Last Thursday, October 17, the Los Altos High School varsity girls tennis team swept the Palo Alto High School Vikings 7–0 in a rematch. Last time, the Eagles barely lost 3–4 — and without their full lineup. 

“We were all really disappointed with the result last time,” junior Pallavi Mallampati said. “But since the majority of our lineup was here this time, it was expected that we would win by a lot.” 

According to Pallavi, though Palo Alto has strong players, every year the Eagles have always come out on top. 

“We definitely knew we could beat them with our top singles,” junior Maddie Herpy said. “Losing to them the first time was good motivation to do better the next time, which we did.” 

Initially in her singles 3 match, Maddie had trouble keeping up with her opponent’s consistent hard returns.

“Her returns resulted in a few long rallies,” Maddie said. “To finish the point off and win it, I had to mainly focus on hitting harder, more angled shots.”

Still, Maddie quickly pulled through and dominated both sets 6–1 and 6–2. 

“It was a good match for me,” Maddie said. I contributed to the sweep and I didn’t lose that many points off of silly mistakes like double faulting or hitting out.” 

On the other hand, senior Ava Cheng’s singles 4 match lasted much longer than Maddie’s, as she struggled through long rallies.

“At the end, my opponent’s serves actually got stronger while mine weakened,” Ava said. “She was also really good at cross-court corner shots. I joked that when she hits one of those, you just have to run for it because there’s a high chance the ball just hits the line perfectly.” 

Ultimately, Ava countered her opponent’s attacks and won both sets 6–3. 

“‘It’s finally over!’ is what I thought when my match ended,” Ava said. “It felt good to recover from the previous loss, but we knew as a team that when we had our full lineup, we would win.”

The Eagles will play Lynbrook High School at home for senior night on Tuesday, October 29, at 4 p.m.