For Palmerton tennis coach Jenn Danzeisen, recruiting turned out to be a lot like real estate.

It all boiled down to location, location, location.

Thanks to her location - and also some persistence - Danzeisen was finally able to sell Justin Sebelin on tennis.

Once he bought in, Sebelin used his athleticism and hard work to turn his game from the ultimate fixer upper to a million dollar listing.

“Coach Danzeisen is also a teacher in the high school and my locker was right outside her classroom,” explained Sebelin. “Since I was a freshman, she would see me between classes and try to recruit me to go out for tennis. Finally, at the start of my junior year, I told her I would give it a try.”

Danzeisen and Sebelin are both thrilled that he did.

This season as a senior - in just his second year playing the sport - Sebelin posted an 8-4 regular season record, won a match at the District 11 singles tournament, and was named the Times News/Lehigh Valley Health Network Tennis Player of the Year.

“I knew Justin played a couple of different sports, but wasn’t playing any spring sports,” said Danzeisen. “As the tennis coach, I’m always looking for athletes who can help bolster our roster.

“We don’t have a feeder program, so there aren’t a lot of kids in the high school who have played tennis. I try to find kids who aren’t involved in track and baseball and I think will be able to pick up tennis quickly by relying on their athleticism.”

Sebelin fit the prototype. He had never played tennis before, but was a member of the basketball and golf teams.

“When I went out for the team, I probably had only hit a tennis ball a couple of times in my life,” said Sebelin. “I didn’t even know all the rules.

“When we held our team tournament to decide line-up positioning a few days before the season started, it was the first time I ever played a match.”

Despite his lack of experience, Sebelin earned Palmerton’s No. 1 singles position to start his junior season.

“I was pretty confident that Justin was going to be part of our starting lineup once he decided to come out,” said Danzeisen. “We didn’t have much experience coming back, so I thought there was a chance he could even crack the singles lineup. But Justin picked things up so quickly that after just a couple of practices, he went out and beat everyone on the roster ... to earn the No. 1 singles position.”

Playing against the top player from each team was a huge learning experience for Sebelin, who took his lumps last year.

“I think I only won four matches and against most of the top players, I wasn’t very competitive,” said Sebelin. “But I felt like I was improving during the course of the season, even though it might not have been very obvious at the time.”

By season’s end, Sebelin had been bitten by the tennis bug.

“I really started to love the sport,” he said. “I was watching tennis tournaments on TV to see what the best players did, I watched YouTube videos and tried to pick up pointers from them, and I went out and played a lot during the summer.”

It paid off with a successful senior year that saw him finish fourth at No. 1 singles in the Colonial League Tournament, and advance to the quarterfinal round of the District 11 singles tournament.

“I was happy with my senior season,” said Sebelin. “I lost my first two matches of the season when I didn’t think I played my best. We made the playoffs in basketball so that season went long and basically ran right into the first tennis match.

“But after I got a few practices in and I started hitting the ball with a little more consistency, I closed the regular season winning eight of my last 10 matches. I thought I beat everyone I had a chance to beat. My only losses during that stretch were to the top two players in the league, whose games were just far superior to mine.”

The district win was icing on the cake.

“I set a goal of making it to districts before the season started, so I was thrilled when I accomplished that,” said Sebelin. “But then to go to districts and win a match against a really good player is more than I could have ever expected.

“If you would have told me at my first practice when I was a junior that I would win a District 11 match a year later, I would have never believed it.”

In the end, Sebelin is grateful that Danzeisen used her location and persistence to eventually sell him on tennis.

It was a sale that definitely turned into win/win agreement.

Danzeisen got a player for the top of the Bomber lineup, and Sebelin found a sport he both excelled in and fell in love with.

“I’m so glad I found tennis,” said Sebelin. “It provides great exercise, it’s a great way to make new friends, and it satisfies the competitiveness in me because I know I can do things to improve every time I step on the court.

“My only regret when it comes to tennis is that I didn’t discover it earlier.”

Despite his late start, Sebelin accomplished enough this past season to put a substantial down payment on his future playing the sport.

“Tennis is a life long sport,” he said. “I’m definitely going to take advantage of that.”