OhioTennisZone.com Interview
THURSDAY,
OhioTennisZone Interview of St. Charles' Reece Yakubov | Districts!
The first OTZ boys interview of the season is with Reece Yakubov. Yakubov is a senior at St. Charles which is in Columbus.
Yakubov comes from a tennis / golf family (while his two brothers may refer to it as a golf / tennis family).. Yakubov started playing tennis with his brothers when he was 5 or 6. Connor [photo] is his oldest brother and he graduated from St. Charles in 2015. After playing golf for Emory, he now works for Diamond Hill Capital Management in Columbus. Evan [photo], a 2017 St. Charles graduate, just finished his undergrad in finance from the University of Indiana where he plays golf. Evan will return for a fifth year of golf while pursuing his MBA. Yakubov's father, Steven, is a cardiologist at Riverside while his mother, Tracey, keeps everyone in line. Tracey had worked as a nurse before having children.
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St. Charles' Reece Yakubov - Click to team page |
Since St. Charles had in-person school the entire school year, Yakubov felt good about his academics this year. Last year was more difficult because of the shut downs. "Losing the back half of my junior year, I could definitely tell that we didn't get to quite as much, and that it was way tougher to learn online on the computer versus face to face."
Academically, Yakubov enjoys the material in a math and science curriculum. He has taken eight AP's: Biology, Latin, English Comp, Calc AB, Calc BC, Physics 1, Physics 2, and Statistics. He liked AP Biology the most. He plans to major in finance or pre-med in college.
Yakubov is a 5-star player on TennisRecruiting.net [link] and he is ranked #1 on OhioTennisZone. It is very difficult to do this but he has continued to improve throughout his high school years. He was 100th in the country in his age group in 2018, 111th in 2019, 78th in 2020, and he is ranked 48th now. His Universal Tennis Rating has risen significantly in the past year, going from 10.8 in June to 11.85 in the most recent posting. And in one of the best turning lemons into lemonade stories, what gets the credit? "Back in March when schools got shutdown, I went and played all day. (....) It's weird to say but COVID may have been the best thing to happen to my tennis game because I was able to spend way more time on the court. Also in March, I started working with David Kass in the KTA (Kass Tennis Academy) group with Balazs Novak and Patrick Thompson and they have helped me tremendously as well." Yakubov also works with OSU's Justin Kronauge, but was limited in doing so because of Ohio State's COVID-19 restrictions.
Where is he going to play college tennis? "I selected Ohio State. I like being close to home and I think that it provides me a great opportunity to balance academics and some high level tennis. I also think my relationship with the coaching staff / players helped make that decision a little easier. I also considered Purdue University of University of Pennsylvania."
His favorite shot is "definitely my inside-out forehand. My biggest weapon is probably my forehand but I like being aggressive from both groundstrokes."
As for his OhioTennisZone usage, “I like to check in on scores from around the state. OTZ makes it easy to see how some of my friends from Cleveland or Cincinnati are doing."
One of his goals this year was to win the Central Catholic League and the team accomplished that last Monday when they beat Bishop Watterson. For his individual goals, "I want to make a run at the state title. There are a lot of good players in the state, I am just looking forward to competing against them for a title."
What does he like about high school tennis? "The team atmosphere. The season is truly way different than summer USTA tournaments because there are fans and teammates cheering you on. In high school, the match isn’t always about me."
He needs to get through Districts first, but States is not foreign territory for Yakubov. He reached the finals in D1 dubs with Jack Dabek as a freshman in 2018. They lost in a marathon three setter [pdf] to New Albany's Devin Boyer and Nathan Jose. That match included two court changes due to rain. The last thing a cramping player wants to do is to stop moving and Dabek was forced to do that as they moved indoors. In 2019, Yakubov lost to Springboro's Sai Dore in singles [pdf].
Service projects were also hampered by COVID-19, but Yakubov shared, "I am involved with some service projects through St. Charles, specifically the Brian Muha Run the Race Foundation. I enjoy the time I get to spend with the kids, although it has been very limited with COVID.
In addition to tennis, Yakubov also excels in golf. He led the St. Charles team and until his junior year, he was strongly considering playing golf in college.
St. Charles Coach Max Quinton added this about Yakubov, "Reece's performance both on the court and off has been exceptional. His demeanor on the court is cool and determined and drills shots off both sides with amazing ease. He is also a scratch golfer and a scholar athlete. He is one of the nicest young men I have worked with!"
His social media vice is Twitter and his handle is @ReeceYakubov.
Best of luck to Reece (and everyone else) at Districts.
