By the time Vanya Tomic arrived on the scene, Austin Peay women’s tennis had ceased to be relevant for almost two decades. A program that had won a pair of Ohio Valley Conference tourney titles in the mid-1980s and continued to contend for the title through the mid-1990s, hadn’t even qualified for the league tourney the previous six seasons prior to 2010.
But in Winter 2010, a sophomore, Tomic, transferred for the spring semester from NAIA program Lindsey Wilson College, where the Banja Luca, Bosnia native played No. 2 singles and No. 1 doubles as a freshman.
In her first season as a Lady Gov, Tomic played so well at No. 1 singles she was named OVC Player of the Year (along with All-OVC)—the eighth time a Lady Gov earned that honor, but first since 1988—in notching an 18-2 singles record, including a season-ending 17-match winning streak. Tomic was a perfect 9-0 in OVC play, only being pushed to three sets once during league action. She also teamed with Mariana Pagan to sport a 16-3 doubles mark, losing three of their first six matches before reeling off 12-straight victories that included seven straight league wins en route to an 8-1 OVC record.
Tomic led the women’s tennis team to an 8-1 second-place regular-season mark. Those eight wins were more than APSU’s women had accumulated in the previous four seasons combined when the Lady Govs failed to reach the OVC tourney--APSU had not qualified for the OVC tournament since 2003.
In the OVC tourney, APSU rolled past Murray State in its opening round match and then blew past Eastern Kentucky to win the OVC championship, advancing to the NCAA tournament against Georgia Tech. After losing the first set in her NCAA match, Tomic was up 4-2 in the second set to Irina Falconi, who currently is ranked 64th in the world, when the match ended in an APSU loss.
Although Tomic—and APSU—was unable to repeat that team magic in her succeeding two years, she finished her career with an overall 52-11 record in three seasons as the Lady Govs No. 1 singles player. She also was selected first-team All-OVC as both a junior and senior, making her a three-time first-team honoree.
As a senior, Tomic was selected the University’s Legends Award recipient as the most valuable senior female athlete (going 18-2, 15-3, 19-6 in singles during her three seasons). In addition, she was selected as the Most Outstanding Female Athlete after her standout final season—Tomic became the first APSU tennis player to earn such distinction since the Most Outstanding Athlete Award was originated in 1994 with tennis star Susan Sheather being selected.
Since leaving Austin Peay with a bachelor’s degree in molecular biology, Tomic has become Vanya Tomic Vidovic--getting married--and having triplets while receiving her masters of science in molecular biology and physiology from the University of Belgrade. She is working on her PhD in Human/Medical Genetics.
