As the pair position their racks into the hitting position, a player throws the ball up in the air and hits the ball with a hearty twack. The Tennis season has had a very successful season so far, after coming off of their 15-1 season with a perfect 5-0 sweep in conference. Senior Jaishal Padmanabhan goes into detail about his season and his work during the off season.

“During those two months, we just went out every day, hitting for at least two to three hours,” Padmanabhan said.

Hitting isn’t the only thing they do, conditioning is also a part of their out of season practices. “We did running drills and then hitting

drills, the things to get us better and get us prepared for the season,” Padmanabhan said.

Padmanabhan would go on to say that the summer work outs are detrimental to the season, usually helping prepare for the inseason practices.

“Yeah, they definitely do. Without those summer workouts, I don’t think we would be as strong of a team as we are right now. Those summer workouts helped us survive and prepared us for the games that were close,” Padmanabhan said.

The day before is pretty important as well, with what you eat and drink, and how you take care of your body and mental state being important.

“Eat good food, get a good night’s rest, do your daily stretches and maybe listen to some good music.” Padmanabhan said.

As the regular season approaches, the players get ready for the incoming season at practice.

“We warm up, just do some stretching and running, then we warm up hitting, and then do a lot of competitive stuff where we’ll play against each other,” senior Jace Branaham said. “We try to keep the intensity high, especially in challenge matches, so that we are ready.”

These in season practices are quite necessary for determining who is on that varsity roster, especially with the challenge matches that Branham talks about.

Branham goes on to talk about the team aspect of the tennis team. “It’s pretty buried because we’re kind of separated a lot by skill level,.” Branham said. He said that the varsity works well together.

Team culture is a big driving force of the team’s success,

“I would say that it is, especially like the doubles,” sophomore Cale Fitzimmons said. “You have to work with your partner and overall on varsity you are working together with your team.”

Even though there is a split between the varsity and jv teams, the two still work together nicely, cheering on each other while they play.

“We all have good chemistry together, we are all friends on and off the court,.” Fitzimmons said.

With the season well underway, junior Vihan Garg talks about the rest of his season and his predictions for the rest of the season.

“They have gone pretty good, there is still more that I can improve on, but I think that overall, I’m really pushing through it and it’s playing out really well,.” Garg said.

Garg thinks that the rest of the season will go well,

“I think we’ll get decently far, not as good as previous years, but I think it’ll be a good turnout.”