Varsity Girls Tennis defeated Palo Alto High School 7-0 in their second game of the season on Tuesday, Sept. 24. The Matadors were able to secure their win after winning the first four matches early on. Senior and team captain Niranjana Sankar attributes the win to the team’s ability to stay consistent with their plays and being able to utilize each game as an opportunity to adapt to different playing styles.
“You don’t only play against different schools,” Sankar said. “You play against a lot of different people who have different playing tactics. Today was more of just staying consistent and not missing the ball. That helped a lot with winning points consistently.”
Freshman and singles four player Sakthi Satrawada agrees that the team was able to stay consistent throughout the game, with her serves being the highlight of her match. However, she acknowledges that there is still room for improvement.
“In general, I want to work on my ground strokes and being more consistent,” Satrawada said. “Strategically, I wasn’t playing very well but other than that, I need to work on keeping the ball in and playing to their weaknesses and lots of practice. That’s all that matters.”
Sankar also mentions that another challenge for the team was a lack of communication especially amongst the newer players as they were struggling during their matches. While praising the team for their win and being able to adapt to last-minute changes, she adds that in the future, players will need to be more open about concerns earlier on.
“Sometimes the communication gets lost through different channels as we try to make sure everyone has everything on time and is feeling ready to play,” Sankar said. “Today, I think our singles one wasn’t feeling well. That’s why we all played one position up. Just having changes like that and being able to manage them can sometimes be difficult.”
As a new player, Satrawada does feel the pressure of being associated with such a highly-ranked team. However, she’s able to find moments of joy even when the game doesn’t turn out in her favor.
“This is my second league game that I have played,” Satrawada said. “I lost my first out-of-league game and I won my two other league ones. At the start, I was very nervous and stressed but I think eventually I’ll get the hang of it. It’s a lot of fun with everyone and lots of laughter.”
