The Arcadia High School (AHS) Girls Varsity Tennis Team faced Burroughs High School (BHS) in a tennis match on Oct. 7, winning 15-3. Both teams played in hopes of bringing home an impressive victory for their school. 

The first couple games were seen with intense rallies, as both teams refused to back down from the challenge. BHS continuously made hits going out of bounds or into the nets, allowing AHS to take an early lead and to gain the upper hand. Although AHS had some difficulty in returning BHS’ hard hits, they quickly recovered and matched up their opponent’s fierce energy. In spite of the afternoon heat, both schools put up a good fight in the doubles and singles games.

Junior Kaarthiga Selvakkumaran expressed her opinion about what she thought went well and not so well in her doubles games.

 “I think near the end, we had a lot more angles… we were a lot more confident. For the game we lost, I think it was just the game got to our head and we weren’t warmed up. We definitely need a little more time to build our confidence,” said Selvakkumaran.

The Apaches used techniques that wreaked havoc on their opponents, including playing cross while keeping up a good depth of angles. Playing deep angles benefited them greatly, as playing shorter angles would force the other team to move out of the court to hit the ball, creating an empty space for a potential point. Using these angles to hit closer to the baseline is evidently more difficult to return, allowing time to recover for the next shop. This weakened the other team’s stamina, allowing AHS to take advantage of the game.

 In response, BHS made strong efforts to keep the ball in play, but was unsuccessful. This tactic made way for long, powerful rallies between the two schools that made for an entertaining watch.

“We’ve definitely improved since the first game of the season because our first game was our first time together as partners,” said junior Mallory Wu, referring to her partner Selvakkumaran. “It was really rough, but after a couple games, it was a lot better.” 

Despite being from different schools, AHS and BHS’ onlookers shared similar chants, often shouting “good job” and “nice one” which echoed across the court from encouraging viewers. 

“I have to tell myself to look at the ball because I overthink a lot,” said Wu, when asked about how her team achieved victory.