At first glance, it appeared to be a nice quiet day of tennis at the Pfister Tennis Complex at Bakersfield College on March 15 against Glendale City College. But if you were watching the match between Joshua Thomas of BC and Andre Ratavousian of Glendale, all you had to do was wait a little and it would come. “Come on!” yelled Thomas to himself while also pumping his fist to get going after losing the first set to Ratavousian 3-6.

He had seen this opponent before on Feb. 23 in Glendale and lost in straight sets.

On this occasion at home, Thomas would simply not accept a similar outcome and came back to win the match 3-6, 6-4, 6-4.

“That guy I played is good,” he said.

“He beat me the first time 6-0, 6-1, so for me to beat that guy was very nice. That was a great win,” Thomas said with a smile.

In his doubles match, Thomas teamed with Raji Rivera to get another victory (9-8, and 7-4 in the tie-breaker) for BC.

Thomas graduated from Tehachapi High School in 1993, and, while in Tehachapi, played four years of baseball.

His junior and senior years were with the varsity and, in his junior season, he won the Charlie Hustle award.

After graduating, he spent three years in the army and had various jobs, including construction work.

In 1998, he attended classes at BC for the first time.

Now in his second stint and a sophomore, at BC, his road to competitive tennis is one rarely traveled.

He basically learned the game about 13 years ago, played against some local competition for about a year, but injured his shoulder, had surgery and recovered in about six months.

After the recovery period, he went back to playing baseball in adult leagues, and was away from tennis for several years until he got back into it again two years ago.

For most of his life, the sport that Thomas was most passionate about was baseball.

“I played baseball all my life. I went out for the team here like 13 years ago,” he said.

“I talked to coach (Tim) Painton. It was right about when cuts were about to be made and I asked him if I was going to make the team.

He said it depended on if some guy from division one was coming out for the team or not.

“So if he came, I was going to be cut, and if he didn’t, I was going to make the team.”

Not knowing for sure if he would make the squad led him into making a decision.

“So at that time, I had just gotten engaged and I had a job offer, so I had to take the job.”

Thomas went on to discuss that his subsequent marriage turned to divorce five years later.

The next year he played some tennis in town, played in tournaments and sustained the aforementioned injuries, so he stopped playing after that.

He didn’t play tennis again for about ten years.

“Ten years later, I actually ran into some guys from the racquet club and they were like, ‘you should come to drills’,” he said. “Three months later, I ended up going to drills and next thing you know, I started playing again, and that was about two years ago, so I’ve only got about three years total experience playing.”

When he started playing again, he dedicated himself and became real passionate about it, as he began competing to put himself where he’s at today, the third seeded player on the BC squad.

He also added why he is so passionate about playing.

“That’s how I am in any sport. I would get fired up in any sport, I just have a lot of passion, just a will to win and a will to do well for myself,” he said.

“I just have an inner drive and hunger for me to get better and do well.”

“You know, I’m not a sore loser because that’s part of anything you play. You’re going to lose, you can’t win every time, but sometimes the losses do get to me.

“We’ve been losing in conference, this (Glendale) is our closest one so far. Last Wednesday, we played a couple of teams (Victor Valley, Reedley) that weren’t in our conference and we won both those matches.”

In the evening doubles match against Reedley, Thomas and Rivera were involved in the last match of the day with the schools tied at 4-4 going in to it.

“That was something else,” said Thomas.

“I think we beat those guys 9-7 or something like that.

“I won all my matches (4) that day, so I was stoked about that.” Today (March 15), I won my first conference match, I had to really battle cause that guy (Ratavousian) was good.”

Every now and then, his fire can cause a reaction like the one against Reedley late in their doubles match.

A second serve was called out by his opponent, and Thomas took exception to it, saying, “Come on man, really? You had to see that serve. It was about twelve miles an hour. You can’t be serious,” and he went on to say a few more choice words.

“I can’t help but show it sometimes. It’s just being so competitive.

“For me to play my best, I have to get fired up,” he said. “That’s what gets me going and gets the best of me,” Thomas explained.

“And sometimes, getting pumped up like that, I can get a little overboard, but it’s just mental.

“Every sport there’s a mental aspect to it, so you know, maybe me doing that gets in their head a little bit.

“Maybe they get a little intimidated. I am a little older (36) than those guys, and I’m not a small guy, so a little intimidation never hurt anybody.”