Despite falling short against the Palos Verdes (PV) Sea Kings, the girls’ tennis team found a way to improve their play against one of the better teams in the league by showing an upward trend for the rest of their matchup. Even with some success, the girls could not pull out a win, losing 3-15.
For their game against PV, the girls focused on their ability to quickly exploit weak spots in the Sea Kings’ defense, according to senior Eleni Nwankwo.
“[In preparation] we did a lot of footwork, conditioning and a lot of volleying, so we could make a lot of quick movements on the court,” Nwankwo said.
Redondo struggled with PV’s firepower early on and started down 0-6 in their matches. However, they put up three matches against the nation’s premier team.
“There was a lot of collaboration with everyone talking about hard work and having fun,” Nwankwo said. “We had good communication, moved our feet well, and had a lot of fun. [Even with a loss] Redondo tennis is a lot of fun.”
PV’s reputation, as well as past head-to-head matches with the Redondo girls, brought uncertainty to the idea of conquering PV.
“I feel that we did well under the circumstances [of playing a great team],” Nwankwo said. “[However, we could have been] attacking more. We were playing with doubt and playing a bit too loose. We could have tried harder to win.”
Throughout her and her partners’ two matches, junior Keira Woo displayed their constant improvement with mentality and results on the court.
“I feel like at the beginning, we thought we were gonna lose, but we started to play more on our toes and began to focus more on winning points, and trying our best,” Woo said. “We did better [in match two] and ended up putting three games on [PV’s] number one doubles team.”
Playing a strong team like PV gave the girls experience playing against top talent. According to Woo, the match was more utilized as a time to experiment with things outside of their comfort zone.
“We knew that PV was going to be really tough, so we got to use the match more as practice on being more confident at the net, and going for shots [we] usually wouldn’t, just so we get used to playing against harder opponents,” Woo said.
The Sea Hawks could have been more fierce, according to Woo, and given PV more to worry about earlier in the match.
“At the net, [we should have been] trying to be more aggressive and actually going for the ball,” Woo said. “I feel like some of the girls on our team were a little scared and backed off. But we need to be more confident and put the pressure on them before they put the pressure on us.”
Despite Redondo’s 8-3 record, their Bay League course has proved to be difficult, being 1-3 in league while facing top teams in the area, with national leader PV and a consistent Costa team.
“We know we aren’t the best, but being in Bay League too, we know that the teams are very competitive, especially Costa [as] they always have a pretty strong team,” Woo said.
As the girls approach CIF, Woo saw the match giving some partners more chemistry.
“I think [it was good] playing more with my partner,” Woo said. “We haven’t played too much together this season, so we got to get more used to each other’s playing styles.”
