The Varsity Tennis team opened their 2014 season at home on March 11 with a matchup against the Covenant School (Charlottesville, VA). After two weeks of weather extremes, a warm spring sun shone down on the courts of Hargrave’s Landon Tennis Center, melting the remaining traces of last weekend’s snow and sleet. In VIC tennis, singles and doubles match victories each count as a team point; thus 9 points are possible from six singles matches and three doubles matches. Singles matches are 10-game pro sets (first to win 10 games with a two game advantage) with ad (deuce points are played). Doubles matches are 8-game pro sets.
The end of the day left the Tigers on the short end of the contest against the reigning state champion Eagles. The final team score of 0-9 did not reflect the efforts at the individual match level. Tennis newcomer Alex Vogel (Asheville, NC) was able to hang with his opponent through several long rallies before succumbing 3-10 at #5 Singles. Daniel Su (Taipei, Taiwan) returned after 3 years away from tennis to post our longest and closest match at #6 singles. After a shaky start, he was able to contest every game before falling 6-10.
Returning players on the team included #2 Turner Wall (Chatham, VA), #3 Tianyue “Frankie” Chang (Beijing, China), and #6 WeiAn Chen (Hangzhou, China). Newcomer Rankin Horsley (Belmont, NC) opened at #1 as well as partners with returning senior Daniel Kim at #1 Doubles. Wall and Chen (replacing an injured Chang) clocked in at #2 Doubles. Playing for Tiger tennis for the first time on the doubles side at #3 was the team of Zach Gjenasaj (Brooklyn, NY) and Ty Aichinger (Berlin, MD).
David Kiesnowski, Anthony Leinbach, Laurence Leinbach, Cole Mackenzie, Armel Ngabo, Alex Vogel, and Yang Zhao were able to get in some additional exhibition matches against Covenant while official play was finishing up.
Our next match will take us to Lynchburg against Virginia Episcopal School (VES) on Tuesday March 25. The next home match will be against Liberty Christian Academy (LCA) on March 27.
Individual Match Scores:
Singles
#1 – Rankin Horsley v Matthew Rose : 0-10
#2 – Turner Wall v William Rose : 0-10
#3 – Frankie Chang v Kevin Coleman : 1-10
#4 – WeiAn Chen v Roger Wang : 0-10
#5 – Alex Vogel v Chris Borland : 3-10
#6 – Daniel Su v Noah Hollis : 6-10
Doubles
#1 – Horsley and Dan Kim v RoseM and Coleman : 0-8
#2 – Wall and Chen v RoseW and Wang : 2-8
#3 – Zachariah Gjenasaj and Tyler Aichinger v Boland and Hollis : 0-8
