At Elgin’s athletic awards ceremony last spring, sophomore tennis player Marta Krakowski stood with other giels as athletic director Paul Pennington prepared to announce the top overall girl athlete.
When Pennington said the winner was voted MVP of her sport, all but a handful sat. He continued announcing achievements, and each time more athletes sat.
“He said the winner was academic all-conference and more sat down, and I’m asking myself, ‘Is it me?’ ” Krakowski said. “I wasn’t sure. I turned around and looked and everyone else was sitting. I was like, ‘oh, oh my gosh.’ I was shocked.”
It’s uncommon for a sophomore to win, and even rarer for a tennis player to beat out multisport athletes in team sports for the award.
“Usually you think it’s a soccer player, softball or something like that,” Krakowski said.
After playing five matches at state last year, Krakowski is back this year as a junior looking for a third straight state trip and possibly more honors.
But she’s taking a much different path. It’s not an easier route.
“I’ve already lost four times,” Krakowski said. “By now, before, I had a loss or no losses but we were playing mostly local schools. This year we started with tougher schools from up north, and I’ve been having harder matches.”
One loss came to Lakes freshman phenom Megan Heuser. Another was to Glenbard West’s Sienna Lopez, a consolation quarterfinalist last year. Wauconda’s Sarah Hackman, who was 3-2 at state last year like Krakowski, beat Elgin’s standout this year.
“I feel like I’ve been real consistent and moved well, and played long points in every match I’ve had,” Krakowski said. “I’ve lost three 10-point tiebreakers and the one (with Heuser) was 6-3, 6-2. So I’m not discouraged.”
New Elgin coach Ming Chai has known Krakowski for several years. He also coaches at Prairie Stone, where Krakowski grew up learning to play. He agrees with her assessment.
“It’s been tougher and quite an experience for her,” Chai said. “She’s played stronger players and is working more on her defense and her ability to change the tempo in those type of matches instead of just banging at it.
“She’s also being very aggressive now, and going more for her shot.”
Krakowski and her family are from Poland, and she honed her skills by spending the summer in Europe playing. She went with a Polish tennis club to Prostejov in the Czech Republic, a tennis hotbed where the ITF World Junior Tennis Finals were held last month.
“It was a very intense five hours a day of tennis there,” Krakowski said. “I had some top coaches trying to change my game, and fix it.”
There didn’t seem much to fix in the past.
“They tried to get me to change not my whole swing, but little things like my forehand — to close it because the ball would fly out on me,” Krakowski said. “There were some ITF players. It was great competition.
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“It was also on clay courts, so that was different. But it’s helped. I think my backhand is still a stronger shot. But my forehand isn’t as flat as it was, and has more topspin. I get to move people more with that.”
It’s the kind of improvement Krakowski thinks can put her back on a track to state, possibly a tennis scholarship and maybe even another top athlete award.
“Losing at the beginning, it kind of hurt,” Krakowski said. “But it kind of woke me up to train even harder.
“I’m concentrating more and should be ready to play bigger tournaments.”
Twitter @genechamberlai2