Collegiate Times

Virginia Tech men’s tennis senior Yoann Re had quite an illustrious junior career before his arrival at the university in January 2007.

Re, a native of Quebec, culminated 15 years of training with a 2006 under-18 Canadian National Championship, as well as a berth in the 2006 U.S. Open Junior Championships. At the games, Re racked up upsets over one of the top U.S. players, in addition to the ninth-ranked junior in the world.

Re’s success dates back to when his father made him pick up a racquet at age three. By age 10, Re was training in France, where he would spend the next five years. Upon his return from France, Re headed to a small tennis academy in Florida, practicing for three to four hours a day over a six-month span.

Re’s game began to take off and he started to compete in international junior tournaments. However, when it came time to look at colleges, Re was uncertain of where he would end up.

“I was in contact with other universities, but they weren’t as good as Virginia Tech because I didn’t know anything about college tennis in the U.S.,” Re said. “I just talked to any college that would talk to me and offer the right scholarship for me.”

In fact, he knew nothing about Tech until he met current teammate and fellow Canadian Sebastian Jacques while competing at a tournament.

Jacques, who had been in contact with Tech head coach Jim Thompson since he was 15, was already planning to play for the Hokies when he met Re.

“I knew I was coming here and I knew Yoann was a player,” Jacques said. “It’s tough with Jim when you don’t see a guy play, but I knew Yoann would be a good attribute to our team.”

After Jacques put in a good word, Thompson became interested in Re but still had never seen him play. That opportunity came at the 2006 U.S. Open.

After witnessing Re’s string of upsets, Thompson was sold.

“I knew we were going to sign him when he went up to the U.S. Open and played amazing there,” Thompson said.

Despite the challenges of recruiting international players, the Hokies currently have seven international players on their roster, including Re and Jacques.

“The Internet has made our world really small,” Thompson said. “Tennis is an international game and there are organizations that do really good rankings in each country. We use all kinds of contacts that we’ve had such as past players.”

In his freshman year, Re received the Northeast Region Rookie of the Year honors, and then compiled 26 singles and 26 doubles victories his sophomore year.

During his junior campaign, Re played the No. 1 singles position for the Hokies, defeating five nationally ranked players on his way to qualifying for the prestigious field of 64 at the NCAA singles championships.

“He had a lot of trouble from the baseline (early in his career), but his game has completely changed,” Jacques said in describing Re’s game. “He’s a big hitter from the baseline. ... His timing is absolutely ridiculous and he can hit it from anywhere and with a lot of spin.”

Re’s accomplishments, which came after he broke his collarbone last March, landed him a fall 2009 preseason national ranking of 35th in singles.

Re has also been playing doubles with Jacques, posting a 7-3 record so far this season.

He said he would like to go out on a high note, both as a team and individually.

“It would be really good to make the sweet 16 in the NCAA tournament as a team,” Re said.

“Individually, I would like to play in the NCAA tournament in singles. ... I did it last year already.”

Winning his first two matches in the tournament is a lofty, yet attainable, goal for Re if he can stay healthy and continue to fine-tune his game.

A version of this article appeared in the Feb 9 issue of the Collegiate Times.