The Red and Black

Issue date: 2/7/08 Section: Sports

Media Credit: Nick Passarello Senior Kelley Hyndman gained a senior leadership role even though she didn't train during her offseason. [Click to enlarge]

Kelley Hyndman didn't do anything different after last season ended.

In fact, she did less.

Instead of training vigorously during the summer to prepare for her last season with the Georgia women's tennis team, she spent her summer days working in an office writing newsletters and designing outfits at the Smith Stearns Tennis Academy in Hilton Head, S.C.

So without working on her tennis game, how was she able to jump from playing on court four to court one?

"I think I just took a lot of pressure off myself, seeing that this is my last year," Hyndman said. "I just wanted to have a good year and it's turned out that way so far."

Hyndman has posted a 15-5 record this year as the Bulldogs head to Madison, Wis. to play its first match in the National Team Indoors against Notre Dame.

Hyndman admitted she has won 75 percent of her matches after training the least she ever has in the offseason.

"To be honest, I trained the least I did any summer," Hyndman said. "I worked from the morning until six at night. I played very minimal tennis here and there."

Head coach Jeff Wallace said the time Hyndman spent away from playing might have helped energize her for this season.

"I think each year she's stepped it up and had a better year," Wallace said. "Sometimes between that junior and senior year you can take a break and be fresh and ready to go. Obviously, that happened, and she was ready to go."

However, taking a break wasn't the only thing that helped Hyndman.

"I switched rackets," she said. "I was playing with a Babolat Pure Drive, but then I switched to a Prince. The Prince racket is really light, and it's not known as a players' racket. But I played with one like it when I was younger, and I did really well then and I've been playing well with it now."

With rest and a new racket, Hyndman has asserted herself into the senior leadership role left void after Natalie Frazier and Darya Ivanov graduated a year ago.

"I just took pressure off and wanted to go out and have fun," Hyndman said. "All of a sudden things have come together."

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