Chilean finds warm home in Sonora

Vicente Mosso, 17, has enjoyed success while playing with the Sonora High School Wildcat tennis team in 2009. The Chile native has stepped in to become one of the teams’ top players. AMY ALONZO ROZAK/UNION DEMOCRAT

Mosso once was a ranked junior in his home country and now — as an exchange student through the American Field Service — is among the top players for the Wildcats as they bid for a Valley Oak League championship.

He’s staying in Sonora with the tennis-oriented family of Clark and Julie Segerstrom, who sent three sons — Willy, Sam and Erik — through the Sonora program.

Sam was the No. 1 player on Sonora’s VOL-championship teams in 2005 and 2006, and Erik has been exchanging roles with Mosso as the No. 1 player on the 2009 Wildcat team.

A match was made.

“The Segerstroms read my (biography) and saw that I love tennis,” Mosso said. “I like it here and I love the Segerstroms.”

Mosso came to Sonora in January from Puerta Montt in southern Chile.

“Near Antarctica,” he said. “It’s SO cold. We play indoors every time.”

He’ll be here through semester’s end, then will spend a month in Chile before jetting off to Germany to visit an exchange student who’s living with the Mosso family — father Vicente, mother Germana and sister Florencia.

Mosso, 17, has been an instant hit on campus as a notoriously sharp dresser who speaks three languages (Spanish, German and English), and with the tennis team as a sharp player.

“He’s inspiring to the others,” Sonora coach Carey Marmesh said. “He’s gregarious and fun — and very competitive. He brings a wealth of knowledge about tennis. You can see he’s very well-trained. You can tell he’s been playing from a very young age. He knows how to do, basically, everything.”

Two years ago, Mosso was the No.5-ranked player in his age group in Chile — no small feat in a place where tennis is much more a part of the national consciousness than in the United States.

He curtailed his tennis in favor of academics at “the German School. All the cities in my country have German schools where they teach German and English.

“I had to study to go to college,” Mosso continued. “I was still training (with other top juniors), but I couldn’t play in the championships.”

He’s not currently ranked in Chile, but said, “in the holidays from school, I play all the tournaments.”

Holiday time also finds Mosso in the Chilean capital of Santiago, training at the national tennis center. It was there he met perhaps the most famous Chilean tennis player of all time — Marcelo Rios, who in 1998 became the first South American player to be ranked No. 1 in the world by the Association of Tennis Professionals, and also the only player in history to reach No. 1 without winning a Grand Slam title.

“I played with him,” Mosso said. “He’s crazy.”

Mosso’s favorite current player?

“I like some of the Spaniards, like (12th-ranked) David Ferrer,” he said. “They’re clay-courters.”

He’s also fond of Chile’s own Fernando Gonzalez, the No. 17 player in the world and winner of the silver medal in the Beijing Olympics last summer.

“Gonzalez is a good player,” Mosso said. “Good forehand.”

As to the best aspects of his own game, Mosso said. “I have good angles and good volleys, I go to the net and make a lot of drop shots, and I’m really consistent.”

His biggest adjustment has been learning to play on American hard courts. In South America, clay is king.

“It’s really difficult playing hard courts for me,” Mosso said. “All the players here hit the ball really hard — very short points. It’s not my style, but now I’m learning to like hard courts.”

“Clay is so much slower, so you have to be a little more crafty on that surface,” Marmesh said. “Power doesn’t necessarily do anything.”

Erik Segerstrom, who forms a formidable 1-2 singles punch with Mosso, said he has both learned from, and offered advice to, the Chilean.

“He’s given me some pointers on my serve and on strategy,” Segerstrom said. “He’s given me a lot of good strategies. He’s a really smart tennis player.”

Putting on his teaching cap, Segerstrom said, “I’ve kind of helped him with the transition from clay courts to hard courts. It’s a faster-paced game here.”

The courts aren’t the only difference between Chilean and American tennis.

“People in schools here are good in sports,” Mosso said. “In my country, people who are good in sports just train a lot and don’t go to school.”

Segerstrom, and the rest of the Wildcats, are very glad to have Mosso around.

“When you get a No. 1 player,” Segerstrom said, “it moves everybody down one spot and makes your team a lot stronger.”

Sonora has been favored by strong foreign players before. Carlos Paz of Bolivia and Fred Noel of Switzerland were Sac-Joaquin Section individual runners-up and helped the Wildcats finish second in the section as a team in 1991 and ‘93.

Marmesh said Mosso is another special import

“He’s beyond what any of us thought he would be,” Marmesh said. “He’s the best player I’ve coached and this is my 10th season. We got quite a lucky draw.”