One more chance for title for Nicolet duo
Annabelle Crowley and Emma Koppa are hoping that this season’s trip to the Nielsen Tennis Stadium in Madison doesn’t end like last year’s did.
Or the year before. Or the year before that.
“I don’t want to leave a match regretting something, like if we would have done this we would have won,” Koppa said. “I think there were some mistakes each year in the past."
Crowley and Koppa, both seniors at Nicolet, form one of the more dangerous doubles combos entering the WIAA individual state tennis tournament beginning Thursday on the University of Wisconsin campus.
This is their second trip to state as a doubles team, but both have reached this level all four years of high school.
“My first year, I just didn’t know what was going on,” Crowley said. “That was my first time ever being there. I was like, ‘Oh, more than two people are watching.’”
Now, making the trip to state is just as normal for Crowley and Koppa as a trip to the conference tournament.
Going out with a bang
There is no doubt that Crowley and Koppa want to come away from state with gold medals, but that isn’t the biggest thing on their minds.
“We’re looking for only good things to take away from the state,” Koppa said. “There’s been a lot of negative experiences, so we’re not going to let that happen. None of that.”
Both players have gotten close to the top, but have walked away from past state tournaments wondering asking themselves, “What if?”
Last season, Crowley and Koppa lost in their quarterfinal match in three sets en route to a fifth-place finish.
“It was a match they felt like they should have won,” said Tim Koppa, the Nicolet head coach and Emma’s father. “So that kind of stuck with them.”
That wasn’t the only close call for the pair.
Crowley, with her then-doubles partner Elise Gerard, reached the Division 1 championship match in both 2015 and ‘16 only to come up just short both years. Koppa also reached the quarterfinals as a sophomore.
Perfect complements
Crowley and Koppa enter the tournament as the No. 2 seed with a record of 24-3, largely because of how well they complement each other.
“They’re kind of like the perfect doubles team,” Tim Koppa said. Crowley is the big hitter. “Annabelle is the big, athletic player that can do it all,” Tim Koppa said. “She has a great serve, incredible hands, great returns. She’s a force with every hit she makes.”
Emma, meanwhile, plays off Crowley almost perfectly.
“Emma is the strategist and the steady hand,” Tim Koppa said. “If you picked a strength of Emma’s, her returns are pretty big and she’s not afraid to mix it up. It’s kind of what you want on a doubles team: the person who sets it up and the person who finishes it.” Koppa also helps keep things light. “She always hypes me up and that’s always good,” Crowley said. “I’ve played with other people that aren’t anything like that, and that can just be boring.”
A fun approach
Between Crowley and Koppa, there is enough skill to make a serious run at the state tournament, but they believe what helps them the most on the court is their mental approach.
“I think we just have fun,” Crowley said. “We play a lot of people that are good, but they’re so in their head and so intense about it. Even if we’re losing, it’s just tennis. It’s supposed to be fun.”
In addition to being a strong duo on the court, they are friends away from tennis, as well.
“For some people with their doubles partner, it’s like they’re tennis friends but you’re not friends in school,” Emma Koppa said. “Annabelle and I are just friends in general, and then it just so happens that we get to play together.”