Nikita Snezhko becomes first active UND tennis player of D-I era to earn professional ATP point

Aug. 31—GRAND FORKS — A week before fall semester began, UND tennis player Nikita Snezhko took a trip to Memphis to visit friends and try to compete in an ITF World Tennis Tour tournament.

He did a bit more than that.

Snezhko and doubles partner Jake Trondson made the main doubles draw in Memphis and knocked off the doubles team of Ireland's Conor Gannon and the United Kingdom's David Stevenson in the first round.

Thanks to that win, Snezhko earned two ATP points, officially putting him into the world tennis rankings.

He is the first active UND tennis player of the Division-I era (since 2012) to earn ATP points in singles or doubles. Andreja Petrovic, who transferred to Florida State after one year at UND, earned ATP points in singles after leaving Grand Forks.

"I was so relieved," Snezhko said. "I didn't want to end up losing that match. It was such a good opportunity to get (an ATP) point. To finish it out and win was pretty massive. I was super pumped for the rest of the tournament."

Snezhko, who transferred to UND after three seasons at Iowa, played No. 1 doubles with Gerhard Sullwald last season. They went 13-5 at that spot.

"Playing No. 1 doubles last year at North Dakota helped a lot," said Snezhko, who will use his fifth and final year of college eligibility this season. "I became more comfortable playing people at that level."

Snezhko played in an ITF tournament three years ago, but lost his only match.

This time, Snezhko and Trondson won 6-3, 4-6, 10-6. They fell behind 3-1 in the third set super tiebreaker, but rallied back. It was 5-5 when Snezhko and Trondson won five of the last six points to close out the victory.

Snezhko had a flight back to the Twin Cities scheduled for Thursday of that week, but had to change it because he was still playing.

In the quarterfinals, they ran into the tournament's No. 1 seed — Abraham Asaba of Ghana and Shunsuke Mitsui of Japan — and lost 6-4, 6-1.

"It was a good opportunity to play the No. 1 seed and play high-level opponents," Snezhko said. "Overall, it was an unreal experience to be playing."

After his experience in Memphis, Snezhko is aiming high for his final college season, and he's planning to play tennis beyond that.

"It was kind of a wake-up call for me," Snezhko said. "Playing in this sort of level opened my viewpoint on my tennis and what I want from it going into this season, and knowing what I want to do with tennis after college. I'm going to proceed on playing tennis after college and seeing what I can do. Winning the (ATP) point and playing in that tournament gave me a good experience. I know what I want to do with tennis moving on."