Although varsity girls tennis has stumbled coming out of the gate into the season, the team still shows promise after managing a fair record against some of the top teams in the state. On September 4, the team traveled to Fresno to compete in the annual California Tennis Classic. The team finished with a record of 3-2, earning them seventh place out of sixteen division two teams.

“It was fair result,” junior Carina Burdick said. “We were hoping for a bit higher, but we’re still happy with the result.”

Every year, the team attends the Fresno tournament for the opportunity to play strong teams in preparation for their upcoming season.

“We go [to Fresno] not only for the bonding, but for the experience the girls get in the tournament,” varsity girls coach Hung Nguyen said. “Most teams we play are good and we get to play some different teams that we don’t normally see. They’re all good competition, so those are the reasons why we go every year and why a lot of teams go every year.”

The team placed similarly to last year’s 2-2 record and sixth place; however this year the team won against three highly-seeded teams, which earns extra points for the end of the season CCS tournament.

“Even though we lost two matches, we got two extra points for beating a league-winning team, so we did really well,” Nguyen said. “That’s a really big factor toward the end of the year when we apply for CCS. Even though we

went 3-2, to me it was a successful trip. It’s almost like going 4-1 or 5-0.”

The team harbors only two seniors, both of whom are playing singles. The seven seniors who graduated last year were mostly doubles players, so this season’s doubles team is composed entirely of underclassmen.

“I think that, as a new team, we’re developing pretty rapidly,” junior Niki Mohajer said. “But there’s definitely a lot of room for improvement. We all have a long time to get better—we have this season and next season, and you really only get everything together in the middle of the season. I think the record that we have right now is pretty good going into the season.”

Now that league play has started, the team has gotten off to a slow start, losing to Saratoga and Los Gatos in their first and second matches, respectively.

“Obviously we’re disappointed about [our match against Los Gatos] because we could have come out with a win,” Carina said. “All of the matches were close, so we’d like to beat them next time…because we will probably not make CCS unless we win against them.”

Yesterday, the team played an additional match against Milipitas, but the results were unavailable as of the press deadline. Later today, the Eagles will be at Gunn, facing off with the Palo Alto team.

“In the past years Gunn has not had a strong team, so hopefully that’s still true and we can defeat them,” Carina said.