Unlike most of his teammates and opponents, men's tennis star Michael Yani did not win much of anything on the junior circuit. He never really had a national ranking, and as he says, his best finish was making the quarterfinals of the national indoor tournament.
That type of play almost never lands a spot on a collegiate roster, much less a scholarship to a perennial top-10 program.
"I went to Kalamazoo in my first year playing [in the under-18 agegroup]," the junior said. "Coaches were just crawling all over the place and by chance a couple walked by and I guess they were impressed.... I got spotted by [coach Jay Lapidus] and he was really excited."
Three years after winning nothing, Yani is now the 43rd best singles player in the country, part of the 28th-ranked doubles pair and the No. 2 player on a NCAA round of 16 participant. Wednesday he started competing in the NCAA singles and doubles tournament--his first since coming to Duke.
Although he said he would be satisfied with attaining All-America status, Yani's draw was difficult and his hot streak came to an end, losing in the first round to No. 6 Andy Leber of Texas-Arlington 6-4, 7-6. He will play doubles later in the week with partner Phillip King.
In retrospect, it may have been a lofty goal for someone who almost never played singles until this season, and was not expected to make it out of the first round.
However, according to his coach, it is that type of competitive spirit that Yani possesses that has allowed him to emerge over the course of the 2001-2002 season.
"Mike has really blossomed," Lapidus said. "As a freshman he came in and he was very raw. He wasn't putting points together and he just didn't seem to know how to play. But he's always been really great about putting in the extra time on a consistent basis and I think that's the key to getting better in college."
As Yani freely admits, his first year at Duke was fairly rough. In short, the sociology major went from playing No. 1 singles his entire high school career and being named to the St. Andrew's High School Dean's List seven times, to the rude awakening of Duke.
"He's really a success story because now he's doing well academically and in tennis he's gone from not even playing singles last year to making the NCAAs and being No. 2 on our team," Lapidus said.
To get to where he is on the tennis court, Yani's biggest weapon has been a monster serve--a shot that, although it has never been clocked, people estimate could top out somewhere between 125 and 130 miles per hour.
To develop this forte, Yani, who first picked up a racket on a court behind his house in Singapore when he was about two years old, relied mainly on his father, who coached him all of his life until he came to Duke.
After the end of next season--a year in which he will be a co-captain with roommate Yorke Allen--when he's done being a Blue Devil, Yani hopes to be able to play tennis professionally.
"I feel like I've pretty much dedicated my whole life to tennis so I kind of have to give it a shot," said the Boca Raton, Fla. native, who was born in Singapore but now make his residence in Durham. "Tennis is kind of a weird game.... You just have to go out there and play. It's also mental, you have to stay out there week after week and just grind it out in the shittiest places--guys go to Bangladesh just to pick up points."
All things aside, Yani's ability to grind things out is the least of anyone's concerns.
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