Technically, it’s still tennis. But once you take a closer look at things you’ll quickly see the differences between singles play on the court and doubles is significant.
“They are totally different games,” Tumwater High School girls tennis coach James Click said. “There’s just things in doubles that are different than singles. If you can stay back and grind it out and not miss a ball and hustle, you’re going to beat a whole lot of people as a singles player.”
And in doubles?
“You have to be in good position,” Click added. “You have to be able to attack the net. There’s a lot of movement in doubles. A lot of strategy. The most important thing is you need to communicate.”
It’s that final part that has Tumwater’s Nicole Howard and Mikayla Kee setting their expectations extremely high during their senior year despite never being a doubles team before.
Photo credit: Grant Clark
“We’ve been friends since we were like 4,” stated Kee before Howard chimed in to provide her doubles partner with the corrected age.
“Eight? Really?” Kee answered. “I don’t know. Either way, it’s been a long time. I think it just works for us because we’re so close.”
Both have been members of the Thunderbirds tennis team for four years. However, despite their long-time friendship this season marks the first time they have stepped out onto the court together as a team.
Kee has been a doubles player at Tumwater her entire career. Howard, who has been a singles player up to this year and advanced to state in 2016, marks the fourth doubles partner Kee has had since she was a freshman.
“It’s been pretty different. It’s a little weird making that transition to doubles and no longer relying just on myself,” Howard said. “We’ve been best friends for so long. Making it to this year and making it to this level and being able to play together has been great. Towards the end of last season and over the summer we talked about playing together a little bit, but not much.”
Photo credit: Grant Clark
According to Howard, playing as doubles was just “an idea” that was kicked around, but never taken completely seriously. That is until the start of the school year when it became a reality and both figured they better get in some court time together.
“I don’t think we played this summer together at all, but when we started taking lessons together it got us excited about playing,” Howard said. “I’ve always been a singles player here, but I just love playing with Mikayla. I’m not alone out there anymore.”
The duo now views each other as a crutch – something Howard could have literally used the past two seasons.
Howard played her sophomore and junior seasons while nursing a stress fracture on her right foot. She suffered the injury during the start of her sophomore campaign, but opted to play through the pain.
“She’s just an incredibly tough player,” Click said. “She had this willingness to play on a broken foot basically the last two years. When she was playing singles she had all kinds of foot problems, but she would just play. She would be in all kinds of pain. We would ask her if she was ok and she would say, ‘I’m fine. I can do it.’”
Howard immediately followed up her elimination from the 2015 district tournament with a trip to the doctor.
“I lost at districts and went straight to the doctor and got a boot,” Howard said. “Then last year as a junior the same exact thing happened and I was out for three weeks.”
Howard’s toughness was on full display once she returned as despite taking the court with the bad foot, she was able to secure a trip to the Class 2A state tournament in spite of the pain.
“Every once in a while I will feel it. I still ice it after every practice, but I finally feel like I’m healed,” said Howard, who credited turning out for cross country in the fall with helping her ultimately overcome the injury. “I was on the swimming team until this year when I decided to do cross country. It actually helped my foot heal because I was running straight instead of side-to-side. That difference really changed the way I work as a player in tennis.”
Now all that remains is increased court time together as the rain has been the lone obstacle Howard and Kee have yet to overcome.
“I think we work really well together as a team,” Kee said. “This year it’s been tough because we’ve had so few practices outside because of the weather, but I think a few days ago we just started clicking really well.”
