DATE: Wednesday, October 8, 1997            TAG: 9710080666

SECTION: SPORTS                  PAGE: C1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY VICKI L. FRIEDMAN, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:  120 lines

THE BEST OF THE NET SET CHILDHOOD FRIENDS EMERGE AS AREA'S TOP GIRLS TENNIS PLAYERS

First Colonial's Mily Kannarkat and Norfolk Academy's Michelle Grover are in different leagues.

From each other and every other high school tennis player in Hampton Roads.

Friends since childhood, both are nationally ranked on the junior circuit.

Kannarkat, the Group AAA state champ as a freshman and as a junior, has lost one high school match in four years and will likely make history this week as the Beach District's first four-time champion.

Grover, a junior at Norfolk Academy, steamrolls opponents in the TCIS. She is unbeaten in three years of TCIS play and has not dropped a game to a league opponent this season.

First Colonial and Norfolk Academy do not compete against each other in tennis, and the two rarely mix it up on the courts around the area. Instead, they wonder what it would have been like had they been on the same team.

``When Michelle's family was talking about moving,'' Kannarkat says, ``I said, `Shell, you're coming to FC.' ''

That would have meant the girls would have had to duke it out for the No. 1 spot. Mention that and the same competitive smile crosses each of their faces.

The 5-foot-2 Kannarkat can play a soft game, pound her groundstrokes and volley without the trepidation that deters many players from abandoning the baseline. If plan A isn't working, rest assured she has a plan B, C and D. Kannarkat's ability to dissect an opponent's strengths and weaknesses may be her biggest asset.

``Well, my father is a psychologist,'' she says with a sly grin.

Kannarkat didn't like to sit idly as a child. When her father would demonstrate strokes to her older brother, George, Mily would wander on court with a tennis racket as tall as she was.

``I've always been competitive with George,'' says Kannarkat, ranked first among girls 18-and-under in the Mid-Atlantic Region and 68th nationally by the USTA. ``If he had a B in a class, I had to get the A.''

George Kannarkat, now a sophomore at Drew University, was a three-time district champ, an accomplishment Mily is looking to better. She is 63-1 in high school, the lone loss coming to Richmond's Bridget Bruner two years ago in the state semifinals. Playing with a shoulder tear that would require surgery, Kannarkat served underhanded for most of the match. The loss humbled her, she says, and made her hungrier the next year. But this year high school tennis is primarily for First Colonial.

``This year it's more a matter of FC pride; Cox can't win,'' she says. ``And then once you get to state, it reflects Virginia Beach.''

Kannarkat never loses her focus despite a four-year string of easy district victories. She's sensed the frustration that sometimes forces opponents to tank. ``You want to yell at them,'' she says, ``and say, `What are you doing?' ''

Kannarkat is equally determined academically. She has a 3.9 GPA and her college list includes Brown, Dartmouth, Rice, Princeton and Old Dominion. She was recently named one of 25 Brickell scholars in the area, making her eligible for a $5,000 scholarship.

``Doing well in school has never been an option; playing tennis is,'' she says. ``My college choice isn't going to be based on tennis.''

Grover lives so far out in rural Suffolk that you can't see your hand in front of your face past 9 p.m. ``This is the only place we found with room to put up our own tennis court,'' says her mom, Jan Grover, hitting balls with Michelle's brothers Nate and Barton on the red clay.

Michelle Grover remembers coming home from a friend's house as a kid and telling her dad the family didn't have a tennis court in the yard. ``I thought everybody had a tennis court in their yard and everybody played tennis all day every day,'' she explains.

Ranked fourth in the Mid-Atlantic Region and 263rd in the USTA standings for 18-and-under girls, Grover punishes the ball from the baseline.

``Mily tends to play more of an all-around game,'' says local pro Julie Shiflet, who hits often with Grover. ``Michelle relies on her big shots, and she's working on the consistency to go with the power.''

Grover started playing tournaments at 8 but says the national events were once so stressful for her that the skin would peel from her hands. High school tennis is a break from that pressure, even with the goal she wrote down at the beginning of the season: Win every game. Undefeated wouldn't be enough - she wanted every match to be 6-0, 6-0.

``Everybody was laughing at me and saying, `Yeah, right, you're not going to lose a game,' '' she says. Seven TCIS singles matches won at love later, she says, ``I come off the court and they're like `0-and-0, right?' '' One match that didn't go 0-and-0 took place last Monday against Cox, the top-ranked team in South Hampton Roads. Grover not only lost some games to the Falcons' Kristin Moran, she wound up losing the match when she was defaulted by Norfolk Academy coach Mary Peccie for throwing her racket. ``It was an unfortunate thing that happened,'' Peccie said, ``because it was a great match and it was so unlike Michelle to do something like that. But I had no choice in the matter except to default her.''

Barring other outbursts, Grover is poised to repeat as TCIS champion in singles and doubles. Although her rivals could perceive her as cocky, that is not her intent. She knows how it feels to struggle against an overpowering opponent.

``They have to understand,'' she says, ``on my national level, I hope to win a game.''

Kannarkat has never lost to Grover in the handful of matches they've played, most recently a three-setter two years ago in a tournament final in Virginia Beach. Kannarkat admires the power of Grover; Grover is awed by Kannarkat's variety. ``She'll do everything,'' Grover says. ``She's got one of those games where she never makes a mistake and I just start going for things.''

Grover and Kannarkat were little girls when they met at a Suffolk tournament, where they teamed to beat bigger competition that Grover remembers as giants. They pair often in doubles and frequently are traveling companions to junior events. Grover is more free spirited with a weakness for chocolate and Coke. Kannarkat, of Indian descent, fills up on rice, curry and yogurt. Grover loves to tell the story of finding the Kannarkat family boiling rice in the hotel coffee pot in an Atlanta hotel room.

``I still haven't heard the end of it,'' Kannarkat says, laughing.

Both entertain notions of turning pro, but mainly they are looking toward college. Kannarkat wants to be a doctor, Grover a lawyer.

``I always speak my mind,'' Grover says, ``If I get something in my mind, I go after it.''

Ditto for Kannarkat, who adds, ``I've had to work hard for everything I've achieved.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

L. TODD SPENCER

Norfolk Academy's Michelle Grover, left, and First Colonial's Mily

Kannarkat rarely play against each other because their schools are

in different leagues.