Georgia State’s Abigail Tere-Apisah is almost 9,000 miles from home. On Wednesday, she’ll add a few more to that total when she begins play in the individual portion of the NCAA tennis tournament in Athens.
Tere-Apisah, 17-1 this season as a sophomore, will become the first women’s tennis player in school history to participate in the championships. She was invited by virtue of being the highest-ranked player (currently No. 37 by ITA) in the Colonial Athletic Association.
“I’m really excited,” she said. “I’ve been training for the past three weeks. I feel pretty good about how my game is.”
The distance she will travel from Courtland Street to the Dan Magill Tennis Complex is nothing considering the distance Tere-Apisah has traveled for the opportunity.
Home is Papua New Guinea, where Tere-Apisah’s parents run the only tennis clinic on the island, located north of Australia.
She wasn’t interested in the sport as a child because she didn’t like the training. Then her older brother, Lawrence, left home to attend a tennis academy in Fiji. Tere-Apisah realized she could have the same opportunity if she began training, so at age 6 she began playing with the groups her parents were teaching.
She won the first tournament she entered, an under-8 event. She left home at age 11 for the academy in Fiji on a journey that eventually brought her to Snellville to train at Hobson Performance Tennis Academy and later to Georgia State.
She was recruited by a few of the college tennis powers, but decided on Georgia State because she wanted to go to college in a city — she said her country recently got its first big movie theater — and because of a friendship she made at Hobson with former Panther Kir Kemp.
She moved from New South Wales, Australia, where she was training at the time, to Atlanta and hasn’t regretted it. Because she hasn’t lived at home in eight years, she doesn’t get homesick, not that she could just pop in to say hello. Flying home requires a five-hour flight to Los Angeles, followed by a 15-hour flight to Sydney, Australia, and finally a four-hour flight to Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. She keeps in touch with her family via the Internet.
When she needs to reconnect, she listens to Papua New Guinea bands, which she describes as having a reggae-like sound, on her iPod. When she wants a taste of home, she visits on holiday an aunt who lives in New York who cooks food from home, mostly ground-up vegetables.
She seems to be at home wherever she is.
Tere-Apisah, is 31-3 in two years at Georgia State, overpowering opponents with aggressive right-handed shots from the baseline. She has worked to improve her serve. Her only loss this season came in three sets to a player ranked No. 45. She has defeated four opponents ranked in the top 100.
Tere-Apisah will open the tournament against Santa Clara’s Katie Le at 10 a.m. Le, ranked No. 60 by ITA, was named the West Coast Conference player of the year after going 18-5. They have never played each other. Tere-Apisah is in the same quarter of the bracket as Florida’s Allie Will, the No. 1 seed, and they could meet in the third round.
It’s just another step in a long journey.
“It has worked out,” Tere-Apisah said. “I’m glad I came here.”
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