With the support of the U.S. Tennis Association, 'Aiea's Dennis Lajola moved to the Mainland before his freshman year in high school to enhance his tennis career. Now Lajola is planning to return to Hawai'i for the same reason, and an opportunity to play for the University of Hawai'i.

"My plan is to come home and enroll in the fall," Lajola said by phone from Los Angeles yesterday. "I think the team can be really good and I like the coach a lot. I want to be back home."

Lajola turned 18 in February. He has been away since transferring from 'Iolani to the Bollettieri Tennis Academy in Florida at the beginning of 2004. He was ranked second nationally in Boys' 14's. At the end of last year, after three years of playing around the globe and studying online and at academies, he was 44th in the ITF World Combined Rankings.

Lajola has won doubles titles at the USTA nationals in Kalamazoo, Mich., and the prestigious Easter Bowl. He played on the victorious Junior Davis Cup team while working with the national high performance program. He had the best result of any American at last year's Australian Open Junior Championship, advancing to the Round of 16, and got to the Kalamazoo singles semifinals the year before. At the 2004 USTA National Open Championships in Hawai'i, Lajola took third in the Boys 18's, days after he turned 15.

His brother, Derrick, is in the final weeks of his UH career. He introduced Dennis to collegiate tennis, UH coach John Nelson and most of the Rainbows. Dennis liked everything he saw — so much that he is encouraging two of his tennis buddies to join him in Manoa. Chile's Ricardo Urzua Rivera and Venezuela's Roberto Maytin (Lajola's doubles partner) are both in the ITF's Top 50 and extremely interested in becoming Rainbow Warriors, according to Dennis.

Reach Ann Miller at amiller@honoluluadvertiser.com.