Gamecock Tennis Alumna Wins National Championship on Another Court
Ana Marija Zubori (2006-2010) helped the South Carolina tennis team reach the NCAA quarterfinals in 2009, and in recent years, she replaced the racquet with a paddle to become a national champion. The 34-year-old recently won the American Platform Tennis Association national championship with her playing partner and former rival, Florentina Hanisch, earlier this month at the Canoe Brook Country Club in Summit, New Jersey.
“The final match was so exhausting, so it’s still a little bit surreal,” Zubori said of winning the championship. “It’s a big deal. I’m still recovering, but hopefully in a few days, it will sink in. Right now, I’m still tired.
“We had really difficult conditions. It was pouring rain in the semis. We had a long two-and-a half-hour match in the rain. That was rough. We survived that. In the finals, it was a total emotional rollercoaster. We were trailing the whole match and lost the first set 6-3. They were two points away from winning it multiple times. We came back and won the second set 7-6 and won the third set 7-5. After playing the whole day in the rain, I was still feeling it two days later. It just took so much out of me, emotionally and physically. It was one of the hardest tests I ever had in my professional or college career for tennis or now for paddle.”
Platform, or paddle, tennis is an outdoor sport that is normally played in cooler weather but can be played year-round on a court smaller than a regular tennis court, which is surrounded by wire fencing that allows you to play the ball off the screens. Players use a much shorter and heavier paddle instead of a regular tennis racquet. Zubori started playing platform in 2015.
“At first, I didn’t want to take up another racquet sport as my body was getting older, and I didn’t want to do anything to further damage my shoulder or anything else,” Zubori said. “I tried it with some friends, and I fell in love with it. I feel very motivated, and I look forward to playing paddle tournaments this season more than I ever did playing tennis, and I was once ranked on the WTA Tour. This is just another excitement level.”
For someone who has always had to be fit to play her sport well, Zubori really enjoys the mental aspect of paddle tennis as well.
“I love that paddle is about being smart,” Zubori said. “It’s like playing chess on a mini tennis court where being patient and being smart and having the right strategy is what pays off. I think tennis, especially in the last 15 years, has become so physical, you have to be gifted with height and strength to have an edge. Maybe 25 years ago, if you were good and had good racquet skills, you could become a professional player. Now, a lot of former professional tennis players turn to paddle because it’s about resilience, consistency, and teamwork because it’s a doubles sport. Being athletic is certainly an advantage, but it’s not the most important part of the game. It’s more about being a good mental strategist. The older you get, the better you are.
“There are some (tennis) Grand Slam winners who play paddle. Jared Palmer won Wimbledon in doubles, and he switched to paddle. A lot more have discovered it. It’s a great social game, too.”
“It’s getting more popular, especially after COVID because people didn’t want to play anything indoors over the winter.”
Zubori teamed up with Florentina Hanisch, a native of Sao Paulo, Brazil, who had been her biggest competition in previous years and realized they should play together.
“This was our first national tournament together, but we hope to bring home more (championships) in the future!”
Zubori played for the Gamecocks from 2006-2010.
While the game is somewhat new to Zubori, it’s by no means a new sport.
“The sport is actually very old,” Zubori explained. “This was the 90th year of nationals. It was something that was played to sort of replace tennis in winter months in the northeast. Clubs wanted to keep their members active, so they come up with the idea for the smaller court on a platform where they could easily shovel off the snow. Now it’s more sophisticated, and they have heaters in the platforms that make the games playable even when it snows and it’s freezing.
“It’s really popular in the northeast and places like Chicago. It’s really in almost all the states now. It’s getting more popular, especially after COVID because people didn’t want to play anything indoors over the winter.”
Zubori was part of South Carolina’s 2009 team which reached the NCAA Quarterfinals for the second time in program history and first since 1982. She earned All-SEC honors in each of her four seasons with the Gamecocks. Born in Serbia, Zubori moved to France when she was 12 before coming to South Carolina for college where she earned a degree in international relations.
She recently visited her alma mater and enjoyed reliving some of her college memories while also seeing what’s new on campus.
“I really enjoyed seeing that beautiful new tennis facility (Carolina Tennis Center), and I really hope I’ll be able to come back and watch a football game,” Zubori said. “I spoke to some of our tennis players there now and told them about platform tennis.”
Zubori currently lives in Westport, Conn., and is the director of platform tennis at the Country Club of New Canaan.
