In 2024, the BYU women's tennis team qualified for the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2007.
It was a massive year for the program and junior transfer, Kendall Kovick, was a big reason for the Cougars' success in their first year in the Big 12.
Kovick improved immensely throughout the season and even took down the No. 5 ranked doubles team in the country in March. She is now ranked in the top 100 in the NCAA with her doubles partner, Bobo Huang.
But believe it or not, there was a time two years ago where Kovick not only wanted to give up playing tennis, but she didn't want to be alive.

Kovick's early collegiate career
"Sports was always in my path ... I ran track, I did gymnastics, I played soccer," Kovick said. "Tennis was always the one that stuck the most."
Tennis came naturally to the Las Vegas native, and by the time Kovick was a junior in high school, coaches all over the country were calling to get her on their team.
Kovick made the decision to attend West Virginia without ever taking an official visit to their campus, due to COVID-19.
West Virginia was a building program, not yet competitive in the Big 12, but Kovick saw an opportunity to develop and build the Mountaineers into a viable program.
"The team was very new and our culture was ... not great," she said. "It was a pretty toxic environment the two years that I was there."
Kovick, who had dealt with depression and anxiety in the past, said that her struggles were "not taken very seriously."
"Freshman year, there's a lot of change, there's a lot of things going on. I chalked up [my struggles] to being new and learning," Kovick said. "That's why I decided to stay another year."
A life-altering sophomore season
It was in Kovick's sophomore year where all her struggles came to a boiling point after she suffered an intense concussion.
"I sustained the injury in our second weekend of matches," Kovick said. "I wasn't getting much help, there wasn't much support."
This injury sidelined Kovick for months and the recovery process was physically and mentally taxing.
"Tennis has been my entire life and a lot of my identity. Me having to realize that I probably wasn't going to be able to play again ... I honestly didn't see a point in living."
Kovick decided that she did not want to live anymore.
"I called [my mom] and told her, 'I don't know what you need to do, but you need to get here as soon as you can, because I can't do this,'" Kovick said.
Within days, Kovick's mom was in Morgantown to help her daughter.
Kovick also credits her athletic trainer at West Virginia as being one of her few sources of comfort during this time.
"Not only was it her job to take care of me, but she took care of me because she loves me ... still to this day we are best friends."
Kovick went back and forth between whether or not she wanted to continue to play tennis. At one point, she thought she might move back home and finish her degree as a student. Not a student-athlete.
"A month later, I was hitting with one of my friends ... I realized that it wasn't tennis that was causing all of my trauma," Kovick said. "That's when I decided I wanted to try again."
Kovick put her name into the transfer portal that May.
Fresh start in Provo
Kovick had been recruited by BYU and head coach Holly Hasler all throughout high school, but because she was not a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, she never thought it was a realistic option.
Curious about what BYU was like, she reached out to a member of BYU's team, whom she had known prior to college and asked about what it would be like to play for the Cougars.
"Everything she was telling me just seemed like a perfect fresh start. It was honestly the opposite of what I had, and what I had wasn't working," Kovick said. "I was open to a lot of change.
"Within an hour of me going in the transfer portal, Holly was one of the first coaches to reach out to me... I just had a really good feeling about it."
Kovick transfered to BYU for the 2023-2024 season, and continued her health and tennis journey in Provo.
Right away, Kovick felt love and acceptance from coaches, staff, and teammates.
"Honestly, our team is a lot like my second family," Kovick said. "A lot of the girls were just very understanding and wanted to support me and wanted to help me. When you're around good people and you're around a safe and loving environment ... it definitely helps to feel more motivated everyday and want to get up and want to work hard."
Kovick is now one of the clear leaders for a BYU program that has had great success since Kovick's arrival. After being picked to finish in the bottom half of the Big 12 in the 2024 preseason poll, the Cougars finished No. 5 on their way to the NCAA tournament. Kovick was a big reason why BYU showed out.
After once considering never playing tennis again, Kovick was a lead player for one of the best teams in the NCAA just a year later.
"I would tell [my sophomore self] that I am proud of her and that it does get better," she said. "A lot of people, when they are going through a hard time just don't really see the end of it ... keep fighting, keep pushing through, it does get better.
"I will keep fighting," Kovick said. "Mental health struggles are something that I will have for the rest of my life, and I have the choice whether I want to let it control me and let it win, or whether or not I want to do my best to combat it and push through every single day."