For NIU tennis player Willy Gali, the adjustments from the clay courts of Barcelona, Spain, to the hard courts in America were rough.

“In Spain, the clay courts make the game much slower,” said Gali, the team’s No. 1 singles player. “Here the game is so much faster. You need to be much more aggressive.”

When Gali decided to follow his friend, Jacob Martin, to Texas Christian University two years ago to play tennis, he said he never thought he would eventually leave the heat of Texas for the cold winters of DeKalb.

“I liked it a lot [at TCU],” Gali said. “Especially the weather was very nice.”

In fact, if it weren’t for TCU not giving Gali a full scholarship, he said, he would still be there. As it turns out, he came to NIU instead.

Yet before he began his tennis “world tour,” Willy Gali started playing tennis in Barcelona at age five, after his older brother, Aleix, began playing.

“You know your older brother is like your idol, so I started to play tennis, and I liked it,” Willy Gali said.

Along with his twin brother, Eduard, Willy Gali slowly picked up the game. He played about once a week, but started to play it more often when he got older. By the time he was 16 years old, he was practicing at least two times a day, constantly traveling and playing tournaments every week.

Tennis eventually led him to TCU, where he enjoyed his time but didn’t make the line-up until the end of the season, when he played in the No. 6 spot.

Now, Gali has settled in DeKalb where he has adapted to the No. 1 spot. He hasn’t lost in 2004 match play, where he is 6-0. He is 9-2 in tournament play and 15-2 overall.

“We are extremely happy to have him,” first-year NIU head coach Pontus Hiort said. “Since day one, he has has been absolutely solid.”

His doubles partner, Aaron Forsberg, said he is one of the most solid and straightforward guys on the team when it comes to tennis.

But when he’s not competing, Gali shows off a bit of a different side.

“We [teammates] are always trying to Americanize him,” Forsberg said. “We always give him a hard time about soccer since he likes it so much, and he jokes with us about American sports. It really makes for a lot of fun.”

Joking around with his teammates is not the only thing Gali does, however. Gali has 3.91 grade point average – the highest on the men’s tennis team, which also has the overall highest GPA for any NIU athletics team.

Gali is focused on more than studying this semester. He is preparing himself for the rest of the season and trying to get back to the MAC finals where NIU came up short against Ball State in the finals last year.

“I gave up the winning point last year,” Gali said. “It gives me motivation to work harder this semester and do better.”