When women’s tennis player Silvia Pomarolli returns to campus, she often brings a taste of Italy with her.
“My suitcase is usually pretty heavy,” said the native of Cecina, Italy.
Appears InPacked alongside Pomarolli’s clothes and other belongings are bottles of olive oil and tomato sauce, a block of parmesan cheese, and a bag of noodles. After unpacking, she invites her teammates over to her apartment for a simple, yet authentically delicious offering of perfectly cooked pasta—not too soft—tossed in fresh, flavorful sauce.
“It’s amazing,” said teammate Tijana Zlatanovic ’24, who often contributes a dessert of handcrafted Mozart chocolates from her home in Salzburg, Austria.
“When I share a part of my culture with my teammates, I feel at home,” Pomarolli said. “It just feels good that I’m sharing my identity with them.”
Pomarolli and Zlatanovic were two of seven players on the 2023-24 Illinois State University women’s tennis team composed of student-athletes representing six countries: Austria, Croatia, Italy, Serbia, Spain, and the United States. Zlatanovic is now a graduate assistant coach after earning a bachelor’s degree in exercise science.
Scouring the globe for high-caliber tennis players has led 11th-year Redbird head coach Maja Kovacek to establish a predominantly international roster. The results of her recruiting efforts speak for themselves.
After an initial winless conference season in 2014-15, Kovacek and the Redbirds improved consistently over the next four years, culminating in Missouri Valley Conference (MVC) regular season and tournament titles in 2018-19 and Illinois State’s first NCAA Tournament appearance in 14 years.
Over the past five seasons, the Redbirds have a 29-2 regular-season conference record and three MVC championships.
“My philosophy is to recruit the best player and the best fit for our team,” said Kovacek, a three-time MVC Coach of the Year. “Tennis is so international. There are a ton of players in Europe who are very competitive, and they’re looking for opportunities here because they don’t have them at home. So, being able to tap into that resource has been really good for us.”
A native of Croatia, Kovacek has a personal understanding of the challenges and opportunities facing international student-
athletes. She first arrived in the U.S. to play tennis for the University of New Mexico.
“It’s in the desert, and I lived on the coast of Croatia by the water, so it couldn’t have been more different,” Kovacek said. “But it was a different kind of beautiful.”
Since European colleges don’t have sports programs like in the U.S., Kovacek said talented high school players who aren’t ready to pursue professional tennis careers are naturally drawn to playing for American universities.
Kovacek often discovers prospects by watching their highlight videos on YouTube. She and her assistant coaches schedule video calls, and Kovacek occasionally travels overseas for recruiting visits. Even during her annual trip home to visit family in Croatia, Kovacek will hop in a car, with her dad at the wheel, to watch prospect tournaments and visit recruits and their families.
Zlatanovic, the Redbirds’ top singles and doubles player last spring, was recruited by 10 schools. But Kovacek was the only head coach who traveled to Austria to watch her play and speak to her family in their native Serbian language.
“That made Illinois State stand out,” Zlatanovic said. “Being able to meet the coach in person definitely played a huge role.”
—Maja Kovacek
“Tennis is so international. There are a ton of players in Europe who are very competitive, and they’re looking for opportunities here because they don’t have them at home. So, being able to tap into that resource has been really good for us.”
Despite having to quarantine for her first two weeks on campus in fall 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, Zlatanovic said it didn’t take long for Illinois State to feel like a home away from home.
“I love it here,” Zlatanovic said. “We have a great campus, we have a great team every year, and we have great coaches.
“As a European tennis player, just having this experience of playing an individual sport in a team setting—that’s something that’s just unimaginable at home. And we get to do so many things together, like travel together, practice every day together, and spend so much time together in such an international setting.”
Along with introducing their teammates to authentic foods and cultural customs, players also share music—often blasting it in the van while traveling to matches—and words and phrases from their native languages.
Last summer, Pomarolli and Zlatanovic met up in Milan to watch The Weeknd in concert.
“We’re looking at each other like, ‘Oh my God, we’re in Europe and we’re together!’” Pomarolli said. “Now we have this memory. So, we always play his music, and we kind of cherish that time.”
The team’s lone American, Zoe Limparis, also traveled from her home in Hinsdale to visit Pomarolli in Italy.
“Meeting people from different countries and learning about new cultures, it just opens your mind,” Pomarolli said. “It makes you think about the world out there and people differently.”
Kovacek said she appreciates the power of tennis to bring players from diverse backgrounds together to become teammates and friends as they work toward winning championships and earning degrees.
“I fell in love with college tennis right away,” Kovacek said. “Having this opportunity—I’m just really grateful for it.”
