MARIO ANCIC

http://www.atptennis.com/1/en/2008news/ancic_lawdegree.asp

April 16, 2008
Ancic Earns Law Degree from University of Split
© Paun Paunovic
Mario Ancic has enjoyed an outstanding tennis career by finishing in the Top 10, helping his country to the Davis Cup title, reaching the semifinals at Wimbledon and winning three career ATP titles.

But the 24-year-old Croat's proudest moment off-court came Monday in his hometown of Split where he officially became a graduate of the Law School of the University of Split.

On Sunday, after leading his country to a 3-2 Davis Cup victory over Italy by winning the fifth and decisive rubber, Ancic drove four hours back home to get ready for his "huge day" on Monday.

In front of a crowd of 300 people, that included students and professors in the Law program, members of the Croatian Olympic Committee, Administer of Sport, family and friends, Ancic gave his 45-minute thesis on "ATP Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow," describing the legal foundation and organization of the ATP Tour. Afterwards, Ancic took questions from professors and students.

"When I was going to high school with childhood friends I was always good in school and I wanted to see if I could do it," said Ancic, who began the law program at the end of 2002. "It was a lot of work and I always wanted to play tennis but this is why I decided to continue and it was a huge day for me yesterday."

"Obviously it's not easy to compare (to tennis) but these will be memories I will cherish for the rest of my life."

When Ancic was sidelined last year for nearly six months due to illness and injury, he became an everyday student and said, "It wasn't good for my tennis not playing but I had something to focus on while I was out. This was good and I used my time well. I was spending a lot of time there and it was normal life for a 23-year-old not playing tennis."

Ancic says education has always been stressed in his family. Older brother, Ivica, who played pro tennis briefly, earned a degree in economics, and younger sister, Sanja, who was a Top 10 junior in the world, is studying pharmacy in Zagreb.

"It shows the part of our family, the sport is big for us, but we always try to do both," said Ancic. "It is so important and last year I had a lot of problems, and one day, it shows you what will you do when you're not going to be playing tennis? You never know what could happen the next day. It's something that's going to stay with me for my lifetime."

Ancic wrote his 68-page thesis in Croatian and he plans to get it translated in English and wants to give it to whoever is interested in reading it. "I want to thank Etienne (de Villiers) for helping with this and everybody with the ATP for their time."

When asked what he will do with his Law degree, Ancic said, "It's something that can open many doors after my tennis career and I hope to play eight to 10 more years. I would like to put together the sport and law that I like much and hopefully help the interests of the players."

The university's graduation ceremony is next month at a date to be announced, and Ancic said if he is in the middle of a tournament, he knows the one place he will be. "Wherever I am, that one day I will be there for sure in my cap and gown."


Mario Ancic Player Profile

Well done, Mario! :ok:

Well done Mario!

The only graduate in the top 100 I'd imagine, tennis players turning pro as young as they do.

Incidentally, the high-pitched chimp-like shrieking you can hear in the background is leaking over from 606, where this news has become a Weak Era thread.

:wacko: :wacko: :wacko: :wacko: :wacko:

Maybe they mean the Lawyers' weak era! Law studies are pretty tough and long usually and knowing how demanding it is to practise a sport at this level, I m really surprised Ancic got enough time to learn Law and pass the exams at such an early age.

well done Ancic :clap:

this doesn't mean he's qualified lawyer though, it simply means he has a law degree - and actually, as he's 24 it effectively looks like he's done it part-time as a 6 year degree. Must still have been tough for him though as he was obviously on the tour and has glandular fever for 6 months :unsure: his thesis actually sounds interesting though :ok:

Good that he has other talents and focused on something while he was out. :ok:

I wonder how he's gonna qulaify as a lawyer though fi he wants to. I can't see him wanting to make tea for 3 yrs in a law firm on a meagre salary :lol:

It seems he put the time he was out with injuries to a good use - I doubt he would have had the degree now if he had been playing on the tour. Even so, it is impressive that he was able to do this - he is clearly a very disciplined young man. :ok:

Congratulations to Mario A. An athlete with a brain? Imagine that!!!!! Seriously though that's great news. I'm not sure how the system works in his country but I'm sure they have something similar to the bar exam in the US that he will need to take.

Ljubicic is a very intelligent man, something many don't see as he hardly gets the headlines and the interviews. I think he might have a degree ro something.

very intelligent, but not very exciting - did you read his blog a while back? jeez...... :rolleyes: very very dry.......

No I didn't. I might look out of interest. I saw him on TV speaking once and he came over as very articulate and intelligent, and he seems quite thoughtful and sensitive. Mind you when I saw him at Wimby he hardly said a word to anyone, just sat there. He didnt; look very well either bless :lol:

It would just make a change if we saw some intelligent players speaking more often, but they go for the glamour boys to often who say very little of interest. Tipsarevic si quite clever as well, as I am sure you know ;)

actually, I suspect they're all quite intelligent really. Most of the players who aren't English can speak it and usually various other languages too (Federer being the best example, but Safin speaks English, Russian, Spanish and French :blink: ) Most of them are fairly articulate when interviewed - even Nadal does quite well in Spanish. They're all pretty good at analysing their own games too, none of this "I gave 120% and it just wasn't good enough" stuff - it's more "well, on the 3rd point of the 5th game......" and yes, Tipsy is quite intelligent too :wub:

Oh I know, I'm not implying they are thick at all. I just notice that some of them we never really get to know because of who they focus on most. Like poor Davydenko only got focused on when there was betting scandal!

well, it's just how the media is really. Tbf, the ATP site is generally pretty good - when they were doing their blogs they asked lots of different people to do them (hence why Tursunov ended up becoming so popular!) and they will give headlines on their front page to a variety of people. But it's up to the media who they choose to focus on I guess - so yeah, they pick the good looking ones, or those who are funny or jokey or have interesting stories (I'm sure it's one of the reasons why the media loved the Serbs when they first came on the scene, not only are they good looking, but they grew up in a wartorn country - makes good reading :unsure: )

Man I really "stuck my foot in my mouth" didn't I??? :doh: (I posted the same comment in another forum & got some folks over there upset too) . In the US there's always some report on the news about college athletes who are doing poorly in their studies and the coaches are pulling strings to get them to play. This was a joke-apparently a bad one.
:(

awww....no duchess, don't worry. you started an interesting discussion :ok: In this country footballers have always had the reputation of being thick, so i understand where you're coming from :hug:

thank you dinky. You mentioned how Roger & Marat can speak multiple languages. I remember watching an interview with Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario :wub: years ago where she was answering questions in her native Spanish, English, Italian, and some other language-I was very impressed.

Yep. Funny you should mention Serbia cos my partne ris absolutely sick of hearing about that. I think there was an Ivanovic interview where she said her and her dad had to cycle for 1hr to get to a court. So what? :rolleyes: My partner's dad used to have them cycle miles in Holland cos they had no choice. And my dad used to walk 6 miles to school. Cracked me up how they made so much of it.

Speaking multiple languages doesn't always equal to intelligence...Feck knows, the players who do speak many languages might have simply been taught three of them from the very beginning! That's my case actually, my parents taught me English, French and Japanese all at once, and if people ask me what my mothertongue is, I can't really give a proper answer. And although I shouldn't already be judging my language-learning ability, I honestly feel that I'm absolutely useless at learning languages at school. Plus, I feel like a real outcast, I can't speak any of the languages like a native person. My English has a Japanese accent, my French sometimes lacks vocabulary and my Japanese is quite simply crap. Basically, all this language-learning might not be such a good idea :wacko: So listen to this, children: stick to one language in your early years.