Mackenzie Bishop, daughter of UNA coach Brice Bishop, is a senior on the UNA tennis team and a leader in doubles.

“I picked up a racquet when I was 3 and started playing competitively when I was 10,” she said.

Bishop has been playing for as long as she remembers. Both of her parents have been inducted into the UNA Athletic Hall of Fame. Her mom, Carol Franklin, ran cross-country at UNA, and her dad, Brice Bishop, who coaches the tennis teams, played tennis for the Lions.

“I wanted to play tennis because it was what surrounded me and how I lived,” Mackenzie said. “Some people ran around playgrounds when they were kids. I ran around a tennis court.”

Playing for her dad is something Mackenzie is used to, and she said that it would be weird to play for someone else. She also said that they do a good job of separating home life and tennis life.

“We have a pact,” she said. “Tennis stays on the court. If I have a bad day, or if he is disappointed in the way I played, it’s not carried home. We leave it on the court.”

Her mom and dad are her role models, and she said she does not have a favorite professional athlete.

“They’re hard workers and have amazing hearts for God,” she said. “I can’t think of anyone else I would want to be.”

Mackenzie and Natalia Barragan are 10-3 this season as doubles partners.

“I don’t think there is one factor that is the most important at this point,” Mackenzie said. “It’s more like a lot of small factors have come together to formulate our success.”

She added that communication makes the duo a force.

“We communicate well, we both hustle, we pick each other up and we work as a team on the court,” she said. “We can anticipate each other’s moves and shots without having to tell each other.”

She is a secondary education major with a concentration in math.

“I have always wanted to be a teacher,” she said. “I chose math because I love it and I’m good at it. So many students view math as their worst or most hated subject. I want to change it into something students can enjoy and succeed in.”

Bishop views tennis as one of the most difficult sports to learn.

“Tennis is extremely difficult to learn,” she said. “It holds a completely different physical aspect than most sports. It’s short, quick movements, constant sprinting and sickeningly hot conditions for two to five hours straight. Also, tennis is very mental. There is a lot of strategy and planning you have to do in your head in the middle of a point.”

She summed up being a student athlete with one sentence: “It’s time consuming, frustrating and exhausting, but I have loved every minute of it for the last four years.”