Last Saturday, Girls Tennis (8-0) traveled to Phillips Academy Exeter (Exeter) for the first of two matchups this year. Despite battling illness, including two athletes being out, and rainy weather, the team dominated the match, nearly sweeping Exeter 8-1.
This match was highlighted by the rainy weather, resulting in all matches taking place indoors. Due to this change, the team had to adapt its playing style, taking advantage of the smaller surrounding space.
“We had to play indoors because it was raining, so we played on the Exeter indoor courts, which were very different from ours. The courts were very cramped, and there was very little room to play. There were nets between the indoor courts, and they were very close to the alleys. If your opponent hit an angle shot, you had to run into the net to get the ball. Sometimes, the net would mess up your shot, so we had to look out for the angle balls and hit back angle balls to mess up our opponents,” said Mercan Draman ’26.
Evelyn Kung ’26 shouted out Mira Phan ’27 as one of several exceptional performers. She had a really impressive showing for her first time playing at the second-seeded doubles.
“She was poaching every ball, and she didn’t let a thing past her. She’s a freaking wall. Nothing was getting past her. She took every volley and piped it right at the opponent’s head,” said Kung.
Draman shouted out Nitya Madduri ’28 for being another exceptional performer. She pushed through an illness to play an extremely important match.
“Nitya was the sickest out of all of us, and she didn’t want to play in her third-seed singles match, but she found out that if she didn’t play, we would have to forfeit that match. Even though she was so sick and didn’t want to play, she went onto the court and won 6-0. She only played one set but still swept,” said Draman.
Lara Madan ’27 also added her own experience against Exeter. Even though she was healthy, she had one of the toughest matches of the day.
“My match was really close. I won the first set 6-1 and was down 0-4 in the second set, but came back to make it 5-7. Since we split sets, I ended with the tiebreak 8-10, the closest it could have gotten. It was a lot of fun to play because the rallies were long, and I was able to exercise my mental toughness because with matches that last three sets, you have to push through more mentally than physically,” said Madan.
Madan also commented on the technical aspects of the match against Exeter. She noted that one of the team’s goals was to play closer to the net, but also to stay consistent.
“Something that we’ve been working on is playing closer to the net, and that’s been contributing to the fact that we’ve been winning doubles. We’ve all been closing at the net, and we’ve been practicing that a lot in practice, and it’s been showing in our matches. We’ve also been trying to be more consistent, both in matches and during practice,” said Madan.
Even though Andover and Exeter share a deep rivalry, friendship also exists between many of the players. Kung mentioned that playing Exeter is a great way to catch up with friends and rivals.
“It was fun because many of our teammates have friends at Exeter, so it was more of a friendly match, and it was fun to get to see everyone,” said Kung.
Going through sickness mid-season is always tough, especially with NEPSAC [New England Preparatory School Athletic Council] coming up. Draman commented on this, adding that it is good to get sickness out of the way before it affects more major competitions.
“We’re looking forward to the entire team being back together, hopefully healthy, because we have another match coming up soon. We want to be healthy for our final match before NEPSAC, but it is good that we are moving past our sickness before our more important matches,” said Draman.
Girls Tennis faces Buckingham Browne & Nichols School on Monday, May 5.
