It’s All Academic : Stanford’s Ania Bleszynski Is Excelling in the Classroom, But Her Tennis Game Isn’t Quite Making the Grade

Frank Brennan has seen just about everything in his 18 seasons as women’s tennis coach at Stanford.

But he’s never had a player quite like Ania Bleszynski and at times that troubles him.

She came to Stanford from Thousand Oaks three years ago as the No. 1 player in the United States in 18-and-under singles, and today she will return to play in the Pacific 10 Conference Championships in the Ojai Valley Tournament.

The 6-foot-1 1/2 junior All-American, who has what Brennan calls the most powerful serve in Division I, reached the semifinals of the NCAA Championships in singles and doubles last year.

Brennan says she’s an All-American in the classroom, as well. Last week he submitted his nomination of Bleszynski, a physics major with a 3.6 grade-point average, for Rolex-Intercollegiate Tennis Assn. scholar athlete of the year.

“We’ve had some Phi Beta Kappas here and there, but no physics majors,” Brennan said. “She’s a brilliant student and she works really hard.”

In her pursuit to become the ultimate student athlete, some say Bleszynski, who studies for four hours every day, works too hard.

Her devotion to academics apparently is the primary reason why her Rolex-ITA ranking dropped from No. 2 before the season to No. 51, though she and Julie Scott have held their No. 2 position in doubles.

Athletic-academic tug-of-wars are common at Stanford.

What makes Bleszynski unique is she has chosen physics, perhaps the most difficult field of study on campus.

“She always takes the hardest classes on the team,” teammate Sandra DeSilva said.

When most of her teammates are focused on tennis, Bleszynski is pondering Albert Einstein’s formula E equals MC squared.

“The problem is a lot of her classes are in the afternoon and they interfere with tennis practice,” Brennan said. “Academics wins.”

Within this dilemma, Bleszynski has put more pressure on herself to please both sides.

“It’s not really that hard for me to do both,” she said. “But my coach and my teammates expect me to be a tennis player.

“My professors understand I play tennis. But they say, ‘If you’re interested in the subject, do the work.’ ”

Bleszynski didn’t miss a beat in February, when road trips caused her to skip nearly half her lectures, but her tennis suffered.

She lost three three-set matches against top-10 players Karin Miller of Duke, Dawn Buth of Florida and Divya Merchant of Florida that month and she has been on a slide ever since.

Her 25-9 record appears solid, but it includes three defeats against opponents who were unranked and two against Nos. 69 and 75.

Further damaging in a ranking system that favors higher seeded players, Bleszynski has a 10-4 record at Nos. 4 and 5 singles in dual matches.

The low point for Bleszynski came last weekend. Instead of playing at USC and UCLA, she sat with her friends and family and watched the singles after Brennan benched her.

“It was tough to do because I’m fond of her personally,” Brennan said.

Said Bleszynski, “I don’t want to feel sorry for myself. And I don’t.”

But for one weekend at least, Bleszynski was seemingly punished for being a good student.

Today she has another chance to salvage her season. She returns to singles in hopes of leading the No. 2 Cardinal (26-1) to a third consecutive Pac-10 title at Ojai, where she won five championships as a junior.

“I’m excited to play,” she said. “Ojai is probably my favorite tournament of the year. It could definitely help me get my confidence back.”

Bleszynski should have no trouble getting past unranked Katy Proprsta of Arizona State in her first-round match at 8 a.m. at the Ojai Valley Inn.

Brennan hopes to see the same Bleszynski who played here two years ago and nearly upset eventual NCAA champion Kari Phebus of UCLA in the semifinals. In the past, Brennan has compared Bleszynski to 1996 Olympic gold medalist Lindsay Davenport but says Ania’s the better athlete.

“When her serve is working, it’s awesome,” Brennan said. “It’s like a fastball. But when her confidence is down, it’s 130 miles per hour into the net.

“This year, she’ll get into a match and start berating herself. It’s mental.”

If the Cardinal wasn’t challenging Florida for the No. 1 ranking, Brennan might be losing sleep over his dream player’s nightmare season.

But he isn’t, in part because Bleszynski and Scott have excelled in doubles with a 16-4 record.

What will it take for Bleszynski to get back on track in singles?

Practice, and lots of it.

“She just needs to start practicing hard and winning some matches,” said Debbie Graham, who won the NCAA singles title for the Cardinal in 1990 and now plays professionally. “As a freshman, I was the No. 1 player in the country, like her, and I didn’t play No. 1 [for Stanford] after I beat everybody in practice.

“But in college tennis, there’s six other individuals to deal with. It’s too bad she’s moping about it right now. These will be some of your best times in tennis.”

Brennan has written 1996 off as a bad year for his once rising star, but he says she can return to the top by rededicating herself to tennis this summer.

“If she wants to get back to one or two in the country, she has to make that commitment,” he said.

Bleszynski shrugs her shoulders at the notion that she didn’t work hard in the summer while she took a job studying DNA in a campus laboratory.

“Frank has said a number of times, ‘If you weren’t concentrating on DNA last summer, you’d be better,’ ” she said. “Well, I lifted weights, I ran wind sprints and I played tennis every day. I was in the best shape ever.

“I can understand where he’s coming from. He’s a tennis coach. He wants to win. That’s his sole goal. I want to win as well. And, of course I want to play singles.

“This is a shock to me. This is the first time I’ve not played.”

Her occupation with science will continue this summer.

Bleszynski will work in an ongoing joint project between Stanford, NASA and the Lockheed Corp. to prove Einstein’s theory of relativity in an experiment. His formula has only been proven mathematically, she said.

Bleszynski’s parents, Elizabeth and Marek, are both physicists, but she insists her interest in science came naturally and without prodding.

“When told my parents I had picked this for a major they were kind of surprised,” she said. “They said, ‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ ”

The learning bug has never hit Bleszynski harder than it has within the past year. All the theories, concepts and mathematical rudiments that were once confusing are starting to make sense.

Now she looks forward to studying organic chemistry and computer science, and pondering magnetism and relativity.

“I love the problem-solving process,” she said. “The more you learn, the more of these things you can use as tools in the learning process.”

Bleszynski want to pursue a graduate degree in physics, perhaps at Harvard or Caltech. Brennan wonders, where does this leave her tennis career?

“She might play pro tennis, she might not,” Brennan said. “Neither decision would surprise me. I would like to see her play pro tennis and go to graduate school later.”

Bleszynski will save those decisions for next year. Right now she needs to break out of a slump.

“It’s kind of a big one,” she said. “But I see myself playing some tough players at Ojai and showing myself that I can play.”