Nestled behind Italy on the Adriatic Sea of the Mediterranean is Montenegro, a country that borders Bosnia, Serbia and Albania and has roughly the same population size as the state of Vermont. When most people think of Montenegro, however, tennis isn’t the first thing that comes to mind.

“Montenegro isn’t really familiar with tennis,” NC State men’s tennis junior Ivan Saveljic said, “We don’t have any good professional tennis players.”

Brothers Ivan Saveljic and Igor Saveljic were born in Podgorica, the capital of Montenegro. The identical twins arrived at NC State in 2015 and are now juniors on the Wolfpack tennis team.

In a country without a huge tennis following, Ivan and Igor discovered their passion for the sport thanks to a sibling.

“Our older sister played,” Ivan Saveljic said. “She was already playing professionally when we kinda starting getting into it.”

The sister, who is five years older than Ivan and Igor, played professionally until a serious injury forced her to retire.

The Saveljic brothers have shared a love for the sport ever since being introduced to it. The two began playing at seven years old and haven’t looked back since.

Former tennis head coach Jon Choboy, who held the position for 15 seasons until his departure in May 2017, recruited the twins from Montenegro beginning in 2014. The recruiting process, which lasted for roughly a year, began in a seemingly unusual way.

“It was usually coaching that sends the emails or messages to us,” Ivan Saveljic said. “And Choboy was one of the head coaches that contacted us, I think it was through Facebook.”

After the social media message, Choboy sent one of his assistant coaches to watch the brothers play in a tournament in Greece. After the event, the assistant coach invited them to come to Raleigh for a visit. For the twins, NC State was love at first sight.

“We came here and we loved the school,” Ivan Saveljic said. “Basically as soon as we got here we knew this was the right place for us.”

Collegiate-level tennis has both singles and doubles competition. The ins and outs of the game vary from singles to doubles, with doubles requiring a solid foundation of knowledge about how your partner will perform and react in order to win.

 As Ivan and Igor grew up, having someone to practice against for singles, and the same partner for nearly a decade in doubles, has helped them both sharpen their skills.

“For me personally, I like playing doubles more because I usually play with my brother,” Ivan Saveljic said. “We have a really good communication. We started playing doubles when we were like 10, 11, so I enjoy playing doubles more.”

“Same for me,” Igor Saveljic said. “I prefer doubles over singles.”

While they have been paired with partners different than each other in the past, both Ivan and Igor agreed that it’s not quite the same as having their twin beside them on the court.

“We’ve been combined with a couple of our teammates and it was fun too, but not as fun as when I played with my brother,” Igor Saveljic said.

This semester, the twins had to take on the challenge of adjusting to a new coaching staff. Director of NC State Athletics Debbie Yow hired Kyle Spencer as the new head coach in June.

With only a few months under his belt, Spencer has been excited for the opportunity to guide Ivan and Igor both on and off the court this season, saying their individuality is something that’s often overlooked.

“They’re both different people,” Spencer said. “I think that’s one of the characteristics that you’ll find about twins is that sometimes they get lumped together as one unit, and they’re actually very different people. That’s been fun, getting to know them and figuring out their different patterns and the way they think about the world and see things and I think that’s a special relationship that they have is that they always have their brother next to them, but at the same time they are different people and it’s been fun to coach them in different ways as well.”

For the brothers, the process of adjusting to the new staff has been smooth.

“So far, it’s really good,” Igor Saveljic said. “I really like [the] new coaches. They’re being really professional and I think they’re bringing a really good atmosphere, a positive atmosphere to the courts.”

The twins enter the 2017-18 season as two of the oldest members of the team. NC State’s tennis roster, which consists of only nine team members, has four freshmen, one sophomore and no seniors. Ivan and Igor have embraced their roles as leaders thus far.

“It’s a process,” Igor Saveljic said. “When we first got here, we were not upperclassmen, definitely. We had to look at the upperclassmen and see how they behave in certain situations and learn from them. Now after two years of experience, we got into the system we know how everything works and now other people can learn from our behavior and from our decisions.”

Additionally, Spencer prides Ivan and Igor Saveljic for their effort in adjusting to the new coaching staff in such a short time.

“They’ve been great at taking the structure that we have for the program and implementing it as it is a new program,” Spencer said. “Having to learn a new program with a new coach and all that and being flexible and coachable they’ve done a great job of that so far.”

For tennis, the fall semester consists of various independent tournaments that are not contingent with the official NC State tennis team. These tournaments are used for individual players and doubles players to gain rankings that will be used for the spring semester, which is when the actual season takes place.

This year’s annual Duke James Bonk Invite tournament was held from Sept. 15 to Sept. 17 in Cary. Playing together for doubles, Ivan and Igor defeated opponents from three different ACC schools, Louisville, UNC-Chapel Hill and Duke, to take home the title.

“They returned really well and they were in sync,” Spencer said. “When they partnered each other they had great attitudes and were very competitive. I really thought that they jelled well together.”

While still early, the preseason success has given the twins a confidence boost in what looks to be a breakout season.

Even though Ivan and Igor Saveljic spend much of their time on the court together, when it comes to the classroom, they go their separate ways. Ivan is studying electrical engineering while Igor is studying business administration. Following graduation, it’s still up in the air for the twins.

“It depends on how the next two years go for us,” Ivan Saveljic said. “It’s a possibility to play tennis professionally, more likely doubles for us because from what we can see is it’s easier to succeed in doubles in tennis, at least in our situation right now. Again, if tennis doesn’t end up being an option, it’s probably going to be family business, which is an engineering company back home in Montenegro.”

As for the present, the twin brothers from Montenegro will continue to use their individual talents to terrorize their opponents on the court and spell success for the Wolfpack tennis program.