So, ladies and gentleman, here is your U.S. Davis Cup team, along with 24-year-old Jan-Michael Gambill and, possibly, 21-year-old James Blake, for the next decade or so.

"I hope it comes true," said Dent from his home in Newport Beach, Calif. "We're all playing well and, hopefully, great things will follow."

The management, apparel and equipment companies certainly hope so. They have wagered some serious cash on these young athletes. The typical initial management arrangement is a three-year deal that provides the athlete with an array of support services, on and off the court, in exchange for a percentage (usually about 20 percent) of off-court earnings. Some deals give the management company up to 10 percent of a player's prize money.

So think of Roddick, Dent, Fish and Ginepri as high-tech dot.com startups. Cutting edge. Fresh. Dynamic. But will they survive and ultimately prove profitable? The market, as today's investors know, can be a volatile beast.

"It's essentially an investment in a new product," said Rick Burton, director of the University of Oregon's Warsaw Sports Marketing Center. "Some of those products are going to hit and some won't. But if you don't invest, you won't be in position to capitalize. If some 9-year-old is going to be the next Anna Kournikova, if some 16-year-old is the next Sampras, you have to be on board."

Due diligence
Tony Godsick gets these calls all the time: Listen, he comes from a nice family, he's a great kid – plus, he's got a lot of weapons. So, can you help the kid out?

	Under the tutelage of Jim Courier's old coach, Brad Stine, Mardy Fish has defeated Mark Philippoussis and Thomas Enqvist.

The IMG agent smiled and launched into his due diligence. That was two years ago. Mardy Fish, as it turned out, was worth the effort. He's a 6-foot-2, hard-serving, muscular baseliner.

"I liked what I saw," Godsick said. "So we helped him out with playing opportunities and training. When he decided to turn pro, a bunch of the management agencies made proposals. I think it came down to us and Octagon. We had developed a relationship with the family, so they wound up choosing us."

The next step was to secure an endorsement deal. Unlike Roddick, Fish was not pursued heavily by the clothing and equipment companies. After discussions with a number of industry heavies, Godsick arranged for a modest deal with Nike late last year reportedly worth less than six figures for each of three or four years.

"It's a crap shoot," Godsick said. "It's not like we're lining up 50-year-old executives with an extensive corporate track record."

Would there have been more money if Godsick had waited until Fish scored some big upsets like his defeat of Enqvist and Phillippoussis in March?

"Considerably," Godsick said. "Timing is everything in this business. If you went into the stock market after the recent crash, you'd be OK, right?

"With these kinds of deals, you just try to keep them as short as possible. The first deals aren't the big money makers; it's the second deal. If you have a relationship with a company, there's a good chance you're going to keep those shoe and clothing deals."

Like the other juniors, Fish had his family handle negotiations with the management companies. In this case it was his father, Tom, who coached him until he was 14.

Dent, who signed with IMG three years ago when he turned pro, was represented by his father, Phil.

"I was younger, I didn't know what was going on," Dent said. "To be honest with you, I didn't want to get too involved. I wanted to focus on tennis."

Dent soon had a five-year deal with Adidas, believed to be worth a guaranteed $250,000 per year, plus a signing bonus, and already has made an impression on the ATP circuit. He stunned Sweden's Magnus Norman – last year's No. 4-ranked player – in his first match of the season in Chennai, India. A back injury has limited his play recently.

"I think true relationships are built on believing in somebody before they are somebody," Dent's agent Gavin Forbes said. "It's very important to be there on the way up. It gives the player a sense of support."

Tom Ross, a senior vice president at Octagon, was in Kalamazoo, Mich., two years ago scouting Phillip King in the U.S. Hardcourt 18s. King eventually chose to attend Duke University, but Ross came away impressed with a scrappy 16-year-old from Georgia. At the Easter Bowl in Palm Springs, Calif., Ross arranged a meeting at his San Francisco office with Ginepri's father, Rene, and his coach, Jerry Baskin.

After Roddick and Fish signed elsewhere and Dent went to IMG, Ross felt pressure to secure the last unattached American phenom.

"We had an informative meeting and then a nice seafood dinner at Ghirardelli Square," Ross said. "I followed it up and kept in regular contact with the family. It turned out to be one of the most competitive recruitments in recent memory."

	Robby Ginepri, a Junior U.S. Open finalist last year, finally can concentrate on his tennis career. He just graduated high school.

The Ginepri camp, impressed with Ross' handling of young Australian star Lleyton Hewitt, held Octagon in high regard. Ross thought he was in position to sign Ginepri in New York, where he was unseeded in the 2000 Junior U.S. Open. That was until Ginepri advanced all the way to the finals opposite Roddick and that "jump-started all those engines again," Ross said.

Eventually, Ginepri signed with Octagon in December 2000. A dislocated left thumb and a busy senior year in high school have limited Ginepri's activity. He received qualifying wild-card berths at the Ericsson Open and Houston and qualified into the main draw, but he lost both first-round matches.

Experts predict that Ginepri will command a deal somewhere between the approximately $250,000 annually that Roddick and Dent signed and a figure approaching the $100,000 that went to Fish.

Ross said he is in no hurry to sign an endorsement deal. He met recently in Beaverton, Ore., with the folks at Nike and Adidas, among others, but no concrete agreement has been reached.

"That's something we want to be patient about," Ross said. "Sponsors, generally, are taking a wait-and-see approach. But the fact is when Andy does so well so fast it causes the market to go, 'Hey, we better get in sooner, rather than later. The price is going to go up or we'll lose him altogether.'

"This is a work in progress, but we're not that far from resolution."

Promises, promises
Before he won those back-to-back tournaments, Roddick had to qualify for most ATP events or receive a wild-card berth in the main draw. He took advantage of those opportunities and now that he's ranked No. 48 in the world he can play in virtually any tournament of his choice.

For Dent, Fish and Ginepri, wild cards are the fastest way to improve their rankings. Both Dent and Fish, IMG clients, received wild cards to the IMG-owned Indian Wells event and Dent also was extended an invitation the following week to the IMG-owned Ericsson Open. Ginepri, an Octagon client, was forced to qualify his way into the Ericsson main draw.

Most of the 24 wild cards for the main draw and qualifying for the Ericsson and most of the 20 at Indian Wells went to IMG clients or friends, drawing widespread criticism.

"Wild cards are a bit of a cancer, byproducts of the competition that now exists," one prominent agent said. "In the recruiting process we get competitors from major firms and they can short-circuit the process by promising things."

It is the promise of financial windfall – even in the world of professional tennis that flies just below the radar of major sports – that motivates such aggressive behavior. With Sampras and, more important from a marketing standpoint, Agassi set to leave the stage, there has been a rush to lock up the next core of American stars.

	“	Guys like Robby and Taylor, they don't have much value to manufacturers today. But tomorrow ... these are the next generation. ”
		— Tom Ross, a senior vice president at Octagon

How important is it?

"It's the most important thing," said Meyerson of SFX. "We're all trying to bring down costs, and very few clients parlay into economics that make sense. Ten, 15 years ago, it was more the middle of the range.

"Today the industry is more polarized. I'm happy because Andy got a relatively good guarantee in the softest tennis market I've ever seen. Personalities move products and, frankly, there are not a lot in the game. We need new guys. Andy can be that guy. He's the kid I always wanted to be but was never cool enough."

Said Ross: "Guys like Robby and Taylor, they don't have much value to manufacturers today. But tomorrow ... these are the next generation. It's a lot cheaper now than later."

IMG's Forbes agrees: "We understand the game is driven by stars. The United States of America is the greatest tennis country in the world and there is a strong need to fill the gap to produce the next wave."

Certainly, Roddick, Fish, Dent and Ginepri are ready to make an impression. By next year's French Open they might even be names in more than their own households.

Fish is working with Brad Stine, Courier's old coach, and has put 17 pounds of muscle on his spare frame with rigorous off-court training.

Ginepri, meanwhile, is looking forward to his high school graduation. He'll play a mix of Challengers, Futures and ATP mains and qualifiers over the summer.

	“	We're all competitive. I have a feeling we're going to be seeing a lot of each other. ”
		— Robby Ginepri

Dent, after an injury scare (according to doctors, he is merely suffering from arthritis of the spine), is pointing toward Wimbledon. His coach is Eliot Teltscher, who left his position with the USTA to work exclusively with Dent.

The thing that distinguishes Roddick from his other peers, according to Dent, is his tenacity.

"Earlier this year, I beat Magnus Norman – and I was ranked something like 200th," Dent said. "That's how close everybody in this game is. That's where Andy excels – upstairs – and that's where I'm a little green."

Roddick beat Ginepri in the 2000 Junior U.S. Open final, but Ginepri had two break points at 4-all in the third set in a Knoxville, Tenn., Challenger earlier this year before losing.

"We're all competitive," said Ginepri, who teamed with Roddick to with the 2000 Sunshine Cup doubles title. "I have a feeling we're going to be seeing a lot of each other."

Greg Garber is a senior staff writer for ESPN.com.