Chatting with the man behind the latest tennis flick, Unstrung

He's produced football movies (Varsity Blues), baseball movies (The Bronx is Burning), basketball movies (Coach Carter) and even biker movies (Wild Hogs). Recently, Mike Tollin turned his attention to tennis, working alongside Jim Courier to produce Unstrung.

The documentary -- Spellbound with better hand-eye coordination, we once called it -- follows the fate of U.S. junior tennis prospects as they head to Kalamazoo for the national championships. The film debuted at last year's Tribeca Film Festival and airs Saturday at 8 p.m. on ESPN Classic.

Tollin took time from updating the graphics detailing Sam Querrey's ascending ranking to talk about the project.

SI.com: Why tennis?

Mike Tollin: Jim Courier had an idea for a documentary. A mutual friend, [SI senior writer] Mike Bamberger said, "You should call Mike Tollin because he's made a lot of sports movies and documentaries." Jim called me and pitched "Spellbound in the world of junior tennis." I said: "Wow, did I tell you about my little brother?"

It was one of those serendipitous things. My father was remarried and had a son with his second wife. My father was an all-city baseball and basketball player. He's very competitive. And this was his fourth kid, his last kid and he decided to teach himself tennis so he could teach his son. Steve Tollin became one of these kids. So when Jim pitched this movie, it struck such a nerve because I've lived it. I've been very critical of this path my father chose for himself and my brother. For me it was destined to lead to disappointment. He wasn't that athletic or a big kid or that competitive.

You've seen it: so many guys of these have the gifts but what separates the true elite? Look at our film. You look at a kid like Marcus Fugate and can't believe he didn't make it. So this was sort of an exorcism for me, looking at these kids and the decisions their parents made. It wasn't to pass judgment, not as a cautionary tale, but to expose the choices and sacrifices and lives and hopefully provide some insight and guidance ...

Jim is the classic kid, went to Bollettieri, spent most of his teenage years there. And you couldn't ask for a better role model. Not just No. 1 in the world for two years and won four Slams, but now, in his 30s, a professional businessman, a well-rounded, literate guy. So it can work. But it can also splinter families.

SI.com: That said, did you encourage Jim to tell his story a little more in the movie?

MT: He didn't want that. In fact, you'll see there's only one Courier sound bite. He's less present than McEnroe, Sampras, Agassi and Roddick. Jim was my partner, a producing partner. He made the academies comfortable with us shooting there. He was a source of credibility and comfort for the families. He helped with relationships with the USTA.

By the way, he has a really good eye. We were already in spring, we already had shot the Orange Bowl, and Jim says, "There's this tall, lanky kid from California who's coming fast. He's quiet but I think he's going to be a factor by Kalamazoo. We start following this kid -- Sam Querrey -- and sure enough he's in the finals and we're lucky we have the footage.

SI.com: How about that Sam Querrey?

MT: You know I have to go back in there -- at four hundred dollars an hour! -- and redo the rankings. Sam beats Moya and Gasquet last week and suddenly he's up to 39. Also Donald Young: when we did this a year ago, in May of 2007, in Tribeca, Donald was No. 464. So he's up 390 spots in a year, too. We had McEnroe saying how disappointed he was, how Donald's head was always down. 'He probably should have gone to college. He looks discouraged. He's probably peaked.'

Then Donald had this turning point where he won a few matches and all of a sudden there was a sense that the rankings are moving and he gets a spring in his step. He's a different kid. So that was heartening.

SI.com: If I told you the fate of these players, does that conform with your predictions?

MT: I would have thought more of Tim Nielly. He seemed cool under pressure and was getting good coaching from Tarik [Benhabiles]. I would have thought Holden [Seguso] might have quit tennis by now because he seemed to be under enormous pressure from his parents, who were both professional players, of course [Carling Bassett and Robert Seguso]. But Holden is the happiest clam in the sea now. He's playing No. 2 singles at UCLA, winning most of his matches, he's cut a CD.

[For] Donald, the script is still being written. The expectations were by far the highest for him. But he's switched agents now and he's had this real emergence.

SI.com: How big a tennis fan are you?

MT: Not a huge fan, only a recreational player. But I feel like [the film] is representative of a struggle between parents and kids, whether it's sports or music or academic pursuits. How far do you push? Where's the line between nurturing and living out your own dreams vicariously through your kids? So I hope there's something both the parents and kids will look at and come to their own experiences with a little more insight ... I had a really interesting dialogue with my brother once. I was criticizing all the sacrifices he was making and he said, "You wouldn't understand what it's like to be the best, to walk down the halls in school and have everyone know you're the best at something. That's worth everything." That shut me up.

SI.com: When are we going to see a dramatic tennis movie?

MT: Honestly, Jon, part of the problem is that it's really hard to fake it. In football, you put helmets on the guys. In baseball you shoot from the centerfield camera and see the action far enough away. Basketball and tennis, I find, are the hardest. The Woody Allen movie, Match Point? That tennis was brutal. Maybe a biopic. I've heard the Arthur Ashe and Althea Gibson ideas bandied around forever. The Arthur Ashe story is a great one, but who's going to play him? I think Serena wants to play Althea but I don't know if that works.

SI.com: What's the postscript with your brother?

MT: Sad to say the inevitable happened. He decided he didn't like being a small fish in a big pond at Northwestern. So he transferred to Brown and played No. 1 and No. 2 singles but he didn't like the environment there so he transferred back to Northwestern and quit tennis. He didn't play for a few years, pretty much left the sport. But now in his 30s, he moved to the West Coast and plays almost every day and it's a source of social life. And he teaches my kids. He loves the game again. It took a while, but there's a happy ending.