Following his main draw first-round victory over Leandro Riedi of Switzerland, Tarvet immediately went over and put his USD hat on in front of the cameras. Never mind his own personal success, showing love for his Torero program is always first thing on his mind.
Keckley said he felt extremely proud to see how much Tarvet and Holmgren are “team guys” and how much they continue to bleed for the USD program. That passion was on full display at Wimbledon.
“USD has done an incredible amount for me and I owe a lot of my success to them,” Tarvet said. “The dedication and devotion that the coaches have given me, they’ve been great to me. They aren’t just great tennis coaches, but they’re great life coaches. They’ve helped me become a better person, which is equally as important. I’ve really excelled here and I probably wouldn’t have been as successful at other places. And not only them, but all my teammates are great; they’re my brothers. I have a great relationship with every one of them. We pride ourselves on having a great culture and a healthy environment.”
The feeling is mutual for Keckley.
“I thanked him for being such a strong advocate for this university and for this program,” Keckley said. “He knows how much we’ve done for him and we know how much he’s done for us. It’s mutually beneficial. We talk a lot in our program about gratitude and giving back. That was uncoached. We weren’t even prepared for him winning his last match in the qualifying draw. We weren’t prepared for that kind of media coverage, but I thought he did such an exceptional job, not only with his tennis but how he handled the media. The British tabloids were just swarming all over him. He became a household name overnight. There was a lot of publicity around the program with these two guys and he was very humble and very grateful.”
Tarvet’s run proves that he belongs among the best in the world, which isn’t shocking to Keckley as he is a major advocate that NCAA tennis year in and year out produces some of the best players in the world. He’d like to see this run inspire the current Toreros to feel like they match up with anybody as they look for another memorable run in the coming season.
