One is left-handed, one righty. One idolizes Nadal, the other is a Federer fan. One is Type-A, the other Type-B. One is a fighter who wills her way to victories, the other has smooth mechanics and is mostly in it for fun.
But despite all of these differences, identical twins Julia and Olivia Xiao have a couple of things in common, other than their appearance and date of birth. They both love tennis, and they’re both quite good at it.
“I’d say we share a brain cell,” Olivia said. “I think we’ve gotten closer over time, because we obviously share a love for the same sport.”
The twins, now juniors at East, were introduced to tennis at the ripe age of four, when they would go along with their older brother Calvin (a high school tennis player himself) to local courts and help pick up the balls for him—toting their tiny Dora the Explorer tennis racquets.
“Mine was so swaggy,” Olivia said. “We were really small. The net was massive.”
The twins, once overshadowed by a three-foot net, are now dwarfed by few other players in North Carolina. Julia ranks third in the state and Olivia 12th in the class of 2022, per tennisrecruiting.net’s rankings.
“Now it’s pretty well established that I’m ranked higher than her,” Julia said. “She doesn’t like it when I rub it in.”
But it hasn’t always been that way.
“I think when we were younger, I had a knack for the sport more,” Olivia said. “When we first started out in tournaments, [Julia] was absolute garbage. She lost 17 straight matches, which is a lot because if you lose two matches you’re out of a tournament.”
Though Olivia—thanks to smooth mechanics, a strong serve and a big forehand—was the more naturally talented player, Julia made up ground in other ways, according to Hank Xiao, the twins’ father.
“For Julia, she’s mentally tough,” Hank said. “She doesn’t like to give up and she always tries to fight and compete. She has such a desire to win. Sometimes she just gets overcooked.”
Initially, Hank was the primary coach for both twins, often coaching them both in tournaments—including when they faced each other.
“He’s like, you know, ‘You should really do this,’ and I’m like, ‘Why would you say that? She’s right there,’” Olivia remembered. “It’s unnerving. He really just spills all our weaknesses.”
In eighth grade, the twins began training with Coach Alexandra Anghelescu (now the head coach of Penn State women’s tennis), who sparked Julia’s passion for the sport.
“She’s really funny, so every time I went for private lessons it just made me feel better,” Julia said. “[She] made me like tennis a lot more and made it more enjoyable for me to play.”
Along with her increased love for tennis, Julia’s competitive streak has remained evident on the court.
“[Olivia]’s so quiet when she plays,” Julia remarked. “You can hear me from like a mile away.”
Appropriately, Julia idolizes the fiery Rafael Nadal, while Olivia looks up to his polar opposite rival: the smooth, unflappable Roger Federer.
Like Nadal, Julia gains an advantage from being left-handed, which is unusual in tennis.
“She has a weird spin,” Olivia explained of Julia’s slice serve. “It spins the opposite direction that most people are used to.”
Over time, Julia’s relentless competitiveness helped her close the gap on her sister.
“There was one tournament that I can remember, it was our biggest tournament yet,” Olivia said. “It was a state tournament, and [Julia] did really well. I think the notable part about that was that she was 75th in the state after that tournament, I was 76th. That was the first time she was higher than me.”
Though Olivia still holds the head-to-head edge in tournament match wins over her sister (eight to six), Julia reminds her sister often of their order in the rankings, which hasn’t shifted since that fateful tournament.
“Every day,” Olivia laughed. “I get roasted every day. She likes to brag, but she’s really highly ranked so I’m proud of her.”
While often facing off in singles competition, Julia and Olivia grew up playing together as a doubles team.
“Many people think that identical twins would have some kind of advantage over others because they’ve been living in the same house, practicing and so on and would have some knowledge of each other’s style to be a good doubles team,” Hank said. “But for them, they don’t really have this kind of connection.”
Julia agreed that the pair struggled to mesh on the court.
“We wanted to be like the Bryan brothers,” she said of the famous American twin doubles team, the most successful of all time. “But it just didn’t work out. We fought too much. If she messed up, I would start yelling at her, and if I messed up, she would get mad at me.”
Around the age of 14, the twins stopped playing doubles together and opted to play with other partners instead. However, they recently joined forces once again.
“Just because of coronavirus we kind of have to [play together] because we’re the only ones who can share a side [of the court],” Olivia said. “It’s going pretty well. We fight a lot less because we can communicate better.”
Throughout the pandemic, opportunities to safely practice with other players have decreased, so the twins have frequented local public courts, practicing together on a daily basis.
“We mostly rally and do drills,” explained Julia, who said she and her sister play a match against each other roughly once a week. “It’s pretty peaceful.”
The twins aren’t exactly sure what the future holds for them in tennis, but Olivia has a guess.
“We’re both hoping to go D-I,” she said. “So if we don’t get to the same college, we’re obviously going to have to face off against each other.
“I obviously think I’m gonna win and she’s gonna say she’s gonna win. So I guess we’ll see.”
Photo courtesy of Olivia Xiao
