Dec. 13, 2016
By Cat Perez
Ask Max Sivalls to challenge Auburn’s Lou Groza Award finalist Daniel Carlson in a field goal kicking contest and the tennis player will respond “absolutely not” immediately.
Little do many know, the Auburn tennis player has a knack for kicking long field goals. His longest: 46 yards. Ask him to show you and he will deny you again. During high school, Sivalls broke his pelvis while kicking a field goal. To this day, it stills scares him to even try it.
Within the span of 18 months, Sivalls had two broken arms and his pelvis injury to overcome. “That was an experience. I was walking around school like a snail and got really out of shape. I gained a lot of weight because I had a string of injuries there for a while. It was really tough. I lost 40 pounds in two months and really turned it around pretty quickly. It was tough, but it was good.”
Coming off these injuries was a minor setback for Sivalls. He finished his high school career at the top of his game, winning the Texas state title in doubles his senior year. He came to Auburn ready to compete.
“Coming out of high school, I wasn’t highly recruited or anything. My ranking was low from all those injuries. [Auburn] gave me a chance and I really like it here,” said Sivalls.
The sophomore from Midland, Texas, has contributed to the team in multiple ways. He competed in the No. 5 singles spot for the Tigers in 2016 and won awards for Academic Top Tiger and was named to the SEC First-Year Academic Honor Roll.
Sivalls plans to double major in business administration and either accounting or finance. When tennis is all over, Sivalls hopes to combine his love for the sport and his degree.
“I would like to do something related to tennis, but related to business as well -- so either be at a tennis academy coaching and helping in an administrative role as well, or starting my own country club, something along those lines.”
Sivalls didn’t immediately love the game of tennis. He and his brother were always asked to play, but continually declined because “we thought it was a lame sport”. After a few tries, the head coach at a pro academy was able to get Max and his brother on the court.
“We ended up loving it. Our parents played all the time when they were young so they always helped us play when we got started,” explained Sivalls. Playing tennis alongside his brother has always been important to Max. If ever given the chance to play doubles with his brother, Sivalls would take it immediately. The two have never played together, but put them against each other now and Max thinks he would take the win. “I would win. He has been out of the game for a little bit, but he was really good.”
Sivalls seems to have this type of confidence for his off the court play as well. On off days, the team often gets together to play video games. “Viboosh (Chandrasekar) would say he is the best video game player. Eddie (Nguyen) is the best NHL player. He loves to play NHL. I play Battlefield a lot so I am pretty good.”
As for this upcoming season, Sivalls and the rest of the team have a common goal to improve their SEC ranking. The Auburn Tigers open the 2017 spring season at UCF on January 22.
Cat Perez is a student assistant in Auburn athletics communications