Santiago Lopez was named Great Lake Valley Conference (GLVC) Men’s Tennis Player of the Week last week. Lopez helped guide the Eagles’ win over Wayne State University Friday in a 2-0 match. Lopez partnered with freshman Michael Kuzaj at No. 1 doubles to pull a victory over Wayne State. Both Lopez and Kuzaj are exchange students, Lopez from Columbia and Kuzaj from France.
The Shield: How do you feel about winning the title of GLVC Player of the Week?
Lopez: Very good, very good not everyone can win that thing, and if I did it’s because I was playing very good, and I’ve been practicing hard and doing a good job with the team.
The Shield: What does it mean to you personally that you won that title?
Lopez: Personally? It makes me keep going, keep practicing and keep doing a good job here so I can take that like a motivation. So, I’ll try to win it again, and that’s it.
The Shield: Were you nervous going into the match?
Lopez: We were not nervous. We’ve been playing tennis a long time, like our whole life, I’ve been playing since I was 8 years old, so no we were not nervous.
Kuzaj: I mean it was the beginning of the season so we were not nervous, but we were experiencing the team all together for the first time.
The Shield: What was your role, Kuzaj, in the victory over Wayne State?
Kuzaj : We don’t have roles, the players are all the same. There is one serving and one play and everyone is rotating. The most important thing was mentally. The guys were good, and it was like the first tough match of seven matches of the season, so we had to stay, like, mentally in the match because as soon as you leave mentally you are over—it’s what happens like, we are not mentally here, and we are done.
The Shield: What’s next?
Lopez: Now we start conference we played last weekend not in the same region
Kuzaj: Because conference, our conference’s are divided into two parts west and east–am I right?
Lopez:Yes. now on we have tough matches, conference matches against really good schools os we need to start really practicing harder and our next step is, our next step is..
Kuzaj: Northern Kentucky.
The Shield: How often do you practice?
Lopez: Three days a week, but if you want to hit by our own.
Kuzaj: By yourself, you can hit by yourself.
Lopez: We do that almost every day. Practice is three hours every day.
Kuzaj: Think about it our team is also an important thing, we are motivated because we both just arrived here, the others were here before I think that is maybe why we were mentally stronger than the others because we wanted a goal just to show that we are new, we are okay, we are strong, you know? We are strong because we are playing No 1.
The Shield: Do you feel like being new makes it harder for you guys?
Kuzaj: On the contrary, it makes us stronger because we want to represent our country.
