To teammate Lauren Embree, Alexandra Cercone is a “fighter.”
However, Cercone considers herself just another player on the team.
The 21-year-old may be just competitive in her own terms, but the junior tennis player has proven herself in a new way for the Gators.
“Mentally, she’s at a completely different level now then she was in the fall,” coach Roland Thornqvist said. “The higher the stakes, the better she is.”
Cercone dropped five singles matches during the fall season and only won six. Once 2013 began, Cercone found her niche controlling the court, earning an 18-2 singles record.
“I kind of have this problem with expectations,” Cercone said of her slump in the fall.
“I put a lot of pressure on myself, and I always wanted to do well individually because that’s your sort of moment of an accomplishment that is solely your own. Focusing on that didn’t work in my favor.”
However, Cercone’s success at Florida almost never happened.
Cercone dreamed of playing tennis on the West Coast because of the high level of competition that it offered and the appeal of being away from home. She loved the West Coast atmosphere after playing in numerous juniors tournaments there.
“I had these farfetched, romantic ideas of going far away to California,” Cercone said. “I would get emails from [Thornqvist] and [associate head coach Dave Balogh] and would respond to them, but I remember deep down feeling guilty about it because I was like, ‘Oh, I’m leading them on. They probably think I’m interested in their school, but I’m just trying to be polite by responding.’”
Cercone even doubted furthering her tennis career at all.
“There was an awkward space in time when I was a senior in high school, where I was too old to play the international junior tournaments but I knew I still had to compete,” Cercone said.
The Seminole native competed in USC pro-circuit tournaments across the country and grew tired of it.
“I didn’t know a lot of people, so I was kind of on my own a lot, which is difficult because you have to find people to practice with,” Cercone said. “It was hard to have good results because there are older women competing there with tons of experience. I started to not really like that kind of lifestyle.”
With the snapped allure of traveling week after week to compete, Cercone came around to the orange and blue.
“I was flying home from a USC pro-circuit event when I was kind of looking out the window to the Tampa Bay area and I was just like ‘I need to go to Florida,’” Cercone said. “It just hit me.”
Cercone said that longtime friend Embree also factored in to her decision on Florida. The two friends met around the age of 13, playing with and against each other in in-state juniors tournaments.
“There was a time where the only time I would be ranked No. 1 in the state was when Lauren aged out of the division,” Cercone said. “So when she would be one, I would be two. And then when she moved up, I was like, ‘Yes I get to be one again.’”
Once Embree grabbed a spot on the Gators’ roster, Cercone said she would convince her to come to Florida, ending phone conversations with “Go Gators.”
After making her decision to play for Florida, elite level tennis came quickly for Cercone, having to compete for a national title during her first year with the Gators.
Cercone slumped in the first set of the 2011 NCAA Women’s Tennis Championships final, losing 6-4 to Stanford’s Veroncia Li. In the second, Cercone dominated en route to a 6-1 win, forcing the third. Carrying her momentum into the third, Cercone broke the 3-3 tie. She put up a 5-3 lead and grabbed the overall win at 6-4.
“I remember people trash talking me in the stands, saying I was going to choke. And I was like ‘How dare they say that I’m going to choke.’ I was so mad,” Cercone said of her first NCAA Championship experience. “I just remember walking up and hitting an ace and just being like ‘Yeah, take that.’”
Her singles win in the finals was her fifth consecutive in the NCAA Tournament, and she was the only Gator in school history to reach this win streak in the national competition.
As a freshman, Cercone was competing at a level she never knew she could reach when she first came to Florida.
“I was a little bit intimidated at first because when I initially came in I thought I was going to be this really important impact player for the team,” she said. “And then I was like ‘Oh, well everyone else is just as good, if not better.’”
After helping the Gators win a national title, Cercone said she couldn’t imagine playing anywhere else.
“Winning that solidified the fact that I had made the right decision in coming to Florida,” Cercone said. “Everybody wants to compete for a national-championship team, so the fact that we did win and were able to pull it out made me feel confident in all of my life decisions at that point.”
Embree added: “Never when we were 14 or 15 did we think we’d be at the same college and competing together for titles.”
A second national title came for the Gators in the 2012 NCAA Tournament, but without Cercone, Florida would have been sent home in the semifinals
Facing third-seeded Duke’s Mary Clayton, Cercone rallied from a 2-0 third set deficit to earn a three-set singles victory and clinch the match.
“She was just a surgeon at the end,” Thornqvist said. “She put the ball where she wanted it to be.”
Florida advanced to meet formerly top-ranked UCLA in the finals, and Cercone helped the Gators edge the Bruins.
In doubles, Cercone paired with Carolina Hitimana and used an ace to clinch the doubles point in the 8-5 match win.
Building on the doubles momentum, Cercone played fast and was the first Gator off the court. She swept up Chanelle Van Nguyen 6-2 in the first set and shut her out 6-0 in the second to extend a 2-0 lead over UCLA.
Now a veteran player for the Gators with back-to-back national titles and a 90-26 career singles record under her belt, Cercone’s collegiate tennis career speaks for itself.
“When we play big matches, Alex is someone we can count on every time, and that’s a very unique quality,” Thornqvist said. “Sometimes you know what you’re going to get when we recruit great players from the juniors, but with Alex, she continues to surprise us and continues to improve.”
For now, Cercone values tennis and wants nothing more than another winning year for herself and the Gators.
“I’m focusing on the game now, rather than winning or losing, and it’s definitely working out,” Cercone said. “I’m doing a lot better.”
Junior Alexandra Cercone swings during Florida’s 7-0 victory against Baylor on Feb. 2 at Linder Stadium.
