Komal Safdar cried into the phone.

Her coach, Shelley George, told Safdar that her competing days for Syracuse tennis might be over.

Safdar, then a rising junior, needed another surgery on her right wrist, but it posed serious risks. MRIs revealed nothing. Doctors would have to cut the wrist open to solve an unknown problem.

“There was a risk to make it worse just by cutting it open,” Safdar said. “We started talking about taking a medical (redshirt), but I was tired of always having to take time off. The coaches said it was up to me.”

The doctors found a microfracture and scar tissue from her first surgery. They repaired the damage as best they could.

But the surgery didn’t fix Safdar all the way. She could play, but it derailed her professional hopes, she said. Her career ended at Syracuse’s last match on April 22. After graduation, one of her teammates will jump into professional tennis and Safdar will work at a research lab in her hometown of Cincinnati before matriculating to medical school.

Though Safdar laments what could’ve been on the professional circuit, she doesn’t think a pro career would’ve been overwhelmingly successful. Others think she would’ve found ways to win, even though Safdar’s career almost never happened at all. Without a dim light bulb, a coach who accepted her Islamic beliefs and a drive to succeed, Safdar would have never played tennis at Syracuse.

“Looking back these past four years,” she said, “It’s been incredible to be here.”

**

The cracked, droopingly-netted tennis courts of Olde Montgomery Apartments are dimly lit by a single bulb.

Standing at one end, Safdar, 5-years-old, and at the other, her mother Wardha Safdar, the former two-time national collegiate ping-pong champion of Pakistan.

Wardha fed Safdar tennis balls from two large hoppers, which held about 100 balls each.

Before Safdar grew tall enough to play tennis, she’d perch upon couch cushions at one end of the family’s dining room table and play ping-pong against her mother.

Her father, Shahzad Safdar, was always driving to a tennis court. When Safdar was young, he left work as a nephrologist — a kidney specialist — and went straight to the courts despite arriving at 9 or 10 p.m. As Safdar grew older, he’d drive instead to her tournaments. Whenever he met his wife and daughter at the courts, Shahzad didn’t know the score and couldn’t tell if Safdar was winning or losing, he said, because her expression always stayed the same.

At Olde Montgomery, Shahzad replaced Wardha when her arm got tired and continued tossing. Shahzad, a badminton player who used to take his daughters to be his doubles partners at tournaments, fed Safdar tennis balls late into the night until, sometimes, it became early morning.

“If there was no light,” Safdar said. “I may never have been a tennis player.”

**

Safdar wanted to transfer away from Syracuse.

She had arrived at SU while still recovering from the first surgery, which removed bone-chips from her right wrist. She was held out of tennis until August, just days before she stepped into a new school with a demanding schedule and coach, Luke Jensen, a pro-minded coaching force who himself won the 1993 French Open doubles title with his brother.

She lost her first-ever collegiate match, 0-6, 0-6 and struggled to improve. Frustration built as she competed in three-month spurts before having to take a month off. Freshman to junior year, she never played over winter break.

“Maybe this isn’t the right place for me,” she said she thought. “Maybe pre-med, college tennis and professional tennis is too much.”

She talked with her parents and decided to stay.

She devoted herself to working around the injury. She tried using two hands on her forehand shot to alleviate the pain, then backhand only, then even playing left-handed. None of it worked.

“These are very expensive opportunities,” Jensen said. “The job of the athletic department is to win … There’s a lot of money on the line … but the way Safdar was absolutely dedicated, I knew she would do everything in her power to be ready.”

**

Safdar feared college coaches wouldn’t recruit her because of how she dressed.

A devout Muslim, Safdar didn’t wear tank tops and skirts like her opponents and teammates. She opted for sleeved-shirts and pants in every match since the beginning of high school, even in the 100-degree Florida heat.

But during recruiting, Jensen brought up the conversation first, telling Safdar he liked her devotion to her religion. It showed her character, he said.

Every year, Safdar participates in Ramadan, an Islamic month of dusk-to-dawn fasting, despite tournaments and training. Before Safdar’s freshman year, Ramadan ended just days before school started, when she’d have to complete Jensen’s fitness test — a five-mile run in less than 40 minutes on hilly Nottingham Road. That summer, Safdar trained late at night after the fast broke because she felt nervous, worried she wouldn’t be prepared. But when she ran, she passed.

Jensen focused on molding collegians into professionals, mentally and physically. The five-mile run, the 6 a.m. workouts and Challenge Week represented that for him, Safdar said.

Jensen used to call everyone on the phone during Challenge Week, the week that decided the line-up. Everyone understood where Jensen came from, Safdar said, and that he was trying to prepare them for a career on their own in the pros. Coach and player analyzed teammates, their strengths and, more importantly, weaknesses.

“It would gear you up to destroy your teammate,” Safdar said. “Whoever it was.”

The pro-focused approach Jensen brought to Syracuse changed in 2014. Later that year, Safdar told the interim-coach Shelley George she wouldn’t pursue the Women’s Tennis Association. It didn’t surprise George, Safdar said. In her senior year, Syracuse hired Younes Limam, a collegiate-centric coach.

Five-mile runs were replaced with shorter agility drills. The solo mentality faded and a team focus emerged. Limam never made it directly apparent teammates were competing, Safdar said. He hosted team dinners at which players couldn’t talk tennis. Limam didn’t do Challenge Week.

“With Jensen, he always said you should strive to be number one (in the line-up),” Safdar said. “With Limam, he said, ‘We’re putting you wherever we think will let us win the match.’”

**

The hands, wrapped in orange and blue beads, are clasped together tightly.

Wardha and Shahzad are sitting in the viewing room of SU Drumlins Tennis Center, watching their daughter play against Alexa Anton-Ohlmeyer of Georgia Tech. Safdar is one point away from winning her last-ever home collegiate match.

Anton-Ohlmeyer swatted the ball to Safdar, challenging her forehand, as she had all day. Safdar wore an orange band covering her right wrist. She returned the shot and a short volley ensued.

Safdar blasted a shot down the line, a forehand with a flick of her right wrist. And then Safdar’s opponent dumped a backhand into the net.

For the first time, Shahzad knew the outcome of a match by looking at his daughter’s face — even if it meant the end of one career and the start of another.

“I’m just happy to be out here. I’ve had a tough journey,” Safdar said. “To come out and play my best tennis at home…

“The smile on my face said it all.”

Published on May 7, 2015 at 8:01 am

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