You have to dig awfully deep to discover how successful Kathy Vigna is.

There are no tokens of her success--trophies, cups, dishes or ribbons--in her dorm room. Nor in her room at home in Santa Barbara, Cal.

To find any momento of Kathy Vigna's considerable achievements you have to locate the box in her garage. Open it and--finally--you'll get a glimpse of all that Vigna has done on the tennis court in her four years at Harvard and, earlier, in high school and junior high.

Vigna, a senior and number one singles player on the Harvard women's tennis team, is a refreshing figure on the tennis scene in the age of million-dollar tournaments, teenage burnouts and court misconduct.

She plays for one reason only: love of the game.

This attitude stems from the relaxed environment in which she learned the game. "I played a lot of family tennis when I was growing up," recalls Vigna. "We were a bunch of hackers, just having fun."

But the decision to pursue tennis was not imposed on Vigna, even though her father is a high school tennis coach. She had a chance to choose her own direction.

"Basically I did everything a kid did," she says. "I took ballet and piano, but tennis was something I could do well, compared to the other things, so I sort of fell into it."

Dutiful

Vigna started to get serious about playing tennis when she was 12. A year later, she beat her older brother.

"That was a problem for him," she says. "He has a typical male ego."

Vigna then spent a little time on the junior tennis circuit. "It was a bad scene," she says. "It was a horrible experience to see girls do anything, even cheat, in order to win."

When it came time to go to college, Vigna was faced with a difficult decision: which college to attend. She recognized the academic reputation of Harvard--"You have to come to Harvard once you get in," she says--but she credits former tennis coach Don Usher with helping her decide to pack her bags for Cambridge.

"It was a huge step coming out here," says Vigna. "I've never been out East, and just knowing that this man was going to take care of me was just a huge factor, because Berkeley was looking pretty good for a while."

Vigna's feats on the court, especially in two of her recent outings, are impressive--maybe even legendary. Against Kathy Bradford of Syracuse, Vigna split the first two sets, and then pulled off an amazing comeback (she was behind 4-5) in the third to triumph, 7-5. Last weekend at Yale, playing against Megan MacMahon, Vigna won 12 consecutive games after falling behind in the match 2-6, 1-5.