Photo credit: Aila Liu
On Tuesday, Sept. 20, the Aragon girls tennis team (3-1 Peninsula Athletic League) won their match against Half Moon Bay (0-4 PAL) with the starting lineup winning 6-1.
The first decisive win came from junior first singles player Varsha Jawadi, who won in just 45 minutes, scoring 6-0 for both sets. Following that, sophmore singles player Anna He won her sets 6-0 and 6-1 while freshman singles player Taylor Lee won hers 6-1 and 6-1.
Being ahead helped Jawadi gain experience and use the game as a learning opportunity to try out new types of shots and strategies that could potentially help her win future games.
“I feel like I played pretty well,” Jawadi said. “I had some goals that I set … I didn’t want to double fault at all, and I didn’t. I was leading by a lot so I could try out some [new] stuff like drop shots.”
Besides singles, the first doubles match was won by seniors Shreya Arjun and Kexin Zhang. Also, the doubles two match with freshman Meilin Rife and sophomore Kat Russell was a success, as they beat the Half Moon Bay team in two sets with scores of 6-1 and 6-1.
While Aragon did win most of their matches on Tuesday, the start of the fourth doubles match, with the duo of freshman Aayushi Kothari and sophomore Ruhi Mudoi, was rough, with the score at 1-5, Dons losing. However, as the set progressed, the Dons were able to come back to an 8-6 win in the set.
All in all, it was a very successful day for the team. While the season had a rough start with Aragon losing two of their first five competitions, the team is hoping to build on their successes.
“I feel like we’re still able to kind of power through and persevere through it,” said freshman Seona Srivastava. “We have a never-give-up attitude …practicing together has really brought us together as a team.”
Practices consist of many different activities designed to build the players’ experience.
“We warm up and then we’ll either do some serving [or] some net play,” said head coach David Owdom. “We do some baseline to baseline or … play against each other and play some matches. Sometimes we’ll do a group challenge … [such as] moving up and down courts, depending on how they do. It gets a little more competitive at times.”
“Practicing together has really brought us together as a team”
The players themselves are having a good time getting to know each other and are working on team bonding.
“I think maybe enthusiasm is one of our strengths,” said sophomore Melody Liu. “We all want to improve and we try to do so.”
About one-fourth of the players this year are freshmen and others on the team are joining a school tennis team for the first time. This means that some of the players don’t have much experience, causing challenges for them.
“It’s a little bit challenging for me since I haven’t been learning tennis for a long time,” said freshman Dora Chen. “I’ve played only for about a year.”
Another challenge for the players is doubles play, since many of the girls also have to play doubles this year instead of singles. A lot of the players have preferred partners, but the coach occasionally has to make changes and pick partners himself.
“They may be losing their partners to make [a] better team”
“It’s nice to have the talent level similar [in doubles],” Owdom said. “I hate changing people [who] really like to play with each other, but unfortunately, you got to do what’s best. They may be losing their partners to make [a] better team.”
Developing their doubles skills proved to be useful in the game against Half Moon Bay. While the Cougars had a more experienced roster, Coach Owdom relied on Aragon’s doubles teams and their volleying skills to compensate, and eventually win their matches.
The Dons’ next home match is against Woodside on Sept. 29 at 4 p.m.
*Records as of Sept. 22
