Moving to a new country is a difficult process for anyone, but coming to a college where you are younger than nearly everyone on campus and having to compete against athletes that are far better than anyone you have faced before makes the task seem insurmountable.
That must be why the teammates and coaches of 16-year-old Mikhail Bekker rave about him with such adulation.
"The first day I met him I was really taken back by his maturity and his seriousness about his tennis," junior Craig Rubin said.
Bekker quickly earned the respect of his teammates through his attitude towards tennis and the way in which he handles himself both on and off the court. He was able to easily fit into the mold of the youthful Red and Blue, which is led by a close-knit core of juniors.
"The first day I met him at practice... I was very impressed," junior David Lynn said. "He speaks very well, he's very mature for his age and he's very social and outgoing. I think he fits in really well. We have a good group of guys that are all pretty close and easy to get along with and he just fit right in."
Bekker, who is from Moscow, first heard about Penn from 2000 Wharton graduate Anastasia Pozdniakova, a standout player for the women's team throughout her career and a co-captain for the Quakers as a senior. Bekker was intrigued by Pozdniakova's positive experience and began corresponding with Penn coach Mark Riley through e-mail and phone conversations.
Although Bekker seems young to have already finished high school by American standards, it is a fairly normal scenario in Russia. Students go to school for 10 or 11 years, and Bekker was in a system that used the 10-year option. He also started school a year early at age six, hence he was 16 when he graduated.
Riley hoped to visit Bekker in Russia in order to straighten out all of the paperwork , but the trip quickly appeared unnecessary.
"It became evident by his rankings that he was at the level we needed," Riley said. "He was so mature over the phone and about his responsibilities during the recruitment process."
Bekker also received a letter of recommendation from the former No. 1 tennis player in the world Yevgeny Kafelnikov. While Bekker was a member of the Russian junior national team, he met and was able to practice with Kafelnikov.
"That was an awesome experience for me," Bekker said.
Bekker's first experience in the United States did not occur until he appeared for New Student Orientation. He was impressed by the many aspects of Penn life he began to discover, including the architecture on campus.
But he was not intimidated.
"Moscow is bigger so I was used to living in big cities," Bekker said. "But there are computer labs everywhere, and you are able to post your homework online. We don't have such technology in Russia for education."
Bekker quickly made the adjustment to life and studying in a new country, which enabled him to concentrate on his tennis game.
"The kids I'm playing here are men and the kids I was playing in Europe were juniors," Bekker said. "You need to use your every chance in men's tennis; you need to possess a good serve."
Riley stressed the biggest difficulty in jumping from junior to collegiate play was the level of aggressiveness required on the court and the need to be assertive in situations that may seem uncomfortable.
Bekker quickly learned that much of his tennis game would need to be improved if he was going to play at the level which he expected. His attitude and constant requests for coaches to critique his play made this evident.
"Usually someone is a junior or senior before they start thinking like he thinks," Riley said. "He takes criticism well and wants his game critiqued day in and day out. He's trying to figure out how to be a great tennis player and he's trying to figure out how to make us a better team."
Although Bekker is no pipsqueak at 6'1" and 170 pounds, he still has a lot of room to mature physically. And once he does, it will become much easier for him to compete against older opponents.
"With the way he works, he's not fully grown yet and he's a big boy already," assistant coach Joel Berman said. "As he gets stronger... he could be one of the top players in this country in the next couple of years."
Even with the room for improvement, Bekker has done well for the Quakers during the fall. He made it to the finals of the "B" flight in his first tournament, the Princeton Invitational, before falling to David Nylen of St. John's.
However, Bekker showcased the amount of work he has put into his game since that first tournament, when he topped Nylen at the Penn Classic last weekend 6-1, 7-6. Bekker eventually advanced to the semifinals of the "A" bracket and also dominated in doubles play with Lynn as his partner until the duo fell in the final to Maryland's Ian Bliss and Scott Peters.
Despite his commitment to tennis and his education, Bekker is still having a typical college life.
"He's actually one of the funniest kids I've ever met -- he's a jokester," Berman said.
But Berman sees this jokester going places.
"Obviously it's not an easy transition, but I feel like he works hard in the classroom and he won't let himself fail," Berman said. "He's not afraid to say, 'Coach, I'm not doing this right, what can I do to make it better?'
"He only knows success throughout his schooling and his tennis."
