Where in the world was Farris Gosea?

In 2014, Farris Gosea took an enormous step forward.

After playing mostly at No. 6 singles for the Illinois men’s tennis team during his sophomore year in 2012, Gosea had climbed to become the team’s No. 1 singles player, won Big Ten Player of the Year and was an All-American in singles.

He was nowhere to be found in the Illini’s line-up this past fall.

Where was Gosea? While the Illini traveled around their fall circuit of top-flight collegiate tournaments, Gosea was traveling the world on the professional Futures circuit.

“It was good experience to see how to manage yourself from week to week and just how much different is,” Gosea said. “I traveled a lot to try to maximize the time I had … It’s incredibly hectic I would say, you got to be able to deal with situations you wouldn’t want to be in, but you just have to get through and just win matches.”

From the first day of classes to his return to the team on January 21, Gosea traveled nearly 17,600 miles. He played in tournaments in Mexico, Canada, Texas, Florida, California, France and Great Britain. For stretches of the fall he played in tournaments for as many as six weeks straight.

While Gosea and the rest of the Illini play professional tournaments over the summer to try to win professional points and improve their ATP rankings, life on the tour was something new. Instead of returning to Champaign for the fall, Gosea took the fall semester off of school to continue the tournament circuit he played over the summer.

He talked to head coach Brad Dancer and assistant coach Marcos Asse after a successful summer, and they thought it was a good idea. Gosea was alone. While he frequently called Dancer and Asse, it wasn’t the same as having a coach there to watch his matches.

Asse said that Gosea accomplished “everything he wanted to and more” in accumulating points and rising in the ATP ranks. His fall campaign was highlighted with a tournament title at the Mayfair Men’s $15K Futures tournament in Markham, Canada, on September 21, which skyrocketed him from 893 to 616 in the rankings.

After a little over a semester of playing on the tour, Gosea sits at No. 563 in the world.

Where in the world is Farris Gosea?

Now, Gosea is in Champaign, getting ready for a first round NCAA Tournament match against UW-Green Bay.

“(I’m) definitely real excited to kick off at home,” Gosea said. “Everyone’s just really looking forward to Friday. People don’t want to practice anymore; people just want to play.”

Gosea has reason to be excited. This 25-4 Illini team is the best that he has been a part of in his four years at Illinois. The Illini are the No. 4 seed in the NCAA Tournament.

But Asse said that it took some time for Gosea to get back in the swing of things after his fall on the professional circuit.

“All the travel and downtime maybe took its toll a little bit in the beginning of the season,” Asse said. “He lost a few matches I don’t think he should’ve lost just because he wasn’t in quite as good of shape.”

Gosea recognizes that college tennis is a completely different game.

“While in college tennis, there’s all the fans and everything getting a bit crazy; sometimes it kind of takes away from the tennis aspect of it,” Gosea said.

He’s come back to leave a mark on the team’s excellent 2015 campaign, playing mostly at the No. 1 and No. 2 singles spot. In a thrilling third-set tiebreaker against then-No. 2 Brayden Schnur, Gosea clinched the then-No. 8 Illini’s upset win over then-No. 6 North Carolina on January 31.

The Atkins Tennis Center was electric, and Gosea was swarmed by teammates and fans after the win. Dancer called it the night that “the legend of Farris Gosea” was born. Gosea was integral to the Illini’s dominating Big Ten championship run — he was one of two Illini to win all three of his tournament singles matches.

Where in the world will Farris Gosea be?

Gosea’s official Fighting Illini biography says that he wants to play professional tennis or be an astronaut. For now, Gosea’s plan is to stay on Earth and play professional tennis after graduation.

Asse says that it’s hard to tell if players will succeed at the next level after college, but Gosea has the tools to do so.

“We have no idea who has the ability to make it,” Asse said. “He’s already proven that he’s a very good player. Whether or not we’re going to be watching him on TV or not someday is anybody’s guess, but he certainly has a lot of the physical attributes to show that he can survive on the tour.”

After his experience in the fall, Gosea can jump more fully into the Pro Circuit. He said the points he accumulated will allow him to enter Futures tournaments as a seeded player and get him into some Challenger tournaments, the next level before the ATP World Tour.

Illinois has had success in getting players to the next level: Kevin Anderson, Amer Delic and Rajeev Ram are some of the more prominent to have successful pro careers. Anderson is currently No. 17 in the world, Delic peaked at No. 60, and Ram is top-150.

Gosea’s long-term goal is to become the highest-ranked Illini ever to go pro.

In the short term after the season ends, Gosea wants to go to England to play British Challengers, with the hope of vying for a wild card bid into Wimbledon.

But Gosea isn’t ready to say goodbye to college tennis just yet. He said it will be hard to reflect until he plays his last match with Illinois. And Gosea hopes that doesn’t come until he goes on one more trip with the Illini: to Waco, Texas, with the hopes of bringing home an NCAA Championship.

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