On Jan. 17, the University of California, Riverside (UCR) women’s tennis team defeated Claremont-Mudd-Scripps in a thrilling 4-3 Dual Match. The Highlanders clinched the game through Katarina Curcic’s comeback from being down 5-4 in the third set, winning the overall match 6-3, 3-6 and 7-5.
The United Arab Emirates-born Serbian, Curcic, is a University of South Dakota (USD) transfer in her second year studying bioengineering. Growing up between Abu Dhabi and Serbia, Curcic never had one set club she could practice in. “I went to school in Abu Dhabi, but towards [high school], I would train a lot more in Serbia, so I would be going there and back.”
Coming off of an injury, Curcic was unable to prepare the college video she had hoped for and ended up playing tennis at USD. Towards the end of her first year at USD, she set her sights on transferring out and was reached out to by UCR coaches. “I had the first conversation with the coaches. [My initial reaction was] ‘Oh my gosh, this is where I want to be. This is something that I would really really love to do,’” commented Curcic.
Curcic found out she was named UCR’s Student-Athlete of the Week through a friend who had told her to just check Instagram. She shared that after seeing the post she was jumping up and down in joy, explaining she was “so, so happy!”
When Curcic had a chance to win the match for the Highlanders versus Claremont-Mudd-Scripps, Curcic stated her main strategy was to instill the idea that it wasn’t match point due to how that can affect an athlete’s mentality and drag one’s performance down. “It’s just another game. We keep on going,” described Curcic.
In Curcic’s first ever clinch, she credited the support of her teammates for the huge boost in morale she had through the third set. Recalling the emotions and atmosphere from the moment Curcic’s game came down to matchpoint, she mentioned, “Hearing [my teammates] cheering every point and knowing that someone’s backing me up no matter what happens, it took a lot of the pressure off that I would normally have.”
With conference play to start on Tuesday Jan. 27, Curcic feels representing UCR is a shared privilege between herself and the rest of the team. “We really just want to give it our all for UCR Tennis,” Curcic describes as she believes that to play for and represent the University of California, Riverside is “just an honor.”
Curcic, who has played tennis for 11 years, was asked if she had ever imagined playing at the level she’s at now. She responded, “Yes and no. It really depends on the time and the day that you would ask me as well as the practice, but it’s something that I definitely wanted to do …
When I was young, I didn’t want to play tennis. I thought it was very boring, but then I saw my mom playing, and I was like, ‘Oh, hold on, that looks kind of fun.’”
