Monday, January 22, 2007
Contact: Nikki Carnemolla

A Sister Act On Campbell Tennis Courts

BUIES CREEK, N.C. -- The first time Nina Surviladze played tennis in a tournament was the first time she played on an actual court and against an actual opponent. For three months until that point, she and her younger sister, Ana, had been practicing against any wall they could find near their home in Prague, Czech Republic.

"Practicing on a court would cost too much money," said Nina. "So we spent hours playing against the wall with a wooden racket."

Not too surprisingly, she didn't win her match.

Ana's first try at competition didn't turn out much better. After winning her first set, 6-0, her opponent stormed back to defeat her in three.

"The girl had a killer serve," Ana said, thinking back to the match. She cracked a good-natured grin. "And after that, I went on a losing streak for five years."

The disappointment of defeat didn't stop either Surviladze sister. They spent an uncountable number of hours practicing under the watchful eye of their father, who would research drills to improve their games and then make the girls perform them.

"Our dad is very competitive; he always wanted us to do good," said Nina. "But if nobody had pushed us, we'd never had made it."

And the sisters did make it. Now, twelve years after those first unsuccessful tournaments, Nina and Ana both play Division I tennis at Campbell University.

In the beginning

The sisters, two years apart in age, began playing tennis in 1994. Their cousin, Alexander, played back in the Surviladze's hometown of Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia, and the girls' father loved the sport. The influence of the two family members was enough motivation for Ana and Nina to try tennis themselves.

Ana, seven at the time, took an immediate liking to the sport. More of an extrovert than her calm and quiet sister, she appreciated the aggressiveness she could put into tennis. At first, Nina still preferred their shared hobby of rhythmic gymnastics, but over time, tennis grew on her as well.

The sisters played at a small tennis club in Prague for five years before the family moved back to the Republic of Georgia, where Nina and Ana had spent the first eight and six years of their lives, respectively.

After one year, they packed up their possessions once more and headed halfway across the world to their current residence of Albuquerque, N.M.

The move presented one main challenge for Nina and Ana: they had to learn the English language. Having known only Georgian, a language spoken by about four million people primarily in Georgia, Turkey and Iran, the girls spent a few long months struggling to learn English.

By the time Nina entered Sandia High School as a freshman in the fall of 2000, she was fairly fluent in the new language. Sandia offered many new experiences for Nina, including belonging to her first tennis team. Meanwhile, Ana played for Madison Middle School.

The girls hadn't experienced much tennis success in Czech Republic or Georgia, but with the change of continents came the change of luck.

New experiences

"I won my first tournament in New Mexico that I played in," said Ana. "I was like, ‘wow.'"

Compared to the elite level of play in Czech Republic—many of the girls the sisters competed against have gone on to play professionally— the competition that Nina and Ana faced in New Mexico was relatively easy.

"We started beating everybody," said Nina. "It was weird. We weren't used to it."

Their newfound success wasn't the only positive change the Surviladzes had to adjust to. Life in the United States differed dramatically from life in the Republic of Georgia.

Prior to their move, money had always been an issue for the Surviladze family. In Prague, the sisters' parents, Zurab Surviladze and Tamara Roitbak, made just enough money for the family to survive. When they returned to Georgia in 1999, the financial predicament was so dire that their father applied everywhere he could, just so that the family could escape the situation.

He ended up finding employment as a cancer research scientist at the University of New Mexico, where he and his wife now work.

In New Mexico, the people and the atmosphere in general were more relaxed than in Georgia, where widespread poverty caused excess stress in the lives of the Georgians. In the United States, people were happy. Life was comfortable.

By the time the Surviladze sisters began playing together on the tennis team at Sandia, word had gotten around about their success.

Their "fame" reached its peak in Nina's senior year, when the sisters played against each other in the finals of both the district and state championship tournaments. Newspaper reporters followed them, jotting down notes and snapping photos. To the journalists, it was big news. Sister versus sister in the state championship.

To Nina and Ana, it wasn't that big of a deal. They had played against each other every day for a good portion of their lives. Actually, the sisters would have preferred not to face each other in such a prestigious bout.

"Everyone made such a big deal out of it," said Nina. "The reporters and the cameras—it was crazy. We didn't even want to play each other."

"When we grew up, we'd play against each other every day and I'd get so mad when she'd beat me," added Ana. "But if I play her and I'm winning, I kind of feel bad."

The younger didn't have to worry about feeling too bad. Nina defeated Ana in every match they played against each other at Sandia.

After accumulating a 120-4 record over her high school career, Nina decided to head east to Campbell University, where she was offered both athletic and academic scholarships.

Two years later, in the fall of 2006, after an equally successful stint at Sandia, Ana followed suit and joined her sister in the one-stoplight town of Buies Creek, N.C.

The next step

Their first semester playing tennis together at Campbell has been a successful one for the Surviladzes.

Ana accumulated a 4-2 singles record over the course of three fall tournaments. The freshman advanced to the finals in the Flight B singles at her first college tournament, the Residence Inn North Wolfpack Invitational.

"Ana is going to provide a much-needed level of energy and aggressiveness for the team," said head tennis coach David Johnson. "That's her nature."

Nina, in her third season playing for the Lady Camels, finished the fall tournaments with an undefeated 6-0 record. At the Memphis Invitational, she used her cautious, patient style of play to win four straight matches and earn her flight's championship.

"Nina has brought reliability, stability and consistency in her time here thus far," said Johnson. "She has a good work ethic and is just a good team member overall."

The junior trust major recently scored a major victory off the court as well. Bank of America accepted Nina for an internship in Chicago for this coming summer.

"This, for me, is huge," said Nina of the opportunity. "I never thought I'd be doing this."

While Ana is not exactly sure what she wants to do after college, she knows it will have something to do with writing.

"I'm just gonna go with it as it takes me," she said. For her, the college experience has been a rewarding one already. "My biggest achievement has been growing comfortable with myself and kind of figuring myself out," she said. "That's been a big challenge for many years."

Certainly, both Surviladzes will continue to grow as people and tennis players throughout the rest of their time at Campbell. But as they move on, will tennis, the sport that brought them so close together, remain a part of their lives?

"It's definitely too late for us to go pro or anything," said Nina. "But of course I'm going to play occasionally. That's the good thing about tennis. You can go out when you're 70 years old and at least try to hit the ball back and forth a little."