Kosta and Olga Blank are not just siblings at UNC Wilmington, they are also both on the tennis teams. Kosta was recruited from Israel and Olga followed her brother later.

  Kosta was ranked the No. 1 tennis player in Israel at the age of 18. Both Kosta and Olga grew up in Kfar Sava, Israel where their father was their tennis coach. Kosta is currently a junior at UNCW, while his sister Olga is a sophomore. Both of them had to go through a lot in their sports journey, starting with the immigration process.

“Well, it was a culture shock for me,” Kosta said. “When I first got here, the coach met me at the airport and that was probably the first time I saw the coach, because I never got to see him before. It took me a couple of months to get adjusted and understanding the mentality of people and how they work. I felt like it was a pretty smooth adjustment.”

Not only did they come to America as immigrants, but both of them came to Wilmington as recruited athletes, which made things more complex.

“There was a lot of paperwork in the immigration process and a lot of headaches for everyone including the coaches, parents and us,” Olga said. “There were tons of things you needed to do. You had to sign here and go to all these different places.”

Both Kosta and Olga stated that learning the American language was hard. They both knew a decent amount of English before coming to the United States, but now they have to speak it constantly.

“It was hard to adjust to the language,” Olga said. “We knew English before we came here, but it was different, because now you need to talk 24/7 in English and not Hebrew. There were cases where I was forgetting words, but it’s better now.”

In Israel, soccer and tennis are big national sports. According to Kosta, “tennis is very important to the country of Israel and its society.” He compares tennis in Israel to football in America. Both siblings started playing in their first tournaments when they were nine years old.

“I remember that because my dad told me that if I won he would buy me a gold necklace whenever I wanted,” Olga said.

She also recalls that Kosta was the first one to pick the sport up after their dad started teaching him. They both learned it at the same time, because Olga was always at the tennis courts when Kosta and their dad would practice.

“Well, our dad is a coach and since Kosta is older than me by two years he started first. Then I somehow ended up playing it too, but I had no idea how it happened,” Olga said. “Dad was always with Kosta teaching him on the courts when he was seven and I was five, so I started playing with the ball and racquet and it just clicked from there.”

When asked how playing tennis in Israel is different than playing here at UNCW, both of the siblings agreed on the same concept. “It’s kind of a different feel here, because you’re not just playing tennis for yourself, but for a university,” Kosta said. “It’s the only time you play an individual game for a team. It was kind of different feeling, but I got used to it later. I personally enjoy it more than just playing for myself; I enjoy the feeling of team unity here.”

As for their tennis icons, both siblings picked Roger Federer as their favorite men’s tennis player. “I think he’s like a tennis god or something,” as Olga put it.

Then when selecting their favorite women’s tennis player, the siblings chose someone different. “For women’s tennis, I would say Justine Henin. I think she was a great player,” Kosta said. “I remember the final that she played in which was the U.S. Open where she barely won it and she had to be hospitalized because she was just tired. I have a lot of respect for that.”

Olga chimed in with her opinion, “I would go with Kim Clijsters, because she’s just awesome. I like the way she plays, her personality,” she said. “She was the first one to quit, get married, have a child and now she’s back again. She won the U.S. Open after she had a baby, so it’s crazy.”

Then, when asked who could beat who in a tennis match, Olga was very quick to answer. “Kosta would win,” she said. “It’s hard to compare women’s tennis with men’s tennis, because there is such a difference. The way you play, the way you move, the way you hit and I think he’s going to win just because he plays better.”

As for these two tennis players from Israel, their sports journey is not over yet. They both want to strive for team unity and to contribute to UNCW’s tennis team in any way they can on the court.