not allowed to earn anything, and that made sense,” she says. “But in the era of NIL, it was just simply an outdated rule that was really negatively impacting a lot of athletes.” Earlier this year, Brantmeier and her co-plaintiff Maya Joint reached a settlement with the NCAA that created a roughly $2 million fund in damages for eligible athletes affected by the now-overturned restriction. “Reese and Maya deserve a lot credit for taking this thing on, doing it for themselves but also for future student-athletes and not just in tennis but for all sports,” her lawyer Jason Miller said. “It’s a pretty remarkable accomplishment.” Brantmeier says that the case was never primarily about recouping what she had lost. From the outset, she saw her own experience as evidence of a broader problem. “My case obviously was frustrating to me, but it was something that was behind me. I was ineligible for my first semester in college, but it was obviously sorted out,” she says. “I was able to play my freshman spring and I had this opportunity to bring the lawsuit forward, and it wasn’t so much about my own experience.” The original lawsuit did not even seek damages. “I was in no way suing to return on any money I had lost because I understood that the institution I was choosing to play for had those rules. I chose to adhere to them,” Brantmeier says. “So it wasn’t even for my own experience, but it was just noting my experience was an example that has happened to so many people.” What mattered more, she says, was changing a rule she believed would keep putting young athletes in the same position. “Now, when you’re in high school, you’re able to accept prize money and maintain your eligibility, which is awesome,” she says. For Brantmeier, the rule change addresses an impossible choice she believes young athletes should never have been forced to make. “For my case, it was really, really difficult. I played my first U.S. Open [juniors] when I was 14. When you’re looking at that kind of paycheck when you’re that old, it’s really hard to have the foresight to say, ‘okay, in four years, do I think I’m going to be in a position where I’m going to be going to college or going pro?’ You have no way of knowing that. I mean, tennis can change so much in the span of a week. You have no clue what level you’re going to be playing in four years.” That uncertainty, she says, is precisely why the decision should come later. She continues, “It’s really hard to make that big of a decision and an adult decision when you’re just a kid. It’s really cool to see that rule change so that people can play freely and see how far they can go and then make an informed decision when they’re 18 [about] what’s best for them, but not have been restricted any of the earnings that they rightfully got.” Taking on the NCAA while she was a Division I athlete was no walk in the park, and she didn’t want to risk her own eligibility. “My college experience was so special to me, and being able to play college tennis was something I would never want to be jeopardized,” she says. “That was such an incredible experience for me. So obviously I wanted to challenge the rules in the name of helping the student athletes, but I still wanted to play in the NCAA.” After that initial success at the U.S. Open qualifiers, Brantmeier considered turning pro at 16, but is glad she ultimately decided to play in college. She says that after four years she had matured “as a player, as a person, as a competitor” and is in a much better place to begin her professional career than she would have been as a teenager. “It was just so incredibly special to play for something bigger than myself,” she says of her time at the University of North Carolina, “and that’s something I want to carry with me into my pro career. Tennis by nature can be a pretty lonely sport. We really don’t get the opportunity to play for a team often. I don’t think I really understood how much that could impact you until I got the opportunity to in college—just getting to play with Carolina on my chest was so, so special. It stood for the university itself, but also all of our alumni. It’s just such a network and a family of people who are supporting you when you're wearing that Carolina Blue. Even though I’m no longer at Carolina, I’m still representing them in everything I do.” While there, she double majored in exercise and sports science (UNC’s equivalent of kinesiology) and studio art, focusing on illustration-based work. “Having an outlet that’s so removed from tennis is helpful,” she says of her passion for art. “When I would go to my art classes, I never saw an athlete in there once. It was such a different world, and it really uses a different part of your brain.” She still travels with a sketchbook, and finds drawing meditative and a way to decompress from tennis. “What I love about drawing is it’s something that doesn’t take physical effort,” she says. “So it’s something you can lay around and still recover and rest your body.” For all the ways college expanded Brantmeier’s life beyond tennis, it also prepared her for what came next on the court. And fittingly, her route into her first U.S. Open singles main draw ran directly through college tennis. Though Brantmeier won the NCAA singles championship—which would’ve historically given her a U.S. Open wildcard—she had to also win the USTA’s American Collegiate Wildcard Playoff. The new event had six guaranteed U.S. Open wild card entries up for grabs, ensuring American collegiate players were represented in the American Grand Slam. “I just love the energy of playing in New York,” she says. “It reminds me of a lot of what I love about college tennis. When people who are a little more removed from the sport think of tennis, I feel like the general perception is that it’s a little more quiet, a little stuffier. But New York is so far from that. It’s just so electric. It’s a very, very exciting atmosphere.” For Brantmeier, simply being in the singles main draw is already a milestone worth taking in. “It’s just so surreal,” she says. “Main draw U.S. Open is the thing that you dream about when you’re a little kid.” And for someone who got what she calls a late start in the sport, the moment feels especially full circle. “If you told eight-year-old me when I started playing tennis I was going to be in the singles main draw, that would’ve blown my mind,” Brantmeier says. “I’m just so excited.” Emily Burack (she/her) is the Deputy Digital Editor for Town & Country, where she covers entertainment, celebrities, the royals, and a wide range of other topics. Before joining T&C, she was the deputy managing editor at Hey Alma, a Jewish culture site. Follow her @emburack on Instagram, Twitter, and other social media platforms.