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Tennisrecruiting.net player profile: Her coach, B.J. Stearns, says you won't meet a player with more tenacity -- "She's a fighter," he says.
The fight for O'Koniewski comes from within. She doesn't have any chip on her shoulder. She doesn't have any rivals. All her motivation, she says, stems from her own expectations.
"I'm very competitive in every aspect of life," O'Koniewski said. "I really like focusing on one thing -- trying to be the best I can be."
And she does it, however unusually, with a smile on her face. If there's a fight to her on the court, it gives way to a considerate friendliness off of it.
Which hasn't gone unnoticed. O'Koniewski, a senior at the Heritage Academy, received USTA's Bill Talbert Junior Sportsmanship Award, a honor only four junior tennis players in the nation see each year. It's the 13th sportsmanship award she has won since 2004.
This one comes with a bigger prize -- she will receive the award officially during the International Tennis Hall of Fame Enshrinement Ceremony in Newport, R.I., from July 7-9. Also in attendance: Andre Agassi, who will be inducted into the hall of fame during the same ceremony.
O'Koniewski described her reaction as shock, and she adds that she expects to be star struck when she meets Agassi.
Those who know her consider the award well-deserved.
"She's a great competitor on the court, but as soon as she's off, she's as sweet as they come," said Stearns, director of Smith Stearns Tennis Academy, where O'Koniewski trains six days a week. "A lot of getting a sportsmanship award is being respected by your peers. She is."
They quickly take notice of her aggressive game, too. Her list of travel tournament accomplishments reads like a career-long biography and quickly makes you forget she's only 17 years old.
O'Koniewski already has verbally committed to play tennis at the University of Virginia next fall, an up-and-coming NCAA Division I program that earned its first ever top-10 national ranking this season. Her goal is to eventually become an All-American.
More immediately, O'Koniewski is just one point away from obtaining a WTA national ranking, and she can procure that point by finishing among the top eight in this weekend's qualifying tournament for the USTA Pro Circuit $25,000 event in Pelham, Ala.
She hopes to win it. And she expects her mental toughness to carry her, as it has since she started playing as an 8-year-old.
But if she doesn't, don't expect that to change her good-natured attitude.
"I've always tried to treat my opponents with the respect I feel they deserve," O'Koniewski said. "Even though I'm competitive, I've always thought my success correlates with how I'm acting on the court. My best results come from competing and always giving my best effort."
