Oh, Snap!
Lexa Hindo overcomes injury to win state championship
By Steve Stein
Lexa Hindo’s path to her second consecutive state championship in girls tennis was a bumpy one.
Less than a month before she competed in the Michigan High School Athletic Association Division 3 state tournament this past spring, the Birmingham Marian doubles specialist tore the calf muscle in her right leg during a match at regionals.
She had hurt the calf a week before regionals but shrugged it off as a cramp.
“I jumped, and felt it snap,” she said about the injury at regionals. “It was a Grade 2 tear, which normally takes about a month to heal with treatment and rehab.”
Hindo tore the muscle May 13 at Detroit Country Day School during what turned out to be a nearly three-hour, three-set match that Hindo and her doubles partner Emerson Villalba lost to a team from the host school.
The state tournament was June 5-6 at the Midland Tennis Center.
Despite competing just once during the stretch, Hindo was ready to go at state.
The Commerce Township resident and Villalba—the No. 2 seed in No. 3 doubles—won all four of their matches over two days in straight sets, losing just 15 games.
They beat No. 1 seed Ava Kouza and Julia Geisz of Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook-Kingswood 6-2, 6-4 in the championship match.
“Lexa and I talked every day she was out,” said Marian coach Olivia Underwood. “She did everything possible to get better. My main concern was her health and safety. If your calf doesn’t heal correctly from a tear, you risk an Achilles tendon tear.”
Underwood has first-hand knowledge of a torn calf. She suffered the same injury playing tennis earlier this year.
“I know all about it,” she said. “It’s a dull pain. It feels like your calf was stretched too far and it remains stretched. What’s bizarre about it is when you first get hurt, you walk differently because you can’t push off. Your cadence is off.
“Lexa played wonderfully at state. What she did there was extremely difficult.”
Hindo said she felt like she was 80-90% all right physically at the state tournament, helped by wearing a compression sock. The mental aspect of playing through the injury was tougher.
“I tried not to think about it,” she said. “I won’t lie. What Emerson and I did at state was surprising. I was hoping for the best, but ...”
Hindo, a junior, and Villalba, a freshman, went 17-2 during the season playing No. 3 doubles.
Underwood said she put the two together as a doubles team before the season because of their complementary tennis skills and, “I knew I could count on Lexa to be a leader for Emerson on and off the court.
“And she was a good role model and teammate. A freshman playing at the varsity level can be scary. Lexa and Emerson were successful on the court because of their success off the court.”
Hindo became a second coach for Villalba while she was sidelined.
She watched Villalba closely during practice and in the only match Villalba played, a victory in doubles, and offered suggestions.
Hindo said she didn’t know Villalba before the season but saw her play during tryouts and was impressed.
“I came to love Emerson as a person during the season,” Hindo said. “It can be mentally hard for a freshman to play varsity tennis, but she was amazing. We both had the same strong mindset that nothing was going to get to us during a match. We were going to focus on the match.”
Stella Glorio was Hindo’s doubles partner in 2025. They also won all four in their matches at the state tournament on their way to a No. 3 doubles title.
Glorio won a state championship at No. 2 doubles in June. Marian finished second as a team, just four points behind Country Day.
Hindo is entering her senior year at Marian.
She’s a 4.0 grade-point average student at the all-girls Catholic high school and will be looking this school year for a college that will meet her academic needs. She doesn’t plan to play tennis in college.
Her injured calf was still a bit sore during the summer, but she said she’ll be ready to pursue her third state championship in the spring of 2027.
It would be her fourth season on the Marian girls tennis team. She went 1-4 at No. 4 singles as a freshman.
Hindo’s sister Alana Hindo won a Division 4 No. 3 doubles state championship in 2023 when she was a sophomore at Bloomfield Hills Academy of the Sacred Heart.
Alana is beginning her second year in the University of Detroit Mercy’s five-year accelerated physician assistant program. She’s currently in the bachelor of biology portion of the program and will transition to PA after her third year.