Lena Ciganer-Albeniz ’25 and Kendra Tomala ’26 celebrate a point in
Saturday 4/13 – Andover: 4, Winsor: 5
Wednesday 4/17 – Andover: 9, St. Paul’s: 0
Girls Tennis (3-2) played matches on Saturday at home against Winsor and away on Wednesday at St. Paul’s. The team lost a nail-biter on Saturday but recovered with a resounding victory on Wednesday. Overall, the team continued efforts since the beginning of the season with high spirit and enthusiasm, with both games demonstrating progress made since the start of the season.
The team was able to support one another throughout matches on Saturday and Wednesday despite the change-up in the game location due to the weather which proved especially important in the close match-ups, highlighted manager Orla Naughton ’25.
“The atmosphere was pretty intense, honestly. At the start… the games were supposed to start outside, but the wind was super bad so they moved inside. So, obviously that changes the variables. Our team was used to practicing inside because of the weather… They won one of their doubles and then they lost two of them. So, then going into singles, there’s a tension of it’s gonna be [a] really close competition with the other team,” said Naughton.
Despite the long duration of the matches, the team always maintained a supportive and cheerful spirit, cheering one another on and making sure everyone is focused and feels supported while they play. Mercan Draman ’26 elaborated on how the team finds success from support.
“We’re really good at hyping each other up or cheering each other on. I know that I didn’t play until like a good five, like four hours into our match, but I was on the sidelines cheering everyone on and so was everybody else who wasn’t playing. So, I think we’re just a very supportive team,” said Draman.
Draman also highlighted teammate Kendra Tomala ’26’s performance on Saturday. Tomala played both a doubles match and a singles match that were timed very close together with minimal break time in between. Despite this, Tomala persevered through the extended match play and had a very strong performance.
“Kendra, she had a really long and excruciating match. I would say her and her opponent, she had just finished her doubles match and then right after she started her singles match against the number one of the other team, and it was a really long match. She won the first set, her opponent won the second set and then they were in a tie break, and I believe that the tie break was really close. Kendra did an amazing job sticking with the match,” said Draman.
On Wednesday, the team traveled to St. Paul’s and found clear success as it won every match. According to Lara Madan ’27, it took the team a bit to find its focus with it being an away match, but once the team warmed up players were successful and consistent with each of their performances.
“We were a little bit distracted at the beginning with being an away [game], but we closed it out in the end. Today was beautiful tennis weather, so that was really nice. As we eased into our matches, our strength was playing really consistently and focusing on playing our game. This helped close out the win for all of our matches,” said Madan.
Girls Tennis will play Choate at home on Saturday.
