Sandie Knight is the co-captain of the ETSU women’s tennis team.
Last season, she played in the top half of the singles line-up, mostly at the No. 1 position, and played No. 2 doubles with partner Elena Volobueva.
A transfer from Wake Forest University, she is originally from Newcastle, Australia, a coastal city an hour north of Sydney.
In fact, if she had more time outside of tennis, she’d do more traveling to the beach, she said.
She’s a senior this year, majoring in journalism with a minor in sports management, and she hopes to graduate in December 2006.
She was kind enough to answer a few quick questions in the midst of her busy fall tournament schedule.
I had to ask her about transferring from a highly touted school like Wake Forest to ETSU. Why did she do it?
“I transferred because I wanted more playing time; we had nine girls on our team and had to rotate in and out of the lineup,” she said.
Obviously, academics were also an issue. “Because [Wake] concentrated so heavily on academics, our class schedule was restricted to fewer hours each semester, and I would have had to complete a lot of summer school to get finished on time – and the summer is the time of year that I get to go home. They didn’t have a journalism major, either.”
She misses her friends and teammates at Wake Forest, and points out that she benefitted from the time she spent there. “I liked how competitive the team was; we were always fighting just for a spot in the line-up.
“It was also fun being ranked highly, and I learned a lot from playing against the top schools in the nation. I had a lot of good experiences there because of tennis,” she said.
However, she feels that ETSU is a better fit, with its more relaxed atmosphere. “[ETSU] is a bigger school, which means a bigger choice of subjects, a bigger campus, more things going on, and more people to meet,” she said
Since she doesn’t own a car, she said it helps that “the city is so small that everything is nearby.”
As far as tennis is concerned, she said, “I feel like [the move was] good for my tennis because I can play higher in the lineup against good players, and coach [Brooks] spends a lot of time [practicing] with us whenever we need it. Plus,” she adds with a smile, “my boyfriend is here.”
I asked Knight if she has had to deal with any American misconceptions of Australians, and whether or not things like Outback Steakhouse or the Crocodile Hunter bother her.
“Nothing bothers me, and I think it’s funny when people ask me if I really have kangaroos in my backyard,” she said. “And, no, Outback is not Australian food, it is American food called slang Australian names – it’s still good food, though. I like it.
“I also like being able to flick over to The Crocodile Hunter every now and then so I can hear some good Aussie talk. It does sound funny to me, though, after being here for a while. Sometimes I wonder, ‘Is that really how I sound?'”
Knight is enjoying her time immensely here at ETSU and is in no hurry to leave. She feels that her options are wide open, and she’s not sure whether she’ll stay in the United States or return to her native Australia.
“[My career] will probably have to do with either playing tennis or writing about it. I really have no clue, I have a couple of years to go here yet,” she said.

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