Amer Delic was born June 30, 1982 in Tuzla, the third-largest city in northeastern Bosnia underneath the Majevica mountain, on the Jala river. He started playing tennis in the public parks in Tuzla at age 5 when his father, Muharem, gave him a wood racket as a present. But ethnic warfare erupted in Yugoslavia in 1992. Shortly after May 25, 1995, when two grenades exploded killing more than 70 young people, in the most deadly act of the Bosnian War, Amer and his family left Tuzla.
In April 1996, after leaving nearly everything behind, Amer and his family settled in Jacksonville, Fla. A school counselor discovered Amer's interest in tennis and the school's tennis coach arranged a time for the two of them to hit. In his first tennis tournament in the United States, 13-year-old Amer reached the finals of a tournament at a local country club playing against 16-year-olds. He lost in the third set of the finals when his racket strings broke.
Throughout his junior career, Delic began to turn the heads of college coaches. He compiled a 45-1 record, won a Florida State Championship (1998) and took home a Gator Bowl title (2000). He was consistently ranked in the top three in his section (Florida) and was a top-five player nationally.
When he joined the Illinois men's tennis team, he became the first No.1 recruit that then-head coach Craig Tiley ever signed. But even then, there was no way of knowing what the future held for the Delic and the Illini.
