Holmes graduated from the University of Utah and was the first university tennis player to earn a National Collegiate Athletic Association title in 1983. In addition, he won both the single and the double title of the Western Athletic Conference . He was then appointed to the top selection All-American . At the Pan American Games in 1983 , he played singles and doubles for the United States. He won the gold medal in singles and bronze in doubles. He was also a member of the Junior Davis Cup team. At the end of 1983 he became a professional tennis player and completed his first full professional season the following year.
However, he could not repeat his great successes as a junior player on the professional tour. Although he has repeatedly achieved respectable successes at major tournament events such as victories over Jimmy Connors , Andre Agassi and Tim Mayotte , he was never able to win an individual title on the ATP World Tour or the ATP Challenger Tour , let alone reach a final. His best results were semi-finals in La Quinta , Seoul and Honolulu . He also reached the quarterfinals of the ATP Championship Series tournament in Memphis and the round of 16 of the Championship Series tournament in Key Biscane . He celebrated his greatest success on the ATP World Tour in doubles in 1987 when he won the title in Livingston against Gary Donnelly against doubles specialists Ken Flach and Robert Seguso . He had already been in the final there with Sammy Giammalva the year before . 1985 and 1986 he was also in the double finals in Tokyo , but could not win the tournament. He reached the highest ranking in the tennis world rankings in 1985 with position 22 in singles and 1987 with position 66 in doubles.
His best individual result at a Grand Slam tournament was reaching the round of 16 of the US Open , which he achieved three times in a row between 1983 and 1985; when he first participated he was still an amateur, defeating Guillermo Vilas , among others . In 1989 he played the longest individual at Wimbledon ; against Todd Witsken he was on the court for 5 hours and 28 minutes. This record was broken by the game John Isner - Nicolas Mahut at the Wimbledon Championships 2010 . In the doubles competition he reached the round of 16 at Wimbledon in 1988 with Matt Anger . There he stood at the side of Carling Bassett-Seguso in mixed in 1984, also in the round of 16.
After the end of his professional career, Holmes returned to the University of Utah to catch up with his bachelor's degree in geography there in 1995 . He is married and has three children.