St. Bernard’s Alex Zuczek is The Day’s All-Area Boys’ Tennis Player of the Year
St. Bernard’s Alex Zuczek caps his distinguished career with a Class S state championship
Alex Zuczek is well-versed in a variety of topics. Sometimes, his place of employment is at the top of the list. Zuczek, the recent St. Bernard School graduate, has worked at the Terra Firma Farm in North Stonington for several summers and often times comes home with a story about one of the younger children who attend camp there, his father Richard said.
There are his academics. Zuczek wrote a 33-page English paper just before graduation on the differences between romanticism in Europe and America. He's happy to recite of few of the contrasts.
And then there's tennis, where Zuczek leaves St. Bernard as the fourtime Eastern Connecticut Conference singles champion and the winner of this year's Class S state tournament.
Zuczek, who will play tennis beginning next year at Division III Carleton College in Northfield, Minn., was named The Day's 2017 All-Area Boys' Tennis Player of the Year, a distinction he's earned for four straight seasons.
“They travel a lot. The boys have different hobbies. We try to get them to think about bigger things,” said Richard Zuczek, who is the deputy head of humanities and the senior historian at the Coast Guard Academy. “Alexander is interested in what's going on around him. He's very smart. You can have conversations. Sometimes he brings up something I don't even notice. It's fun to have him around.”
Zuczek won his first ECC title as a freshman, beating higher-seeded older brother Nick when Nick was forced to retire in the first set due to an elbow injury.
Alex, or “Xander,” as his family refers to him affectionately, never looked back and capped his career unbeaten in conference play on May 26 with a 6-0, 6-0 victory over Tyler Huhtanen of Woodstock Academy, matching former East Lyme great Tom Santoro with his fourth consecutive title.
Zuczek then added the first Class S championship of his career, toppling Saba Cecunjanin of Old Saybrook 6-2, 6-2 on June 1.
Despite the fact the brothers, self-admittedly, fight over everything, an empathetic Zuczek calls that match against Nick “probably the toughest moment in my high school career.”
“I remember that very clearly, very vividly,” Zuczek said recently, reflecting on his career. “I have so much respect for him. He works for everything; he really deserved it. That one was crushing, a crushing moment. I wanted him to have it.
“I wrote a short paper about it for my theology class. It's something that changed you as a person. My teacher commented that it ‘brought up the tears.' Usually me and Nick will be at each other's throats.”
Richard Zuczek and his wife Etsuko, who is a native of Japan — where her family still tries to visit once per year — met while both were in graduate school at Ohio State. Richard has his PhD in history, while Etsuko has master's degrees in several different disciplines.
Before taking the job at the Coast Guard when Alex was four months old, Richard taught at the University of Tennessee, where he had future NFL quarterback Peyton Manning as a student. The Zuczeks now live in Westerly.
Richard said he and Etsuko both play tennis, Etsuko more competitively than he, but they got their children involved in the sport because they wanted the boys to “learn something.” Alex is OK with that. “Education is key,” Zuczek said. “From whatever, kindergarten, we always did our homework first. It just stuck that, they engrained it in us. … In college, I'm going to be very excited. I love learning. Knowledge is power.”
Zuczek, who attended camp at Terra Firma growing up and became fond of it, jokes that working at the farm has made him bulkier than he would usually be for a tennis player.
“A lot of tennis kids still make fun of me,” Zuczek said. “I'm a lot bulkier and broader than a lot of the USTA players. They say, ‘Watch out for Alex; he might beat you up.' It gives you a lot of endurance, eight hours a day in the hot sun.”
Zuczek, who is 5-foot-9, is ranked 20th in New England and third in Rhode Island in his USTA 18-and-under age bracket.
He works privately with coach Cristelle Grier Fox of North Kingstown, R.I., a former NCAA doubles champ and four time singles All-American at Northwestern who played in Wimbledon's qualifying round from 2001-04.
Zuczek said the biggest thing he has to work on to get his tennis game college-ready is endurance.
“I play three times a week and work out a few times a week,” Zuczek said. “In college, I'm going to be playing every day, working out every day. It's going to wear me down really fast. I want to make sure I don't wear down too quickly. That's my biggest concern, not my actual game.”
Zuczek stands by his statement following the Class S tournament that winning, which he has been striving to do since his freshman year, was more of a relief than a celebration. He chose not to play in the ensuing State Open to end the season.
Said Zuczek: “It would have been fun, of course. But I like how I went out.” v.fulkerson@theday.com