Amit Inbar knows how to kill a man.
He never has, nor has he ever needed to, but if the necessity ever presents itself, Inbar is armed with training from one of the fiercest military outfits in the world ““ the Israeli Defense Force.
This tall, quiet and reserved native of Tel Aviv doesn’t look like the military type. But in Israel, every type is the military type. Service in the IDF is compulsory, but there are varying degrees of participation.
Inbar, one of three seniors on UCLA’s men’s tennis team and a member of Israel’s 2006 Davis Cup roster, was on the lower end of that spectrum.
“I was placed in the “˜elite’ program, which is specifically for athletes,” Inbar said. “We were able to go to practice and travel abroad, even though we were still in the army. So whenever I was in Israel, I came to the base for two or three hours. Nothing exciting.”
The IDF’s elite program is the same one that allowed Israeli athletes such as Sacramento Kings forward Omri Casspi to pursue their athletic endeavors during the years other Israelis set aside for army service (18 to 21 years old). It allowed Inbar to hit the tennis court instead of the barracks, and do office work when he did report, but there was one thing his athletic prowess couldn’t get him out of: basic training.
“That was intense,” Inbar said. “It’s kind of hard to come from the normal life to the army life. Army life, when the commander tells you something, you have to say, “˜Yes, commander,’ which for me was hard to get used to. They’d teach us Krav Maga (hand-to-hand combat), how to take cover, how to shoot an M-16, how to navigate.”
It was at basic training that Inbar learned the physical skills to incapacitate the enemies of his state, but it was years earlier, at a far less imposing locale ““ a local tennis court ““ that he met a lifelong friend and future teammate.
Harel Srugo is the opposite of Inbar in many ways. At 5-foot-9-inches, he is not particularly tall; he has dark, curly hair and thick eyebrows, and quietness is not an issue.
“I met him when I was 14 or 13, and he was 10 or 11,” Srugo said. “He wasn’t the most social kid in the world, but he’s come a long way since then.”
Srugo and Inbar trained with the same coach for five years, and developed an understanding of each other’s game.
That understanding travels well.
In 2009, Srugo was a senior at UCLA, Inbar a sophomore transfer fresh off a solid freshman year for the Maryland Terrapins. UCLA’s doubles teams were not performing well, so coach Billy Martin decided to see if opposites really did attract and paired the countrymen together.
The result: Srugo and Inbar compiled a spotless 15-0 record at the No. 2 and 3 spots, as the Bruins reached the semifinals of the NCAA Tournament.
“It helps a lot when you know (your doubles partner) from before,” Inbar said. “You know how he reacts on the court. We could talk Hebrew, and the opponents couldn’t understand what we were saying.”
Martin has a dissenting view on why the two were so successful.
“I don’t know if the language thing had much to do with it, but they’re good friends and had known each other for years,” Martin said.
Whatever the reason for the strength of their pairing, Inbar knew that there was indeed a connection between him and his old training partner.
“The whole connection and relationship between us was great, and we were able to work hard during practice,” Inbar said. “When match time came, we just put it on the line and made it happen.”