Team captain Crystal Chen (12) could feel the adrenaline pulsing through her veins as she grasped her tennis racket with an unusual intensity, Tuesday. Standing on the Canyon Crest Academy courts for the first girls tennis game of the season, Chen glanced back at her doubles partner and her fellow captain, Ava Khansari (12), positioned just a few feet behind her, and they both nodded: a symbol of reassurance passing between the two. Turning back to her opponent, Chen could feel her heart rate settle and her grip loosen, a new wave of confidence passing over her.
She was ready.
“Even though CCA is probably the strongest team in our league, I felt good going into the match,” Chen said. “We lost both times [we played CCA] last year, but they were both super close matches.”
Chen and Khansari ended up winning all three sets they played. However, the score out of the team’s 18 matches added up to a 10-8 loss against CCA.
Juliana Hong (12), the third out of four captains, however, said that the team was not discouraged.
“There was definitely a lot of room for improvement, but overall, it was a lot closer than we anticipated,” Hong said. “We only ended up losing by two sets and we did well keeping positive and fighting, especially the later singles and doubles matches.”
Hong personally only played one set due to feeling unwell. Her singles game served as the tiebreaker when the team trailed by one, 7-6. In this individual set, she lost 7-4.
“At this point in the game, the doubles were doing consistently well and we had caught up from a previously rough start,” she said. “But, singles started to ramp up with some really good CCA players and I lost my set. Patience would’ve helped me because [my opponent] was a ‘pusher,’ which basically means that she got everything back but pushed the ball up high and without pace.”
Going into the game, Hong and Chen had set their expectations realistically. Hong said, however, that they left with high hopes, due to the string of successes in scrimmages the past two weeks and their performance during this match.
“Really, for CCA, we [were] looking to better our match play against them in order to prepare for an upcoming game against Del Norte,” Hong said. “But, before this, the team performed pretty well during scrimmages, especially our new people. Our team’s growing confidence is reassuring; it hasn’t stopped from this game and instead, I think that this matchup just gave our team a good look at what the season has in store, if everyone continues to put in the hard work.”
Further, Hong said though CCA is a difficult team to play, she really enjoys competing against them and has maintained a friendly relationship with her competitors.
“All of our matches against CCA have resulted in a loss,” Hong said. “They have a stacked team, which means most, if not all, of their players are solid. Yet, oddly enough, we don’t really have a rivalry. As for team [versus] team, I think it’s not quite a rivalry, but we always do try our best. As I’ve said, they’re the best team in our league, so when it comes to playing them, it’s just a fun match up with no hard feelings.”
With three new freshmen, two new sophomores, one junior, and two new seniors, adjusting new players to the team has also been a large focus of the season.
“I really want them to do well,” Chen said. “I’ve been analyzing the players and giving them advice and they have been improving a lot. But, whenever they play, I still feel a lot of pressure on how they are going [to perform].”
Hong said that all the captains have worked on creating a positive team environment, wanting to alleviate the players’ nerves.
“We captains are trying our best to ease [our new teammates’] concerns and just letting them know that varsity isn’t a scary and overly strict team,” she said. “During matches, captains and coaches are allowed to go onto the court during changeovers to give tips to the players, and I’ve been doing that during our scrimmages and this [CCA] game. After doing so, I can tell that the players are more comfortable asking me and the other captains questions about how to better a stroke or improve their game play, and that’s what I’ve wanted for them.”
In the bigger picture, for both Hong and Chen, this season marks the end of their high school tennis careers. Chen said this has only led her to put in more effort and has increased her drive.
“I feel like I’ve been more involved this year, maybe because I know we have a tough league,” Chen said. “This is my last year [so] the stakes are higher.”
Hong looks forward to the future of the team.
“I think we’ve got a good bunch of girls who have a lot of potential,” Hong said. “I’m proud of them for what they’ve accomplished already.”
