By Dave Johnson
W&M Athletics
 
As a strange and deadly virus began to spread last year, most of the world went into shutdown mode. Spain was particularly diligent by imposing a lockdown that was as stern as it was lengthy.
 
On the beautiful island of Tenerife, some 800 miles off the mainland's southern coast, Mila Saric fought the boredom.
 
"I didn't leave my house for literally 60 days — not even to take out the trash," she said. "It was very, very strict. We couldn't do anything."
 
Hardly an ideal scenario for a Division I athlete striving to get better. Saric's sophomore season on William & Mary's tennis team had been cut short by the pandemic. But she had finished with back-to-back wins at No. 1 singles, the last in straight sets over a nationally ranked opponent.
 
Spain's lockdown could have been a significant interruption of her development. Saric didn't let that happen. When restrictions were lifted, she went back to work and made up for lost time.
 
The result: In her junior season, Saric is 8-2 at No. 1 singles with five consecutive wins entering the CAA Championship, which kicks off for the Tribe on Friday at 6 p.m. against UNCW. On April 10, for the second time this spring, she rallied after losing the first set to beat nationally ranked Holly Hutchinson of Old Dominion.
 
"I think what helped me maintain my game was the mental part," Saric said. "Tennis is a very, very mental sport.
 
"A lot of wins I've had this year were because I was mentally engaged and feeling strong in that sense. More than any physical or technical skill."
 
W&M coach Toni Bickford sees it.
 
"She has a no-give-up kind of attitude," Bickford said. "That's been instilled with her upbringing.
 
"She's able to adjust to different styles and problem solve on court. She's able to do the things she doesn't want to do but she has to do to win."
 
Saric's only loss this spring to a CAA opponent came against James Madison's Daria Afanasyeva, who remains undefeated in conference matches. Saric was up a break in the third set but ended up losing a tiebreaker.
 
They could meet again in the conference championship, which is scheduled for April 22-25 at the Millie West Tennis Facility.
 
"We're hoping she gets a chance to avenge that loss," Bickford said.
 
Saric is the only Spaniard on a roster that features nine players from eight different countries. Her parents, Vlado and Maja, were born in Serbia but came to Spain before she was born.
 
Nobody in her family played tennis on a serious level, and Mila didn't discover the game until she was 6. When she was 9, Saric was playing and/or practicing every day. Soon after that, she got serious about competing.
 
"I started getting some results," she said. "And I got more and more serious about it."
 
With an eye on playing college tennis in the U.S., Saric began playing international tournaments. In 2017, she was the women's champion on the Canary Islands along with three ITF Juniors Doubles Championships. She also won the Babolata Cup in Ukraine and the ITF East African 18-Under Junior Circuit in Kenya.
 
Academics also were a big deal. At 14, Saric earned a government scholarship to study English in Canada. She graduated high school with a grade-point average of 9.92 on a scale of 10.
 
The first time Saric set foot on American soil was when she visited William & Mary in 2018. Tyler Thompson was the Tribe's head coach at the time, and Saric was sold. But a week or so after her arrival, Thompson resigned to take an associate head coaching position at North Carolina.
 
Bickford came on a month later, but Saric was having some challenges adapting to the college game.
 
"I had a terrible fall," Saric said.  "I was shocked by everything."
 
When the spring season began, she was playing at No. 6. She moved up to No. 4 and eventually 3. She ended up winning 15 of her 21 dual matches and was named the CAA's Rookie of the Year.
 
"I started from the bottom of the lineup," Saric said. "I started winning and I got some confidence. I was having fun, and that was what made me play well."
 
Saric began the 2019 season at No. 2 and won each of her first three matches in straight sets. She moved up to No. 1 but after losing twice played at No. 3.
 
Saric returned to No. 1 against Duke and lost in straight sets to Kelly Chen. The following weekend, she defeated Penn's Ashley Zhu 7-6, 6-2 and Maryland's Ayana Akli 6-4, 7-6 (7-2). Akli finished 21-3 and was named Big Ten Freshman of the Year.
 
"I finished the season with a good taste, so I kind of attached myself to that feeling," Saric said. "That's had a big role in my success this year."
 
A left-hander, Saric lost her first match this spring against VCU's Luminita Tutunaru at No. 2. Six days later came her first three-set win over ODU's Hutchinson. Her only losses since have been to Afanasyeva and North Carolina's Fiona Crawley.
 
"She's playing really well," Bickford said. "She's had good wins and she's very close to maybe being the CAA Player of the Year."
 
Spring athletes who had their 2020 season cut short by the pandemic have been granted an extra year of eligibility by the NCAA. That means Saric, listed as a junior, will have two seasons remaining after this one.
 
Scheduled to graduate next spring with degrees in finance and psychology, Saric's plans are to enroll in graduate school and work on her Master's Degree.
 
"That will give me another year of tennis and more time to figure out what I'd like to pursue in the future," she said. "Right now, that's not clear.
 
"I've been a tennis player pretty much my whole life. It's hard to know exactly what I want, but that's why I'm here, to figure it out."