University tennis is the one corner of the sport where hushed silence gives way to deafening noise. For athletes entering the University of Calgary Dinos Tennis Team, unlearning the lifetime of polite, quiet and solitary play is the first real hurdle.
“All of a sudden, you’re not your own player. Your wins are all collective,” said veteran player Maya Elsaghir, who joined the Dinos at 17, after ranking in the top four throughout her youth.
“I was playing my match, and they’re like, ‘Go, Dinos! Go!’ I couldn’t focus at first. But if the other team is hyped up, I can’t be telling my team to tone it down. I had to adjust.” said Elsaghir.
That mental shift from individual isolation to a collective drive defines the team’s identity.
After years of traversing the junior circuit where opponents can never truly be friends, the Dinos offer built-in camaraderie and shared accountability.
“All of a sudden, you’re not just your own player. Your wins are all collective,” said Elsaghir.
Resilience on and off the court
The depth of the team’s culture was tested last season. Days before her third year, Elsaghir contracted a severe infection while travelling, leading to septic shock and level-one meningitis. The health crisis forced her into an eight-day stay in the intensive care unit and months of rehabilitation.
“If you get to level-two septic shock, you’re basically brain dead. I got very lucky,” Elsaghir told The Gauntlet.
In her absence, the team began building a new roster from scratch because most of their previous members had graduated. Captain Isabella Kabaluk worked to unite the team and continued to showcase the structures of resilience and support that the tennis team is founded on.
That culture paved the way for Elsaghir’s dramatic return four months later at January regionals.
Still recovering and barely able to run, Elsaghir was determined to play to remain eligible for the Academic All-Canadian award, which she’d won every year of university.
Opting into a singles match against the University of Alberta — the sitting national champions — Elsaghir tested her determination and felt supported by her teammates as she stumbled onto the court.
After dropping the first set, she rallied to take the second before claiming a 10-1 tiebreaker victory, earning her first-ever regionals win in a Dinos uniform.
“My coach and I looked at each other like, ‘What just happened?’ I should not have won that,” Elsaghir said. “There was just so much willpower.”
Operating at an upper calibre
While operating under the title of a club sport, the team executes high-performance discipline. Alongside training nearly 10 hours a week in the Alberta Tennis Centre, players also follow a conditioning plan designed by Rick Hesketh, the former head strength and conditioning coach for the Calgary Flames hockey club.
With the men’s team claiming the regional title last year, the team continues to prove its ability to compete at a national standard.
Open tryouts took place throughout September, with one held Saturday, Sept. 12, and two more held Sept. 19 and 20. The team is eager to fill an eight to nine member roster with fresh talent and hopes for greater campus visibility.
“Everyone I talk to tells me that they totally would go; they just never even knew this [the tennis team] was a thing,” said Elsaghir.
For Elsaghir, three words capture what recruits and fans can expect from the program:
“Dedicated, fun and resilient.”
A game schedule will be posted on the Dinos Tennis Website, and home games are free for all University of Calgary students to attend.
