Florida Gators

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Lori Riffice knew the day would come. It always does for mothers and sons. That moment when mom realizes her little boy isn't so little anymore.

A mother of three sons, her youngest branched off earlier than she envisioned. Sam Riffice was 13 when he embarked on a tennis odyssey that has taken him around the world and now to the University of Florida, where he is a freshman standout for the Southeastern Conference regular-season champions.

"It was really hard for me to accept as a parent,'' Lori said.

A college player at UC Santa Barbara who later built a career as a teaching pro, Lori taught Sam and his older brothers Jake and Mitch how to play on courts around Northern California, where the family lived during Sam's formative years. They played other sports, too, but Sam embraced tennis from the beginning, showing the same inquisitiveness then as he does now with his UF teammates and coaches.

He didn't just want to know what he was doing right, he wanted to know what he was doing wrong. And then he wanted to know why. Lori took note.

As the years passed and Sam developed into a formidable junior prospect, he started to travel frequently by himself for three-week stays in Florida at the USTA training center in Boca Raton. That's when Lori turned into the quizzer.

"I would test him in the airport,'' she said. "You are in charge. You tell us where to go. From early on, he accepted that responsibility to figure that out on his own."

By the time he was 15, Sam had traveled to France to play in a tournament and to the Czech Republic, where he competed in the Junior World Championships. His star continued to shine brighter when he became the first junior player since Grigor Dimitrov, ranked as high as No. 3 in the world on the ATP Tour during his career, to sweep the Eddie Herr International and Orange Bowl junior titles in the same season as a 16-year-old.

When he was 17, Riffice spent nine weeks alone in Europe playing on the junior circuit with stops in Italy, Spain, France, Denmark, Germany and England.

"That was pretty amazing getting to see all those new places,'' he said.
 
As he developed into one of the country's top amateur players, Riffice played in the junior French Open, Wimbledon and U.S. Open. Those experiences helped Riffice make a smooth transition to UF, where prior to Friday's No. 2 singles three-set loss to Alabama's Edson Ortiz in the SEC Tournament – Florida won the match 4-1 and faces the Tennessee-Georgia on Saturday in the semifinals – he had won 12 consecutive matches and was 10-0 in conference play.

Gators head coach Bryan Shelton and assistants Tanner Stump and Scott Perelman were thrilled when Riffice signed with the Gators. He had trained with Gators No. 1 singles player Oliver Crawford under the direction of former professional star Ivan Lendl as part of a group of young players in a USTA program Lendl pitched to the organization in 2015.

Nothing the 6-foot-2 Riffice has done in his first season with the Gators has surprised Shelton.

"He certainly had all the credentials. He was at the top of our list for the recruits we were going after because of the type of person he is and the skill-set that he possesses," Shelton said. "I think we've just matched up really well in how we wanted to coach him and the things we saw in his game and the things we thought we could help him with."

Riffice arrived at UF last summer with a more all-around game than many of today's young players, a generation that relies more on powerful forehands and backhands fired from the baseline than finesse. He began to employ an attacking style at the net later in his junior career, which combined with his advanced touch and feel for the game, makes him a difficult opponent.

Sometimes during a match, Shelton finds himself dissecting the flaws of Riffice's opponents knowing there is a way to exploit it.

"It's fun. He is a little bit of a throwback. He can do a lot of different things,'' Shelton said. "He's not that prototypical player. It's just a really great skill-set to work with. You can solve a lot of problems with his game."

Riffice has spent the season shifting between No. 2 and No. 3 singles, posting a 21-7 record overall and 17-4 mark in dual matches following Friday's defeat. Despite his worldly experiences, Riffice said he always wanted to play in college before going pro.

He is studying political science with an eye toward law school. As for college tennis, Riffice continues to learn something new every day in a team environment that he embraced immediately, sort of the way he did when Lori introduced him to the game.

"It's different for sure, but it's more fun playing college to me," he said. "The guys have really helped me out a lot. I ask them a lot of questions. They just tell me a lot of stories about the past, so I feel like I've almost played matches before because I've talked to the guys so much about previous year."

The host Gators are the No. 1 seed in the SEC Tournament this week and won their first outright regular-season conference title since 2003. Riffice, who turned 20 last month, and fellow freshman Lukas Greif have played integral roles in the team's breakout season.

The experience ranks near the top of everything Riffice has accomplished in the game. There's a good story involved regarding Riffice's favorite tennis moment.

The family relocated to the Orlando area in 2016 when Lori joined the USTA National Campus at Lake Nona as a girls coach on the player development side. In her new role, she met Tony Godsick, the agent for 20-time Grand Slam champion Roger Federer and whose daughter is involved in the USTA junior program.

Godsick mentioned to Lori that if Sam was interested, he could hit balls with Federer one day at a Grand Slam event. Federer prefers to warm up with junior players.

At the 2017 U.S. Open, Sam stepped onto the court inside Arthur Ashe Stadium with one of the world's most famous athletes. No problem.

"That was kind of a thrill for me too, to get to sit there and watch,'' Lori said. "Sam got a compliment from Federer's agent. A lot of people are too nervous to hit with Federer. Sam started hitting well right from the first ball. I don't know how he did it, but it was really fun to watch."

Perhaps she should have seen it coming. He had a pretty good teacher growing up.