Falconi's unusual path to Tech and No. 1

"The Little Tiger" was made on public tennis courts in New York, playing anyone she could no matter the age or skill level.

Wednesday afternoon in Athens, Georgia Tech's Irina Falconi will take her No. 1 ranking into the NCAA singles championship. Just like those days on the Inwood Hill Park courts in Manhattan, she and her unorthodox game will take on all comers as she tries to win the school's second women's tennis title i three years.

"Girls don't want to see her in the draw because they aren't used to seeing her stuff," Tech coach Bryan Shelton said.

Her "stuff" is unusual, a deceptive amalgam of attack, retreat and drop shots. But that seems to be the norm for Falconi, from how she learned the game, to how she sees the game and to how she ever ended up at Tech.

Like many younger siblings, she picked up tennis because her father, Carlos, was teaching her older sister, Stephanie, how to play.

Carlos, a former professional soccer player in Ecuador, taught himself the game on a court with no net – just a rope tied between two poles – in his native country. He gave it up when he became a pro soccer player at 16 but when his career ended a few years later, he moved to New York to marry Silvia, Irina and Stephanie's mother.

They lived near the corner of 207th and Broadway, with a tennis court down the street. Wanting Stephanie to learn a sport, he bought her a blue, metal Spalding racket.

Irina would impatiently watch them practice, wanting to get out there and beat her sister. So one day Carlos handed her a racket – it was almost as tall as she was – and they started hitting. He soon realized that Irina, like her sister, had skill.

As Irina grew, Carlos started lining up games for her against anyone who was practicing. Grown men would try to take it easy with their serves, but Carlos wouldn't let them.

"No, hit the serve," he would say, "she's got a racket. Be a man." So they would. He wasn't being an overbearing sports dad either. Irina told him that's what she wanted. It was a rough at first but soon she started returning those serves and, soon enough, beating the men.

They started calling her "the Little Tiger."

"That's where they [Irina and Stephanie] got the good feeling," Carlos said. "You can play with anyone no problem."

But she got more than a nickname. On those courts Falconi developed the unusual game that made her the top-ranked junior in the U.S. and the top-ranked collegiate player today.

She's aggressive and imaginative, capable of producing a variety of shots from anywhere on the court. Her best weapon is her drop shot, though she's doesn't use it as often as she used to. With no ball machine to fire 400 shots a day at her, there was no regimen to ingrain robotic habits or shots. She learned by instinct, which is how she plays now. She's neither a baseliner nor serve-and-volleyer. She can do both.

"She can defend the court with her speed and her slice," Shelton said. "She can play offense and defense. Not a lot of girls that can do both."

When she was 14, a job change moved the Falconis to southeastern Florida. Once again, Falconi would head to a local court after school to find someone to play.

"It was an experience that made me grow up so quickly and made me so independent," she said.

Hitting balls at Carlin Park in Jupiter, she was spotted by someone who put her in touch with Brenda Schultz-McCarthy, a former top-10 star on the WTA Tour who operated a small tennis home school nearby. Falconi met her and soon enrolled.

The two continued to work together into Falconi' senior year when, to escape a hurricane headed for Florida, the team went to a complex Schultz owned in Virginia. On their way back, they stopped at Tech because one of the coaches wanted to show the students the college experience.

They showed up at the Bill Moore Tennis Center at 7 a.m. Falconi loved it.

"If I'm to go to school, this is it," she remembers thinking. She e-mailed Shelton, thanked him for his time and then promptly changed plans.

Instead of going to college, as sister Stephanie did at Brown, Falconi decided to try the pro tour. At a stop in July, when she was beaten by a college player, Falconi realized she wasn't ready. She called home and told her mom that she wanted to go to college.

But where to go? It was July. Many schools were starting in less than two months. A friend asked if she had talked to Shelton.

Later that day Falconi fired off a no-pretense e-mail: "Dear Coach Shelton, how have you been? It's been a year. Do you have a spot for this coming fall? I really want to go to college. Thanks."

Shelton immediately responded: "We have one spot."

But Falconi had yet to finished her senior year. Somehow, she crammed two months of school into two weeks and was admitted to Tech with a few days to spare.

"I'm very blessed to be in my position," Falconi said.

Shelton finally got to watch her play at the U.S. National Hard Court Championships that August, where she reached the semifinals. During one of the warm-ups, Falconi said she walked over to him and asked, "No regrets, right?"

No, Shelton said, he has no regrets.

Falconi played mostly in the No. 1 or 2 spots as a freshman before taking over at the top spot this year, where she's unbeaten in her past 20 matches while accumulating a 37-2 record.

She has a plan for the NCAAs and she expects to win. But "the Little Tiger" isn't about pressure. She likes to keep things loose and fun on and off the court. After the team lost to Ole Miss in the NCAA regionals that knocked Tech out of a chance in the team championships, she was moved to take a teammate out for her first Waffle House experience (Falconi loves the chocolate chip waffles). They later went dancing with some other athletes.

"Spontaneity is what my tennis game is all about," Falconi said, "and what my life is all about."

NCAA singles and doubles championships

When: Wednesday through Monday.

Where: Dan Magill Tennis Complex, Athens.

Matches featuring local players:

Nadja Gilchrist, Georgia vs. Nadine Fahoum, Old Dominion, 10 a.m.

Chelsey Gullickson, Georgia vs. Martina Rubesova, Northwestern State, 11 a.m.

Irina Falconi, Georgia Tech vs. Jackie Wu, Vanderbilt, 12:30 p.m.

Guillermo Gomez, Georgia Tech vs. Moritz Baumann, Wisconsin, 1 p.m.

Javier Garrapiz, Georgia vs. Andrei Daescu, Oklahoma, 4:30 p.m.

Doubles begins May 27: