After injury, Krishnamurthy returns to top of women's tennis

This isn't the first time the name Kavitha Krishnamurthy has made headlines. Jumpstarting her freshman year in 1999 as the No. 1 singles player for the women's tennis team, she won both the All-Ivy Player and Rookie of the Year awards.

She was the Ivy League's first tennis player, man or woman, to do this. Only one other female before her had ever swept her sport's major awards.

And if that wasn't enough, Krishnamurthy, now a junior, also won the ITA region Rookie of the Year award and was selected — unanimously — to be on the singles first team.

Then her back started to hurt.

Almost exactly a year ago, as she was beginning her sophomore season, Krishnamurthy suddenly started to feel a sharp pain in her lower back. What started out as a minor irritation only got worse as the fall season wore on.

By mid-November, her doctor made real — in those seven fateful words — any athlete's cardinal fear: "It's time to take some time off."

The strain, which "was really frustrating because it came and went and came and went," like a canker sore, was the first injury Krishnamurthy ever experienced since she first picked up a tennis racket as an eight year old. Fortunately, there was the chance that she could take the three months between the fall and spring seasons to recover.

"As long as I was careful, it was okay to train a little bit," she recalled thinking.

But even a lighter training schedule was not able to appease the pain by February.

"I think in the end I really needed to stay off it for a couple weeks," she said, "which is what I ended up unfortunately doing during the spring season."

So while the rest of her team was traveling to California for the annual spring break tournament, Krish-namurthy stayed behind.

"It was frustrating — really frustrating, not being able to play. I really wanted to and I felt like I couldn't really contribute to the team," she said.

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Although her modesty conceals the fact that she maintained a national ranking by competing in several matches and was still able to qualify for the NCAA nationals tournament that May, she lost in the first round and the team finished fourth in the Ivy League.

Last summer, after staying off the courts while in France for five weeks, Krishnamurthy came back to campus in mid-July "pretty much back to normal" and ready to start her junior year at 100 percent. The headlines have already trumpeted her return, as Krishnamurthy grabbed first place in the William and Mary Invitational after trouncing Arizona's Debbie Larocque in the final, 6-1, 6-3.

More recently, in the ECAC tournament hosted by Princeton this weekend, she won both her number one singles and doubles matches against Georgetown in the first round of day one. In the second round, she managed to crush Yale's No. 1, 6-1, 6-0, even though the Bulldogs were seeded fourth in the tournament. In day two, her victories in both singles and doubles secured the Tigers' sound 6-1 defeat of Cornell. "I feel really good," Krishnamurthy said about the fall season.

And with the neon headline "All-American" flashing in her eyes, she has only the highest expectations for her continued success this spring.

Despite these personal goals and her national recognition, Krish-namurthy attributes the Tigers' success to their group dynamics.Coming from Ontario, Canada, where high school tennis teams do not exist and where juniors train independently with their own coaches, the camaraderie is something that Krishnamurthy had never experienced before but that she now thinks is the most important thing.

With a group of talented freshmen, energetic senior captains and a nationally-respected coach, that other headline — "Ivy League Title" — flashes even brighter in her eyes.

But tennis for Krishnamurthy will not end with the title. She is only a junior. Next year, she hopes to continue the legacy of good leadership that this year's co-captains Kristi Watson and Priya Bhupathi have already set.

And after that?

"I think I'll play pro for a year or two," she said, as if the pros were just an afterthought. "Just because this is what I really love to do."