By: Cody Harms, Sports Reporter
OMAHA, Neb.– The tennis court served as a second home to six-year-old Ines Absisan. Reporter Cody Harms said the Omaha senior found her childhood consumed by the sport.
Growing up in Brussels, Belgium, Ines had a much different childhood than others. She said she didn’t go outside and play with other kids on her block often and stuck to an intense schedule.
“It was always tennis, school, tennis, school, home, tennis,” Ines said.
When Ines wasn’t playing tennis or at school during her youth, she was spending most of her time with her loved ones.
“My family is very big on sports so we would attend everyone’s sporting events,” she said
Ines is playing nearly five-thousand miles away from home. Although she has spoken English since she was twelve, adjusting to the US culture was her biggest challenge.
Ines said, “Transitioning to the US was pretty hard at the beginning. When I got here everything is so much bigger. Everything is XXL I would say.”
She attributes her coach for easing into life as a college student, while being in a new country playing sports as a D1 athlete.
Summit said recruiting players from foreign countries is different than recruiting American players.
“With international students it’s more about who you know with contacts and agencies and recruiting services. Former players and coaches make an impact as well. For Ines she was working with a coach who we had a mutual contact with,” Summit said. -shortened his bite.
Ines said that she only had a few opportunities to become a student athlete in America coming from Belgium.
“In Belgium we don’t get to play college sports so if you go to college, you just go as a student and not student athlete and that’s what I liked about here,” said Ines.
While the serving comes to an end this spring, Ines said she intends to serve her sport in another way. By giving back as a coach. She said Coach Summitt trusts her to coach her teammates and it pushed her to want to become a coach.
