Broncs Diary

EDINBURG - A tennis ace from Finland recently helped the University of Texas-Pan American upset Santa Clara.

"It was funny," said Shashank Vij. "My opponent shouted, ‘This is my house,' to a big home crowd that cheered loudly after he won the second game. Then I beat him 6-1, 6-0. He was quite stunned."

Like fellow Broncs tennis player Nirvick Mohinta, Vij was caught in Hurricane Katrina when it devastated New Orleans. The area around UNO reminded him of a ghost town.

"We practiced the whole season without playing a match," he said. "Nirvick found Coach Hubbard, and we came to Texas-Pan American."

Vij, a former No. 1 junior tennis player in Finland, said they played indoors there because of the cold.

"Finland is a unique country in many ways," Vij said. "We are the only European nation that bordered the USSR and was never occupied by them. Our language is ancient. We have the best athletes in the world in Winter Olympics. Our national anthem, Finlandia, is among the most popular anthems in the world."

Vij is majoring in computer science and plans to work for Nokia one day.

"We have only five and a half million people in Finland, but Nokia ranks as the No. 7 biggest brand name in the world," he said. "The cell phone maker Nokia is named after a small town in Finland."

The Broncs Diary runs in The Monitor every Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday.