It's been a long trip to the Rolex-ITCA Indoor National Championships for men's tennis team captain Michael Zimmerman.

After pulling a hamstring last May, Zimmerman had to endure an emotionally and physically painful four months before returning to tennis.

Though his comeback has certainly been successful (culminating in his rise to the semifinals last weekend), the road to recovery was long.

Zimmerman, currently ranked as the second best tennis player in the ITCA, initially injured his hamstring in a match last spring. Considering the injury minor, he continued to play on it. Zimmerman further aggravated the injury while playing against top-ranked Matt Sanler (Dartmouth) in the NCAA's.

"I just continued to play on it," Zimmerman said. "I think adrenalin just kept me going through the season."

"There was really nothing else a player could do at that point," Men's Tennis Coach David Fish said. "It was the middle of the season and Zimmerman decided to tough it out."

After aggravating the hamstring, Zimmerman went through almost four months of physical therapy that included acupuncture, yoga and sonograms.

"It was frustrating in that the hamstring allowed me to do just about everything but play tennis. It was a tough injury mentally," Zimmerman said.

"Summer is often the most active time for competitions and the best opportunity for players to intensively improve on their game," Zimmerman said.

He described the whole recuperation process as equally trying.

"None of it really worked. Each one [of the therapies] provided some short-term alleviation of the pain but none of them provided any long-term results," Zimmerman said. "The injury just got better on its own."

Zimmerman described his first two weeks of practice into the fall season as much more helpful. "It was good to get back into the feel of the game again," he said.

Other elements of Zimmerman's physical therapy, which started at the beginning of the fall season, included one and a half hours in the training room bicycling, leg stretching and ultrasound. Meanwhile, Fish gradually increased the amount of time Zimmerman spent on the court.

Although he continued to practice intensively for the duration of the fall, Zimmerman stayed out of all regular-season tournaments and was forced to sit out two national competitions as well.

"It was really frustrating seeing other team members make it through while I had to stay out," the Mather senior said.