His personality vibrant. His competitive vitality unmatched.

A pertinacious member of the pit nearing the end of his collegiate tennis career comes complete with a demeanor categorized as distinctive and endearing.

“He’s a goofy guy. He’s always laughing or making some weird sound. He always is there to make everybody laugh. It’s just kind of his demeanor,” said Drake Bernstein of the Georgia men’s tennis team. “He’s got his own little walk. Nobody else has that same walk on earth. The way he carries himself around is . he’s just a funny guy.”

As senior captain for the Bulldogs, Christian Vitulli has leaped over a continent and an ocean to land on the other side of the world in another country, racket in hand and primed to set foot on the tennis court as a Georgia Bulldog.

And for this journey, his teammates dubbed him “Kenya.”

“He’s from Kenya. It’s easy. I don’t know. We just started calling him that, and it stuck,” Vitulli’s co-captain Jamie Hunt said.

Vitulli was born in the coastal city of Mombasa, Kenya, but the senior is of Italian and Danish decent, as Vitulli’s father is Italian and his mother is Danish.

Vitulli’s father, Carlo, was groomed by his grandfather to take over the family business of manufacturing and refining natural stone and building materials, which is the reason the Vutilli clan relocated to and lived in Kenya.

Along with his wife, Maria, Carlo raised their two children, Christian and his younger sister Martina, and took over Miritini Building Products Ltd. Christian took to his surroundings, channeling his energy into sports.

“I always went to the beach because I lived right on the coast. I played a lot of cricket, a lot of soccer, [was] really into sports. Mainly just life around the beach, hanging out,” Vitulli said.

Vitulli went through the motions of a quintessential childhood, fashioning friendships and tagging along with his parents to the local tennis courts.

“My dad started playing when he was 18, and my mom, she’s a social player,” Vitulli said. “They played all the time, so I would just follow them up to the courts and play it.”

After some development and entry into his teen years, the native Kenyan digested the concept of boarding school, tennis practice three to four hours a day and being separated from the support system of his family all in one fell swoop.

Vitulli was recruited by Pretoria Boys School in Pretoria, South Africa. After his swing of the racket caught the recruiters’ eye and he proved to be packed full of promise, Vitulli made the move south to Pretoria and never peered into the rear view mirror.

The 14-year-old Vitulli spent the next four years at boarding school, playing in junior tennis events across the world and fine-tuning his talent.

“I went through a big adjustment phase when I was moving to South Africa in the beginning,” Vitulli said. “Since then, I’ve just been used to traveling around, adjusting to different places.”

The trail he was blazing led him to brush shoulders with current teammates and fellow co-captains Hunt and Nate Schnugg. Introduced by a mutual friend, the three athletes built somewhat of a camaraderie while killing time in between matches at tournaments.

“We kind of had hung out a few times, and then when I heard he was looking to come to Georgia, we started talking a little more,” Hunt said. “I told him all there was to know about Georgia, and then he came.”

Vitulli’s location took an even more dramatic turn when he heard about the phenomenon that is college sports in America. Not privy to the practice, Vitulli learned quickly about it and did not shy away from the idea when approached by college coaches.

After recruiting trips to the campuses of Texas, Pepperdine and rival Florida, the landscape architecture major decided to set up shop in Georgia’s Dan Magill Tennis Complex.

“I knew [Hunt and Schnugg]. I thought they were great players. I came here to see this tennis facility compared to all the others, and I just felt like the campus was really a lot more personal,” Vitulli said. “They showed me the tradition, all the championships they’ve won. I was like, ‘Hell, geez, OK.’”

Playing the majority of his matches as a Bulldog at the No. 6 spot, Vitulli has worked the last three years to exercise the kinks out of his game and ensure that he doesn’t sweat the small things, while still playing his role for the Bulldogs and the other members of the pit (courts 4, 5 and 6).

“I don’t think he has been able to achieve his full potential because he has just gotten frustrated in the past. He’s able to challenge those issues and those moments, he’s able to challenge his emotions that are now a little bit better, and able to stay sort of on course,” head coach Manuel Diaz said. “It’s a process of maturity, and I just think that Christian has matured a great deal here in the last year.”

Now infamous for his light-hearted spirit, ear-to-ear smile and jokster mentality, Vitulli enters his senior year with an intensified sense of competitiveness, a heightened maturity level and a clearer head.

“He’s grown a lot in every aspect of his life. He’s always been a great friend. Especially this year, he brought a tremendous amount of leadership to our team. It’s nice to co-captain along side such a great leader,” Hunt said. “This is it for all of us. We’re all fired up. He’s the most fired up.”

Vitulli has solidified himself as a leader at the start of his final campaign as a Bulldog, and as he and his teammates head into Wilson/ITA Southeast Regional play, their drive is to reach victory is more vivacious and amplified then ever before.

“It just gets pummeled into our heads that we’re Georgia, that we’re the best. That confidence that they keep instilling in you, it just builds you up, that belief,” Vitulli said. “I just feel like the responsibility is on me and the other captains because it’s my final year, and I think we can do really well. I want to give it my all.”