Lone senior provides leadership for men's tennis team

As a freshman from Peru, Santiago Gruter remembers one of the first differences in culture and climate.

“We would go to our morning workouts in mid-September, and I remember thinking to myself, ‘Wow, this is really cold right now,’” Gruter said. “I was definitely surprised how cold it got by the time we got to February.”

Gruter, who is now the only senior on the IU men’s tennis team, said the transition to living in a new country and playing collegiate tennis was tough at first but has given him a good perspective to help his younger teammates.

“My first semester I really had no idea what to expect. It went by so quickly, and you only have so much time to soak everything in,” Gruter said. “I understand what some of our freshman are going through now, especially Dimitrije (Tasic), who came from Serbia to play tennis. I have been in his shoes.”

Gruter said when he was a freshman he was lucky to have three seniors on the team to take him under their wings, which he is now trying to duplicate this year.

“The first week Dimitrije was here, he was staying at our apartment,” Gruter said. “It was kind of funny because you see the cultural differences and try to help him out by saying ‘you shouldn’t do that here, or this is how it is in our culture,’ but those are just little adjustments that could really mean a lot to him.”

Head coach Randy Blomendaal said Santi, as his teammates and coaches call him, will be one of the leaders of the tennis team this year.

“Any time you’re the only senior on a team, you are going to be a leader, so I think he will naturally take on some leadership roles this year,” Bloemendaal said. “Leading by example is huge. The young guys look at you, and every little thing you do — from how you study to when you go to bed at night — so they can learn for themselves.”

One quality of Gruter that younger players might wish to emulate is his internal drive.  

Throughout all of the battles on and off the court, Bloemendaal said Gruter’s determination has kept him going.

“I think Santi has been resilient over his last three years,” Bloemendaal said. “He has
always battled to try and find out where excellence is at and he hasn’t given up in the process. He has gone through some frustrating times, but he still keeps getting up every day to try and figure it out.”

In his final season, Gruter has set his sights on pushing himself each day to set the standard for the rest of the guys, a daily goal that Bloemendaal said he believes will lead to success.

“Santi is capable of accomplishing anything that he sets his mind to, but it’s just that process of really knocking out those details day in and day out,” Bloemendaal said. “I feel like Santi has consistently been about 80 percent of what he can accomplish, so to get him up to that 90th or 100th percentile, I think we will be able to redefine his goals every week.”