 "Photo: nmsu")
For Nicole Fintell, tennis has been more than a sport. It has been an opportunity to go to school for free, travel around the country and meet new people, particularly one person, who she now calls her husband.
When Fintell was seven years old, she fell in love with the game, which eventually led her to becoming an Aggie and ultimately led her to finding love half way around the world.
"When I first played tennis, I loved it right away and started playing competitively when I was nine," Fintell said. "And everyday my life revolved around the game, and I enjoyed it. Tennis has been really good to me."
Since then, Fintell has been a part of the state championship tennis team while attending Coronado High School in El Paso, where she was born, and she earned a scholarship to New Mexico State University to play tennis.
"When I came on my recruiting trip, the coaches and players were so much fun," Fintell explained about why she chose to attend NMSU. "And knowing that I would be really close to home, I could drive home if I ever got home sick."
In her first year as an Aggie, Fintell said she was not playing her best tennis and was afflicted with home sickness, driving back to Santa Teresa, N.M., almost every weekend to visit her parents.
"They've always told me to do whatever I want, whatever I feel I need in my life," Fintell said about her parents. "They were always supporting me if I won, if I lost, if I got an A on a paper, if I got an F on a paper and always told me to keep giving the best that I can and that everything would work out."
Eventually, things did work out for her. Although that first year may have been tough for Fintell, it was also the same year she met her future husband, Alex Mouquin, while visiting France with her teammates. Four years later, the couple is happily married, and Fintell said she owes their relationship to tennis.
"He always tells me how proud he is of everything I do," Fintell said. "He's just always there for me when I need him. If he's not able to watch me play and I lose, he comes right away and tells me, 'Don't worry, you're my star.'"
Fintell's last year as an Aggie also started off rough. In October, she said she was not enjoying the game and ended up breaking her hand, taking her out of competition for 10 weeks. During that healing period, Fintell said she realized how much she loved the game.
"I realized how much I missed the team, and I felt like I was letting them down," Fintell said. "Loving tennis, loving the game has kept me going, knowing that it's fun and that I'm not playing for myself. I'm playing for five other people on the court and two coaches who are getting gray hair because of us."
As a senior, Fintell completed the final chapter of her Aggie tennis career at the 2007 Western Athletic Conference championship on April 26.
"It was in my head that it could possibly be my last match ever, and so I was a little emotional at the beginning," Fintell said. "Don [Ball] came on the court and told me to relax and calm down, and I just played really well."
Fintell finished her competitive career with a win against Mariel Tinnirello of Idaho, 6-3, 7-5, but as a team, the Aggies were knocked out of the tournament by Idaho.
"I was sad that it ended up being our last team match," Fintell said. "I really didn't think we would lose. Even though they were seeded above us, I was sure we were going to win. But I had a great career here and hopefully I can help them out next year."
Fintell does not graduate until December, but will not be able to compete in the fall season and said she would like to practice with the team and volunteer as an assistant coach. She said she also wants to coach at the El Paso Country Club, where she grew up playing.
Fintell is majoring in human nutrition and food sciences, and hopes to become a registered dietitian and work with athletes. She said her knowledge of healthy eating patterns helped her during the last two years of her tennis career, and she hopes to pass on that knowledge and help others in the future.
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