Chelsea and Jasmine Apawti remember the days when they had to compete against each other on the tennis court.

Luckily for the twin sisters from Zaandam, Netherlands, that is no longer the case. Chelsea and Jasmine have competed alongside each other on the University of Detroit Mercy's women's tennis team for the past two seasons.

"We'd play in the same tournaments, but we didn't really like to play against each other because we both wanted to go to the finals and if we would face each other before the finals, it was tough," Chelsea said.

Collegiate tennis provided the Apawtis an opportunity they had not had since they were young and first starting out in the sport: playing together.

At Detroit Mercy, the sophomores have been paired as prominent doubles partners. Last season, Chelsea and Jasmine won twelve matches together in doubles.

Through March 13, the sophomores have won eight matches as doubles partners this season.

"As soon as we played again, it was kind of better than all the doubles we played with other teammates," Jasmine said.

When they're not on the court perfecting their craft, the Apawtis are hitting the books, as they both chose to study Engineering at Detroit Mercy. 

Chelsea is a Robotics & Mechatronics Systems Engineering major, while Jasmine is majoring in Mechanical Engineering. Both sisters earned Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) All-Academic Team honors last season, joining three other members of the women's tennis team.

A field like engineering only seemed to make sense to the Apawtis.

"At home, we would visit universities and go to open days, see what kind of majors they would have," Chelsea said. "I always felt I was more drawn to the technical side and that I really wanted to make something, not just do something with numbers."

Tennis itself offered differences from the Netherlands to the United States.

"At home, it's more of an individual sport. Mostly, you play in tournaments yourself and have big competitions, national competitions that you could play in teams with your club," Chelsea said. "Here, it's really a team sport because there's also a lot more involved energy and really cheering for each other. I feel at home, it was still a team sport but I didn't feel as much as team pressure to win as much as it is here."

The Apawtis first foray in athletics was through swimming. But they took up tennis at 7 years old and never looked back.

Twelve years later, the sport has taken them across the Atlantic Ocean, to Detroit Mercy. The journey from the Netherlands to the United States has offered its share of challenges for the Apawtis but it was one they were ready to make.

"Of course it was a little hard coming here because of cultural differences," Chelsea said. "But we really wanted to do this, because at home, we wouldn't have been able to combine college and tennis, like they don't have sports in college the way they have it here. We heard from other people, they had been doing it so that's why we also wanted to do."