Q & A With Alex Slovic
April 6, 2006
The Husky men's tennis team is in the midst of another standout season. Washington is 13-4 and looks to rebound from a loss at Stanford in its Pac-10 debut last Saturday. The Huskies continue conference play this week with a trip to the desert to face Arizona State (Friday) and Arizona (Sunday). Junior co-captain Alex Slovic had a chance to sit down with GoHuskies.com correspondent Breanne Watson before the team left on Wednesday to talk about the season thus far and what might lie ahead for UW in the coming weeks.
GoHuskies.com: How is this year's team different from last years Pac-10 Championship team?
Alex Slovic: "We lost a couple guys that definitely helped us a lot at the Pac 10 Championships - like Alex Vlaski, Christoph Palmanshofer and Peter Scharler - so it's kind of different because we have a lot of new guys and a couple of transfer students. But I feel we are doing great even though we have lost a couple of matches this year. I feel we are doing good."
GH: Do you think you guys can duplicate the Sweet Sixteen run you had last year?
AS: "I think we can even though we lost last weekend against Stanford. I think we are playing well, so I think we are able of achieving the same thing."
GH: What are your individual goals for the rest of the season?
AS: "That's a really tough question because every year individually, I want to play in the NCAA semifinals - but I have never been past two rounds. So this year I don't want to set that goal, I just want to participate, because it is a great achievement to participate in the NCAAs. I feel like I am in good shape so I am sure I can do well."
GH: You guys have the Arizona/ASU road trip coming up this weekend. Can you talk a little bit about those match-ups?
AS: "Well last year we won against them pretty easily, but this year, Arizona State won against Stanford a couple of weeks ago, so they actually are playing pretty good. Especially on their court it might be a little bit more difficult, but I think we are a good team and we should come back home with two victories."
GH: Adding on to that, what will it be like coming back next week and finishing off your last 3 conference games at home in Seattle?
AS: "It's going to be pretty nice because last time we played UCLA, we played there and we played pretty bad. So, I am looking forward to playing them again at home. We played them one time this year at the National Indoors and we lost and two guys on the team were kind of sick, so I am hoping that everybody is going to be healthy for the home matches. We have a really good chance of winning all home matches."
GH: What's your favorite match you have ever played in and why?
AS: "Last year against USC, I clinched the match that basically took to us to the NCAA Sweet 16. I actually lost the first set 7-6 and I had set points and I got overruled, so it was kind of bad. I then came back and played well in the second set and then in the third set I was up and all of a sudden I don't know what happened. At match point he served two match points. He came back 5-0, then he was up and I don't know how I pulled it out, but I won 7-5 and we went to NCAAs!"
GH: Is there a team that you would love to play or rematch with and why?
AS: "I'd like to play against Pepperdine, even though we lost a couple of weeks ago against them, but I was sick and a lot of the guys had some stomach virus. We weren't able to play 100 percent. I feel like 7-0 was not the real score. I kind of want to play against them again, but they are a really good team, they are ranked No. 2 in the nation. I want to play them, maybe at NCAAs."
GH: Can you talk a little bit about the Serbian connection there is at the UW among athletes? I know there were some volleyball players and crew athletes.
AS: "It's a lot of fun, as you mentioned, there are two girls from Serbia, couple of guys from Serbia were here - two guys on the crew team graduated, one guy this year and one guy last year. And, there are actually a couple of guys from Croatia, I used to live with them. Actually, Croatian and Serbian are pretty much the same language so... And there are some other students and other people that I know up here too. It's always nice to have someone who speaks the same language. Actually, before I came to UW, I talked to one person here, when I got here, we figured out he is a relative of mine and also there is one family named Slovic here, it's a small world!"
GH: How do you compare tennis in Serbia to the U.S. and what made you want to come to UW? <> Alex Vlaski was here so I knew it's a good program. At first I didn't want to come to college, but I changed my mind that I wanted to come. Alex told me it's a really good program and I saw from back home that there are a lot of players that have played juniors in college so I just assumed it was a good program. Everything is really good and organized and Alex recommended me to Gordon O'Reilly and Matt Anger so they recruited me and I came - and I'm happy to be here!"
GH: Favorite thing about being a Husky?
AS: "Wearing purple! Everyone says that. My freshman year I didn't really wear purple as much, but now I wear it a lot!"
GH: Favorite Husky sport other than tennis?
AS: "Basketball. I hope my roommates don't read this - they are on the crew team - but I like watching basketball. We have a bunch of sports here at the UW that I didn't really know about like baseball - I don't really know all the rules because back home we don't have baseball and softball. I like basketball and I like soccer a lot even though I didn't get to go watch soccer because we had practices. But I like basketball and soccer a lot."
GH: Off the court, what do you like to do in your spare time?
AS: "I like to go out and hang out with friends."
