
DATE: Friday, April 18, 1997                TAG: 9704180824

SECTION: SPORTS                  PAGE: C1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY VICKI L. FRIEDMAN, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:  121 lines

INTERNATIONAL STUDIES IS ODU TENNIS TEAM'S RACKET

Their names range from Hieronymous to Nikola to Johan to Niclas, and their hometowns - Zagreb, Jonkoping and Bankeryd among them - would send a linguist in search of a pronunciation guide.

Soccer is their passion, but tennis is their game.

Hieronymous Rodriguez, Nikola Laca, Johan Varverud, Niclas Kohler, Alexandre Cancado and Patrick Boza are six of the seven freshmen on Old Dominion men's tennis team. Those Monarchs - along with senior Diego Valor - comprise the most international team coach Darryl Cummings remembers at ODU.

``It's unintentional to have seven players who are international,'' Cummings said.

Nonetheless, recruiting foreign athletes is a trend in college tennis. At the Colonial Athletic Association tournament, which starts today at ODU, top-seeded Virginia Commonwealth is without an American player. In the latest college rankings only eight of the top 25 players are from the United States. ODU's women's team, which last year included the top-ranked player in college tennis in Israel's Tzipi Obziler, has three international players.

Each Monarch tells a different story about how ODU made their college short list:

Swedish native Kohler visited an aunt in Virginia Beach, played tennis locally, and Cummings showed interest. Kohler warmed to the idea and urged his buddy back home, Varverud, to do the same.

Cancado of Brazil picked ODU largely thanks to his friendship with the Araujo sisters, sophomores on the ODU women's tennis team.

Boza from Lima, Peru, was a traditional recruit, spotted by Cummings at a Florida tennis camp, and fellow Peruvian, Rodriguez, worked at an ODU summer camp before enrolling.

Croatian Laca spent last year playing tennis for Poquoson High as a foreign exchange student, meeting Cummings in the process.

The adjustment to living a continent away from home has touched their tennis games along with their lives. All grew up slugging out groundstrokes on slow red clay, which rewards patience. In college, hardcourt is the prime surface, and the style favors versatility.

``Our games were one-dimensional,'' Valor says. ``I never went to the net. To shake the other guy's hand, that's all. Here, you've got to have a good serve, a good volley.''

Off the court, the players must make sense of Norfolk's spread-out urban setting populated by fast-food chains, a climate that is often unpredictable and a country that cannot match their own for soccer fervor.

``It's the best sport ever,'' says Valor, who frequently wears soccer socks to practice. ``The Spanish government just passed a law, because soccer is such a national sport, the government said no more pay-per-view. Every soccer match will be on TV free. They never show anything here.''

``When we went to see the college matches here, it was so different because the way they watch soccer is so much different,'' Rodriguez says. ``They look and cheer; in Peru they're screaming.''

The eats aren't as good here, either, says Valor, who, like the others, misses mom's home cooking.

Macaroni and cheese is out.

Valor makes a face. ``That's nasty,'' he says. ``I live with a Spanish guy, so he cooks Spanish food, definitely so much better. Paellas. Here all they have is hamburgers and subs. In Spain, I never saw a sub.''

Or a practice that started in mid-afternoon. When Valor was told ODU practiced at 3 p.m., he thought it was a joke. That's siesta time in Spain. The system of collegiate sports baffles many of the players who grew up competing in club athletics.

``Here it's so much easier,'' Laca says. ``Back home if I was going to college, that's all I'd have time for. Going to college.''

``Here they understand, you miss class because you have matches,'' Valor says. ``At home, they don't care at all. You could be in the top three in the country and going to play the national champion, they don't care.''

Cummings notices that when parents call long-distance, the last question asked is about their son's progress as a tennis player. ``They want to know how their sons are developing as young men,'' he says.

Most had never heard of ODU before applying; Valor says the name ODU meant as much as Stanford. ``I picked here because of the beach,'' he admits. And while their matches draw few fans, Cummings says, the Monarchs come to feel the same loyalty to their school that comes naturally for any college athlete.

The night the Lady Monarchs basketball team - also internationally flavored - met Stanford in the Final Four, the Monarchs were on their way back from a tennis dual in Richmond. Unable to pick up a radio broadcast, Cummings called his wife on a cellular phone and had her relay play-by-play for the team. Once the bus reached Williamsburg, the radio signal came in more clearly, but Valor urged Cummings to stick to the cell phone.

``It's bad luck,'' he told Cummings.

And on the court, Cummings says, it's easy to forget individual hometowns and varying nationalities.

``It's not so much American, Swedish, Spanish,'' Cummings says. ``Not to make it sound like utopia. But we joke around. We're glad to have some international players. We've got a free place to stay when we travel.'' ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]

LAWRENCE JACKSON/The Virginian-Pilot

Johan Varverud, from Sweden, is among the ODU tennis team's foreign

legion.

Johan

Varverud

Sweden

Diego

Valor

Spain

Hieronymus

Rodriguez

Peru