American Aleks Kovacevic talked with Tennis Acumen at the Knoxville Challenger, November of 2019. This is part one of his thoughts on the college tennis experience.
photo credit - The Daily Illini
Tennis Acumen: February 26, 2020. Columbus, Ohio. Tennis Acumen sits down with Aleksander Kovacevic. Aleks, at what point did you decide you were going to play tennis in college as opposed to go on the tour.
Aleks Kovacevic: I didn't see it as that big of a choice. I was honestly looking at going to Ivy League schools, but I decided not to, which is not saying anything against Ivy League schools. It's just, for me, if I went to an Ivy League school, I'd be more focused on the school and after that, somehow find my tennis. My dad was always a scholar. He was a Ph.D. in computer science at UCLA. So, my parents were kind of pushing me to go the elite school route. I had the SAT scores and all that. Then, by the very end of my high school tenure, I started doing better and better and started competing with the guys that were top in the nation. My ranking was in the top 20.
Aleks Kovacevic: And nowadays, guys are making these decisions. For example, my friend Axel Geller from Argentina. He was the number one junior in the world in 2017. He decided to go to college instead of go pro. So for me, seeing something like that, it was not even a question. I wasn’t saying: “I don't think I can make it as a pro.” This was going to be a long way to go. It's tough out here. Tennis is a tough sport to make money in. Mentally, it's just a tough sport. So I wanted to have a backup if tennis wasn't really going as well as I wanted it to.
Tennis Acumen: And how did you decide which school then? Specifically the University of Illinois? How did you end up there?
Aleks Kovacevic: It's kind of a long story. I was looking at a bunch of schools before I decided on Illinois. And I did like those schools. I had nothing nothing against them. I liked all the schools. But for me, school was school… and I didn't really like school in general. It was kind of daunting. I didn't want to do the actual school work. I'd much rather focus on tennis. I'm a lazy kid, in terms of school. Then, I played my now teammate Zeke Clark in the final round of qualifying in the Futures. I think it was in Little Rock, Arkansas. We had a grind of a match, and Zeke beats me 7-5 in the third set. I'm sitting on the sideline, looking at flights on my phone, talking my dad about where I'm going to go next, drinking a Coke on the sideline. After the match, Zeke comes out to me, saying: “Hey, man, you're a really good player. You should contact Brad Dancer. He’s head coach at Illinois.”
Aleks Kovacevic: I didn't really know Zeke, but he was one of the top players in the nation at the time. I had respect for him. So I thought: “Maybe I will.” I reached out to Brad. I guess Zeke had talked to Brad in the meantime and Brad was excited to have me on campus. I came on a visit and fell in love with the team, fell in love with everything about the place. I don't really know why, because it's kind of different from where I’ve ever lived. A lot different from Boca (Boca Raton, Florida), right? Illinois is a very different place, but it clicked. I committed to school a few weeks before it started. I was a really planning to go in in January and take some time just to hang out. But then I visited, I loved it, and I said: “ Let's do it. Let's start now.” That's my story when it comes to Illinois.
Tennis Acumen: So another player recruited you. Now your teammate, Zeke Clark.
Aleks Kovacevic: Right. I think he's ranked around 700 right now. He’s good player. Greatest guy ever. I loved him from the first day I met him and he's just an amazing person. He’s one of the top recruiters in college, as a player. In terms of everyone that comes to visit Illinois, Zeke’s just been there, encouraging people. Everyone that comes on a visit there has just loved the team atmosphere.
Tennis Acumen: Interesting, the way that works.
For more in our series on college tennis, select the 'College Tennis' category, upper right.
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