Keyser Reaps Benefits of Good Health : Girls’ tennis: Without her usual nagging injuries, Santa Margarita senior is tearing up competition.

Santa Margarita’s Tracy Keyser was taking no chances. As she talked about how happy and relieved she was to finally have her health, she made sure to find wood nearby.

“I’m knocking on wood,” Keyser said over the telephone. “This is the first high school season I’ve been totally, 100% healthy. It definitely helps. I felt like I could have had a good season last year, but I was never healthy enough to find out. Now I feel I can finally show people what I’ve got.”

And Keyser is showing she’s got plenty of game. Through Santa Margarita’s first eight dual matches, she has yet to lose a set in 24 at No. 1 singles. Her closest set was 6-3.

Keyser’s consistency at No. 1 singles is one reason the Eagles are off to their best start. Unranked in the preseason, Santa Margarita is 8-0 and ranked eighth in the county. The Eagles are one of five Sea View League teams in the top 10.

Keyser is happy with her team’s start, but she’s even happier to be able to fully contribute. The past three years, Keyser was happy to survive her matches playing with an assortment of nagging injuries.

“Now I can say that I didn’t play well because I wasn’t mentally ready to play or that the other player was better than me, not because I was injured,” she said.

For the first time since she turned 14, Keyser said she’s relying on her physical gifts instead of her mental toughness.

“It’s kind of a secret, but I’m definitely weaker mentally and stronger physically,” she said. “I keep trying to get better mentally, but that part of my game needs a lot of work.”

Keyser has been working on all aspects of her game the last six years with coaches Lee Merry of Canyon Hills Racquet Club in Escondido and Jeff Frantz, formerly of the Racquet Club of Irvine. Keyser said both coaches have been extremely patient.

“I’ve never thought about quitting, because my goal is to get a full-ride scholarship,” Keyser said. “When I’m injured, I do get a break from tennis. And when I go back after a layoff, it’s fun again. But it’s frustrating because I’ve had too much time off. Meanwhile, everyone else is getting better. But I look at it this way: it’s toughened me up.”

And no year toughened her up more than the last. The strain of playing year-round tennis caught up with her. Last summer, she developed tendinitis in her shoulder and wrist and she pulled a muscle in her thigh. The injuries forced Keyser to miss several national junior tournaments and play the last high school season in pain.

The result was a season she’d rather forget.

“I don’t know my record and I wouldn’t want to,” she said.

Keyser doesn’t blame all of her injuries on tennis. She said part of the problem was caused by a growth spurt.

“I grew to 5-10 too fast,” she said. “I couldn’t keep up with my body.”

Her bad luck was evident last May when Keyser took the wrong freeway exit and was involved in a car accident. She suffered whiplash and missed two months on the courts. “You never know what could happen to me,” she said.

Keyser missed most of the Southern California junior tournaments, but she did play in the national clay courts and national hard courts.

In late summer, a stronger and more determined Keyser won the doubles event of the Pacific Coast tournament and finished third in the Southern Open doubles.

That kind of success has carried over to the fall. And so the Sea View League players who beat up on an injured Keyser the past three years might be in for a rude awakening this year.

“This is my senior year and I’m going to go for it,” said Keyser, who has never advanced past the quarterfinals of the Sea View League individual tournament. “There’s that goal that I’m going to go undefeated. Of course, everybody has that goal.”

Keyser said she has another goal in mind. “I’m going to try to go to USC or Pepperdine on a tennis scholarship. I set high standards for myself.”