FANTASTIC VOYAGE
born far away from the United States, hard-working Stefania Hristov feels right at home at Texas A&M
Imagine buying a one-way ticket, saying goodbye to your parents, and hopping a 15-hour flight by yourself halfway around the world to a country you've never been to start a new chapter of your life.
Now, imagine you're doing all that at age 16.
Such was the journey to America for the likeable, engaging and hard-working junior leader of Texas A&M's women's tennis team, Stefania Hristov.
Hristov hails from Iasi, Romania—a city of nearly 300,000 about 30 minutes from the country's eastern border with Moldova. You can't get much more "Eastern Europe" than Ia?i--driving another several hours east would land you in the Ukraine.
She first started playing the game at age five, on a "really bad" tennis court with a racquet made of wood. After 10 years, the frustrations of the game had reached their boiling point.
"I was 15, and I wanted to stop playing," Hristov recalls. "Nothing was working. It was horrible."
As a final "straw" so to speak to see if the game really was for her, Hristov and her parents—Adrian and Elena—drove 7 hours south to the capital city of Bucharest to meet with Romanian Davis Cup team captain Gabriel Trifu.
Trifu worked her out, both liked what they saw from the other, and he sold Hristov and her family on her attending his United Tennis Academy in Bradenton, Florida.
So in December 2010, Stefania said goodbye to her parents and her brother, Andrei, and boarded a flight to Tampa. She doesn't remember much of her first glimpse of the United States on the hour drive from the airport—she "blacked out" as she puts it, sleeping the entire way to Trifu's house where he and his family would help her journey begin.
"I was so scared, so shy," she recalls. "I didn't talk to anyone. And that's the moment that I changed everything—my personality, my style, everything. My life changed at that moment."
Hristov threw herself into tennis, getting back into the rhythm of the game she loved. In only six months, she launched herself from around 1,000 in the junior rankings to about 150. Her first thought was playing professionally, but Trifu began to open her eyes to the opportunities and scholarships that American collegiate tennis provide.
Enter then first-year Texas A&M coach Howard Joffe.
"To be honest with you, in retrospect Stefania was a bit of a rare find," said Joffe, who remembers almost stumbling across her while on a recruiting trip to two big tournaments in Florida in the winter of 2011.
"It wasn't that I actually planned to go watch her play. It turns out (Gabriel Trifu) was someone I knew from a million years ago when I was playing tennis—and that gave me just a little bit of an in. I saw her playing at the Eddie Herr (Tournament), not even in the main draw but in qualifying…on a lonely back court I believe was clay. I was really impressed with how gritty and tough she was. She was very tenacious, and very impressive."
Hristov took what would be her only official visit to Aggieland the following month, in January 2012, and loved what she saw.
"I really liked the coaches, the campus…everything," Hristov recalls. "The (girls) were really nice and very mature, and they talked to me. I liked that too."
It was on that visit that Joffe got not only a strong sense of the depth of his recruit's character…he also landed a commitment.
"On her official visit, she watched me give a private lesson to one of our players," Joffe said. "And literally while watching that she made her mind up that she wanted to come to Texas A&M. A lot of kids may be jaded by whose stadium is bigger, or whose locker room has more 'bling'. But Stefania was won over by perhaps things that are more real."
Despite having taken English (as well as French) classes starting in the fifth grade, Hristov will freely admit that the adjustment to college was a very difficult one. She faced an 18-hour class schedule her first semester, a product of struggles with an initial English proficiency exam that mandated 9 hours of English courses. Couple that with the demands of being a student-athlete, and everything else that goes with being a college freshman—not to mention learning the nuances of a foreign language and culture—and she landed on academic probation in her first semester.
"Typically and invariably all our (international) kids—and Stefania is no different—have an awful tough time (adjusting to college)," Joffe said. "It's not a function of intellect, but it's just the language. They end up in the (English Language Institute) classes. It's analogous to me going to Argentina and studying for an SAT exam in Spanish. I can't speak Spanish."
"I was ready to call my parents and tell them I was ready to come home," she remembers.
After spending that winter in Florida training—it had now been over a year since she had seen her family—Hristov knew she would have to find the strength within herself to make her decision a successful one.
"I think it was at that moment I got tougher and independent."
She returned to A&M that January, ready for her first "team" season with the Aggies (collegiate tennis holds its dual matches in the spring). It was quickly evident how tough she was. Hristov racked up a combined 27 doubles wins as well as a 25-11 record in singles. Just 18 years old and two years into her life in America, she helped lead A&M to a 26-4 record, the SEC regular season championship and a trip to the NCAA championship match—where the Aggies would fall one point shy of claiming the title.
"She won her match at No. 1 doubles and No. 6 singles in the finals of the NCAA Tournament," Joffe said. "Not too many people can say that. And she did it as a freshman."
As a sophomore, the success continued—especially in doubles—as the Aggies advanced to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament. That summer, Hristov got to experience a very special moment in her life—her parents came to Texas A&M to visit the place their daughter holds dear for the very first time.
"They met Howard and (assistant coach) Mark (Weaver), and some of my professors and advisors," she recalls. "They saw the campus. They were amazed. I never pictured them flying over to the U.S. They flew 16 hours to come see me—that was really nice."
Because they do not speak English, Stefania had to serve as translator. And that led to some entertainment.
"It was pretty funny," Hristov said. "Howard was telling them things about me, and it was awkward for me to stand there and praise myself to them. I was cutting it off and howard was telling me to say the whole thing. I told him I was giving them the shorter version."
Her parents plan to make the trip again next spring to watch their daughter compete collegiately for the first time. And when they do make it back to the states, they should have a pretty strong Texas A&M team to watch as well.
This year's Aggies sit in the top 10 of the rankings and look poised to make another deep run into NCAAs. And however far that may go, expect them to match that and then some in 2016—there are no seniors on this year's squad.
But first things first. The 2015 edition has business to take care of, and Hristov can't wait to see what this team can do in the postseason.
"When I got to the finals of NCAAs as a freshman it wasn't as big for me as it is right now. I didn't understand it. But now I do. And this year I feel this team is really united. We're all really good friends. We get along no matter what. Together we are stronger. I feel like we can do really well at NCAAs."
It's no surprise to see why Joffe points at Hristov as the leader of this team. She's won more matches than any player on the current team—123 (singles and doubles combined) to this point. She's immersed herself in the Aggie culture, and loves it. She has played doubles with virtually everyone on the roster, and has won with everyone.
And remember that academic probation thing? Well the human resource development major, who is fluent in three languages (Romanian, English, French) and can understand two more (Spanish and Italian), sports nearly a 3.0 GPA…and rising.
"There is no kid whose behavior is more emblematic of what college tennis is supposed to be," Joffe said. "She's someone who even after her tennis days will be very, very successful in the working world. She's cooperative. She's a total team player. She's selfless. She's prepared. And she's very accountable—she's prepared to do everything that is asked of her in every respect.
"She's truly been a gem, and it's too bad we only have more year left with her."