Girl's tennis demolishes Sherwood

The girls' tennis team defeated Sherwood 7-0 today in a blowout victory that brought the team back up to their record of .500.

All of the Blazerettes played solid games. Both the doubles and singles teams came out looking especially strong, with only one set going to seven points and only one match taking three sets to complete.

First single Stephanie Paul won her match 6-3, 6-4, second single Valerie Shen defeated her opponent 6-0, 6-2 and fourth single Pearl Horng triumphed 6-2, 6-2. Third single Aditi Bhaskar won her first set 6-2, but lost her second 4-6. She came back with a great second effort to win her match with a 6-2 third set.

The doubles teams had a great day, with first double Katherine Epstein and Seema Kacker nearly shutting out Sherwood 6-1, 6-0 and third doubles Dominique Francin and Margot Pass blasting their opposition out of the water 6-0, 6-0. Second doubles Emily Tsui and Janice No won a solid first set 6-2 and managed to win their second set 7-5, completing the Blazer blowout.

Coach Ngbea was not surprised by the team's success. "I expected that we should do well, since this is a non-divisional match and our girls are playing much more relaxed," he said.

The coach was more unsure about how the team will fare in the county playoffs, which begin October 23rd. Since the playoffs are by individual teams, like first doubles and first singles, Blair's top teams have a good shot at advancing, according to Ngbea. "Some of our girls will play in the preliminaries, and if we win in the county they will go on to represent Blair in the regionals," said Ngbea.

At regional competitions, it is even possible that Blair could enter mixed gender teams of top boy's tennis players and the top girls, since these are allowed by competition rules. "We could pair very competitive girls with our top boys," said Ngbea.

However, the main challenge to the team's future is not uncertainty in the playoffs or the fact that they will drop to Division II next year, but the fact that four of the team's key players will graduate this year. "We will lose number two and number three singles, and one girl each from number one and number two doubles," said the coach. "We need new players, or we need players who will go home and practice and not hang their rackets up."