A Short Commute

Most of the colleges participating in the tournament traveled from Northern California, other areas of Southern California, and even from another state; however, those from UCSD had home court advantage, only traveling five minutes away from campus. UCSD teammates Sophomore JAKE FELLOW and Junior ERIK ELLIOTT felt at home playing in La Jolla.


Q: Do you think it's unfair other teams were able to travel from all over the country and state to be here, and you didn't get to travel anywhere? Are you a little jealous?

FELLOW: No not at all. We don't have to miss classes; I could go to my afternoon class today if I wanted to. It's actually harder to travel because you have to miss classes and professors aren't that flexible or understanding. Besides, this is a beautiful place to play!


Q: Did the scenery of La Jolla affect your decision in coming to UCSD?

FELLOW: I'm a local, I'm from San Diego and I was recruited by UCSD to play tennis. I didn't really want to leave.
ELLIOTT: I got into other UC's but wanted to play tennis in college and I had the best shot at walking-on at UCSD. That and yeah the beaches were also a selling point


Q: Why did you choose tennis over other sports?

FELLOW: My parents played tennis and got me involved in it when I was about 9 years old. I like it because it's an individual sport and it was a sport I knew I could play in college since I'm not that tall.
ELLIOTT: My parents gave me a racket when I was 16 months old and I never let it go. Also my parents didn't want me to play contact sports.


Q: Have you experienced anything crazy in your careers on the tennis court?

ELLIOTT: My Freshman year when I was playing doubles against Fresno Pacific University's Marco Foelz my partner and I broke Foelz's serve. When that happened, Foelz started punching his strings and made his hand bleed. When the trainer was taping up his hand, Foelz was cussing out the trainer. He later tried to throw his racket at me. We ended up defeating them. As one of my first college matches ever, it was definitely an eye-opener, 'So this is what college tennis is like.'


Q: What gear do you use?

FELLOW: A Head racket and Solinco strings.
ELLIOTT: A Head racket and Solinco strings, a lot of the UC's use Solinco strings.