Girls tennis falls to Churchill, 7-0

The Blair girls tennis team was unmercifully slaughtered today at home, losing 7-0 in a divisional match against Churchill.

Senior Vivian Wang and doubles partners junior Alia Halabi and freshman Kamisha Samuda exhausted their greatest efforts to stay alive in their matches. Wang whammed her shots, but a streak of errors forced her to play defensively for a good part of the sets and cost Wang the match, 7-6, 6-1.

Halabi and Samuda also provided tough competition, combining slicing serves with two consecutive aces and whizzing forehands. But the determined pair was unable to emerge victorious and the match slipped from their grasp, 7-5, 7-6.

The team's two best players, senior Jennifer Alyono and junior Lisa Kim, suffered crushing defeats as well, despite their unrelenting attitudes. Alyono played a vicious game, firing power-packed forehands, swooshing aces, and strategic volleys and drop shots. Despite her tiresome efforts, Alyono lost 6-1, 6-1. Kim also put up a hearty fight, propelling the balls low over the net. But Kim's power was no match for her opponent's strategic play. Kim found herself scurrying after her opponent's shots for most of the game, eventually losing 6-1, 6-1.

Observing Kim from the sideline freshman teammate Fidan Kerimova, noticed that Kim was not following the right procedures when setting up her shots. "[Kim] is just hitting the ball instead of brushing [the ball] up and following through," she commented. "She's definitely not doing her best. Neither is the team for that matter."

Freshman Seema Kacker believes that her teammates were not concentrating enough on the game and that they were trying too hard to "put away" every shot. "We're rushing too much," Kacker said as she watched her teammates with concern. "We don't stop running and then we hit the balls without setting ourselves up."

Coach Ngbea was extremely frustrated that his girls were missing "easy" ground strokes and "dumping" balls into the net and/or out of the court. "[The girls] are standing an inch away from the net and they miss [the volleys]," said an exasperated Ngbea as he painfully watched junior Christina Feng plop a volley into the net.

Blair is now 0 and 2 in the competition for the division I title, stacking their loss today on top of a previous defeat 4-3 by Wooton on the 19th. There are only four more divisional matches left in the season, and Ngbea's once shining hope that his team would win the divisional and move on to the county tournament is quickly fading. "If we lose this game, we've lost two divisionals," said Ngbea before the team's fate was sealed. "If we lose 2 divisionals, there's no way we'll win the division title."