The Tennis Team Diligently Begins a New Season

Driving to downtown Columbus at 5:45 a.m. is not something that most students at Worthington Christian would prefer to do on Saturday morning. However, this is exactly what the members of this year’s tennis team and Coach Schmidt did almost every week, during January and February.

Even though the first official practice of the season wasn’t until March 8^th, in early January, the team began non-mandatory practices at the Olympic Indoor Tennis Center on Indianola Ave. Coach Schmidt is hoping that this pre-season preparation will have improved both the skills and the confidence of the players.

One of the tennis team’s best players, Tanner Singleton, said “The season doesn’t start for a while, but Coach Schmidt wants us to get a head start this year; I also think that it helps us get to know the other people on the team.” Coach Schmidt agreed with Tanner when he said “winter practices let us get to know the other players and to have fun, while also improving our skill.”

Once the official season begins, the team will have its first game on Thursday April 8^th, and the season continues until the last game on May 11^th. The tennis team will be playing teams from all over central Ohio. Most of these opponents will come from other Christian schools, but the players will also be competing against a number of public schools as well.

Even with the wide variety of teams that participated last year, Coach Schmidt said “We will be playing many teams that we have not has had an opportunity to compete with before.” The idea of competing against teams that they have no experience playing is exciting to many of the team’s members. “I’m looking forward to playing new teams this year,” added Tanner Singleton.

Coach Schmidt has many ambitious goals for the tennis team this year; he hopes to “double the team’s total wins.” He also mentioned that he will be “working with the players individually to help them meet their personal goals.” These goals can range from just “trying to improve your first serve” to “working to move up, in rank, on the team.”

18 boys are playing tennis this year, which is a large expansion from last year’s 10 members. A high school varsity tennis team is comprised of 3 single players and 2 sets of doubles; this means that the varsity team has only 7 positions—and everyone else will be playing on the “exhibition” (i.e., junior varsity) team.

The increased team size may cause some players concern about whether they’ll have sufficient playing time; but Coach Schmidt said “Even though we have a larger number of players, it will be a priority to make sure everyone gets a chance to play.”

Coach Schmidt and all the members of this year’s tennis team are looking forward to the start of a new season, and are confident that the large amount of preparation that they have done will help them win more matches, while still having fun as a team.