Montasser Makes A Transition From Egypt

Zeyad Montasser arrived at Western from Cairo, Egypt, last January.

He was redshirted immediately his first year by men’s head tennis coach, Dave Morin, making Montasser a redshirt Freshman this season. Morin’s decision to slap the red shirt tag on him was for one simple reason, adjustment.

“Its difficult to come here in January,” Coach Morin said.

The quickness of the indoor tennis courts was an adjustment that Montasser had to make. Montasser has made the adjustment quite well now, he was 13-6 in singles matches in the fall season and is 1-0 in the winter season so far. Morin sees Zeyad as a potential number one in the near future for the Broncos. He was highly recruited out of high school. When Coach Morin signed Montasser, he was ranked up in the top 150 in the world in Juniors.

Montasser isn’t the only player on the team coming from another country. Both Kazuya Komada and Pablo Olivarez came from foreign countries. Komada grew up in Osaka, Japan and Olivarez is from Muntinlupa City, Philippines.

Komada trained in Lansing, Mich. before coming to Western.

My question was how on earth was Coach Morin recruiting these players half way across the world?

“Guys will promote themselves,” Morin said, “They make videos and send them out.”

Coaches will then look at the tape as well as rankings. Montasser is now a Bronco mainly because the Buffalo’s coach recommended him to Western.

Western Michigan’s Men’s Tennis has a double header this Sunday starting at 9 a.m. against Detroit Mercy and IPFW at West Hills Athletic Club.

Short URL: http://www.westernherald.com/?p=3157

Posted by heraldstaff on Jan 15 2009. Filed under Sports, Sports Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

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