Linda Dues

Trey Love/All American Imaging

Against All Odds

knee surgeries, cancer doesn't deter kentucky women

By John McDevitt/USTA Southern

For any tennis player some injuries are easy to overcome. A scratch, a bruise or even a sprain can be treated quickly and a player can be back on the court the next day. Other injuries may result in a player missing a month, a year or possibly never returning to the court … let alone winning another match.

No team knows this better than the 3.5 Senior Women’s team from Kentucky, who have without a doubt earned their place in the 2011 USTA League Southern Section Championships.

Simply being able to play tennis this season was a victory for this team from Louisville. Throughout the season, they faced injury after injury, but overcame all of them to make their way to Mobile, Ala. for the first time in three years.

The extent of these injuries varied, however any one of them could have resulted in this team falling short of their goal. With three of the 17 members of this courageous team returning from major knee injuries (all of which required surgery), one member breaking her wrist while training and last, but certainly not least, having Monica Lee Smith beat breast cancer and return to the team for the final two matches of the season, it would be hard to say that any other team deserves to be here more.

If having to hurdle all of these injuries was not enough, these ladies were also the underdogs in their own state to make it into the these championships. As the No. 3 seed in the state, Captain Beverly King and the rest of the team rallied around all of their non-tennis related accomplishments, came together as a team and completed the Cinderella story.

The team is now simply enjoying their time in Mobile, AL and is trying to add another chapter to this amazing story. Regardless if they can pull out a couple more victories and play their way into the USTA League National Championships, this team has had one incredible season.