Santamaira’s stage is set for a comeback

Ten months ago, Sabrina Santamaria was not playing tennis. She couldn’t even walk.

In her sophomore season, Santamaria was at one point ranked the No. one singles player in the country. Everything changed the day she fell to the court clutching her knee. Writhing in agony, Santamaria was about to embark on one of the most challenging treks any athlete can face. She had torn her anterior cruciate ligament.

An ACL injury is season-ending and often has the potential to be career-ending, but Santamaria took her future into her own hands. To say that the injury was devastating would be an understatement. The Women of Troy were looking to make a run to team championships, but Santamaria did not falter in her conviction that she could still help the team. Immediately following her injury, USC played two tough matches against UCLA and Baylor. They lost both.

When discussing her injury, it is obvious that there is a natural stage of doubt, such as, “why me,”, “this can’t be happening to me,” and “what would we have been able to do if I hadn’t gotten hurt?” Santamaria quickly overcame this mental obstacle and embraced her role as a cheerleader for the rest of the squad.

“I felt like I let my team down,” Santamaria said. “Then I was just supporting the team as best I could.”

Following her injury, her doubles partner and best friend, Kaitlyn Christian, would often spend the night in her room helping her do the most mundane activities that she physically could not do, such as getting in and out of bed. Santamaria cites the physical challenge of rehab as the most difficult, especially when she felt she should have been able to do more than she was capable of.

Santamaria made her debut back on the court against Loyola Marymount in which she clinched the match in a fairytale ending to what has been a truly remarkable comeback.

“I’m 100 percent with my knee. I totally trust it,” Santamaria said. “I’m actually faster on my sprints than I was last season.”

For Santamaria, tennis is a family affair. Her father, an avid tennis player, immigrated to the United States from Panama, and her mother immigrated from the Philippines. The two met playing tennis in a Los Angeles park.

Santamaria cites her father as her driving force in pursuing her tennis dreams. He has coached her all her life and initiated her interest in tennis as a young girl. At the age of 4, her father bought her the first of many tennis rackets and strung a tennis ball to the ceiling of their apartment, giving his daughter simple instructions: “whack the ball.”

“My dad has been my coach my whole life,” Santamaria said.

This spawned Santamaria’s own love story, that of her and the game of tennis.

The list of Santamaria’s accolades rolls on and on. It is equal in size and length, however, to the list of goals she maintains for her future tennis career. Santamaria has a work ethic like none other. She takes her past successes and channels them into motivation to get there again in the future.

Santamaria’s favorite memory of collegiate tennis is clinching the quarterfinal match against Stanford her freshman year in the NCAA team championship. In an intense match in which the score was 3-2, Santamaria won her set against an opponent she had never beaten and quickly found herself at the bottom of a dog pile consisting of her ecstatic teammates.

To finish off her sophomore season, Santamaria and then doubles partner Christian won the NCAA doubles championship. With the victory, the pair garnered a wild card spot in the US Open. Feeling inspired despite a loss, Santamaria acknowledged the fact that playing in the US Open has been a dream since her childhood, and all she wants to do is get back there.

“After the loss, all I wanted to do was find a way to get back on the courts,” Santamaria said. “It made me hungrier.”

The way Santamaria nonchalantly mentioned her appearance in the US Open into conversation demonstrates her casual humility. She isn’t afraid to put her head down and fight for what she wants.

Santamaria has two main goals for this season: to win a team championship and to win a singles championship. A singles title would give Santamaria the wild card bid she desperately wants in order to play in the US Open once again.

With one semester of school left, Santamaria hopes to begin her play in pro circuits and ultimately get a full schedule of tournaments that will result in the fulfillment of her true dream, which is to see the world.

Santamaria fell in love with Europe after she spent two weeks traveling to 10 different countries with Christian.

A self-proclaimed tomboy who grew up loving hiking and the great outdoors, . Her favorite activity in Los Angeles is hiking in Griffith Park and getting to see the skyline of the city, another reason she loves Los Angeles.