Kansas high school tennis champion gains new perspective from career-threatening injury
It wasn’t that long ago when Isabella Sebits was consumed by the pressure of winning every tennis match and chasing Kansas high school state titles.
Less than a year after winning the Class 4A singles championship, a severe back injury last October nearly ended her career. The initial diagnosis by her doctor was that she would never pick up a racket again.
Sebits ultimately was able to recover with time away, but the last year has given the Trinity Academy senior a new perspective on the game she has loved since 6 years old.
She made her triumphant return to action last week by winning the singles title at a Hesston tournament, the first of what she hopes to be many gold medals in her comeback season.
“I feel like I’m back and better than ever,” Sebits said. “The time away put everything in perspective for me. It’s not the end of the world anymore if I lose a match. I realized how much of a privilege it is to play tennis, instead of always being so stressed about the next match, now I’m just grateful to be out there again.”
The gratitude hasn’t replaced her competitive drive, however. In the opinion of first-year coach Kevin Dobyns, Sebits has already regained her pre-injury form: precision striking that wears down her opponents.
“She’s back in the zone already,” Dobyns said. “If I didn’t already know she was coming off a major injury, I wouldn’t have known. She is a very good all-around player. Solid service, solid ground strokes and she knows how to build up the point really well. I don’t know if she does one thing exceptionally well; she’s just exceptional all around.”
Such a quick return to form is an accomplishment considering Sebits suffered a stress reaction in the fifth vertebra of her lumbar spine less than a year ago, the result of her overcompensating for a partially-torn tendon in her knee.
The injury occurred just weeks from the state tournament, ending her chance of pursuing a second straight championship. The bad news piled on when her doctor feared tennis would be too great of a risk for permanent damage.
“It was devastating in the moment because I really wanted to win state again,” Sebits said. “And then to be told (my career may be over), that was definitely really scary. I’ve been playing tennis since I was six and training to play in college and it felt like everything had been for nothing.”
Hope was restored when her orthopedic surgeon determined a tennis career was still possible, but the comeback would have to begin after three months of rest and with a slow build-up to a return.
Sebits took the time off and was diligent in her physical therapy work. It frustrated her in those early days back on the court, only being able to work for 45 minutes at a time, but her determination carried her through. She even began weight training for the first time in her life in an attempt to prevent future injury.
Added motivation has been returning to help Trinity chase a team trophy at the state tournament, which seems in reach with Sebits and the No. 1 doubles team of Darcy Dunne and Sophia Majors, who placed third in 4A last season, all back, as well as Haley Green in singles and the second doubles team of Maddie Davis and Grace Leopold.
But championships and a college tennis scholarship no longer define Sebits, who reconsidered her future due to the injury.
She once dreamed of playing for the women’s tennis team at Oklahoma, one of the nation’s top college programs. Sebits no longer plans on pursuing a college career in tennis, however, she still hopes to attend OU to focus on attaining an accounting degree while still playing tennis recreationally.
That doesn’t mean Sebits still wouldn’t like to end her final foray in competitive tennis as a champion, a feeling she still remembers from her title run in 2020.
“I still remember when I won state (in 2020), it felt like I had finally made it,” Sebits said. “My tennis icon was (former Kapaun Mt. Carmel player) Claire Whitaker, who won state all four years. I wanted to be just like her and in that moment, when I became a state champion, I felt like her.”
This story was originally published August 29, 2022 at 6:00 AM.
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