TENNIS

Earlier this month, TopSpin held the first collegiate invitational scrimmage between the University of South Carolina Sumter and the Citadel.

I had the pleasure of interviewing the tennis coach for the University of South Carolina- Sumter Alex Poda.

Poda has played tennis for nearly 15 years since he was 10 years old. A native of Aiken, he attended Aiken High School and was a member of its tennis team all four years.

During his junior and senior year, the Hornets’ tennis team won their region. In his senior year, they lost to in the state final to J.L. Mann.

Eventually, Poda went on to play for Limestone College in Gaffney.

During Poda’s time on the Limestone College men’s tennis team, he competed in 4 Conference Carolinas championships, including winning as a freshman, losing in the finals his sophomore and junior year, and eventually losing in the semi-finals as a senior.

Poda is currently in his 2nd season as the head tennis coach for University of South Carolina-Sumter and, according to him, the team has steadily improved. Prior to USC-Sumter, he started coaching collegiate tennis while attending graduate school at Coker College in Hartsville and serving as the graduate assistant to head coach Bill Simpson.

The athletic program at USC-Sumter disbanded in 1979, but was reestablished in 2007 after a 28-year hiatus. Poda considers it an honor to represent the USC-Sumter and help build their tennis program.

One of his goals for the 2019 season is to win the championship for Region 10 and represent the region at the national championship. He believes this is possible considering that his current team is much more improved than his last team.

Even though he considers it a lofty goal, Poda hopes his team will achieve is securing a Top 5 spot in the national rankings. He believes this could happen as his team is very ambitious, especially the captain of the tennis team Leonardo Zancheta of Brazil.

The current roster for the Sumter men’s tennis team consist of 6 international players and 2 Americans.

Poda explains the main reason why there are so few Americans playing collegiate tennis is that Americans are not properly trained and many of the youth receive awards for losing matches. This devalues the feeling of winning, creating a tennis culture that rewards mediocrity.

In addition, the scoring system for collegiate and junior tennis matches has changed, leading to a whole generation of physically inferior and mentally weak tennis players.

When it comes to recruiting for his tennis team, Poda uses the Universal Tennis Rating or UTR. This is a new system that rates players on a scale of 0-16.5 regardless of age, gender, or country.

The UTR is based on a elo rating system that is normally used to rank chess players and electronic sports. This makes it perfect for 1-on-1 sports such as tennis and is directly influenced by results against other tennis players.

The UTR allows Poda to compare American and international tennis player, especially if unfamiliar with the ranking systems that are different from the US ranking system, which makes it easier to have accurate recruiting for tennis.

Poda believes tennis teaches so many life lessons and he even compares it the workforce in that everyone has an individual role that is independent but important to the company. This is similar to how collegiate tennis operates as individual sport with a team component with players competing individually yet their results impact everybody on the team.

Plus, tennis does not have a time clock, meaning that the player has to finish the game. This is unlike others sports where a team can get a lead, then let the clock without even having to win a final point.

In tennis and life, there are no shortcuts.