The Poudre Tennis Team

Tennis. The sport with a green ball and a racket. Lots of people when they hear the word tennis people think of two older people hitting a ball back and forth. However, when you ask a tennis player, they will probably think of Sirina Williams, Kyrgios the Australian, or Venus Williams. All of these people, Sirina, Kyrgios, and Venus are in the Us tennis open this year. Now tennis isn’t all that popular or a well-known sport. At Poudre tennis is very similar to golf. In the way that no one pays attention to it. Tennis might be one of the sports that very few people pay attention to. For the fact that people call it an easy sport. Even though tennis is a sport that not many people pay attention to. Go watch a match, some of the thing that a tennis player can do to the ball is really impressive. They can generate spin, ace the opponent, hit an amazing shot that you never thought was possible, and many other things. Tennis may and probably will surprise you. This is exactly how the Poudre tennis team feels about the sport. For the Poudre tennis team this year, for singles we have Ashton Gestser, Finley Hickman, and Winton Miller. For doubles, we have Luke Foster and Miki Mijiddor, Hugh Haak and Kade Love, Nate Meeter and Kyler Love, Elias Westcott, and Anker Hojgaard.

The first tournament that Poudre played was the Mountain View tournament was a very different and fairly easy tournament to play, all of the doubles placed third or better. Poudre played. Mountain View, Severance, Greely West, Riverdale Ridge, Thompson Valley, and Horizon. Thompson Valley was the hardest team to play in that tournament for the fact that most of the kids on that team have been playing tennis most of their lives. Poudre doubles three, Nate Meeter and Kyler love, had their best game against Horizon High. In the first set, they lost three- six but won the second set six- zero. After that set the Horizon Doubles three teams got really mad at them and started to “headhunt” or return the ball hard and fast back at them. The third set was such a close game that it ended up going to a tiebreaker. The score kept on increasing by one point, one- zero, one- one, two- one, two- two, etc. All the way up until Nate and Kyler finished the game at eight- six. Every team this year has had one crazy game. For doubles one, Luke and Miki, Their best game was against Chatfield. They lost the first set, won the second, and unfortunately lost the third. At one point during the season, one of the players had to leave for two weeks due to an unknown family issue. I ended up paired with Hugh. we had the most said, cursed match ever. It was against Mountain View, and Hugh and I both thought that it was the opponents first time playing tennis even though they were on varsity. The Mountain View tournament was a very different and fairly easy tournament to play, all of the doubles placed third or better. Poudre played. Mountain View, Severance, Greely West, Riverdale Ridge, Thompson Valley. Thompson Valley was the hardest team to play in that tournament for the fact that most of the kids on that team have been playing tennis most of their lives. During this switch, Kade got paired with Miki and together they were the only team that managed to beat Horizon during the Loveland Tournament. Many different teams from around the area come to the Loveland Tournament. An example of this would be Steamboat, Horizon, Greely West, and Monarch. Some of the hardest teams that the tennis team faced this year were Fossil, Rocky, Erie, University, Fairview, Legend, Thompson Valley, and Cherry Creek. The hardest team to play was either Fossil Ridge or Cherry Creek. For the match against Fossil almost all teams lost six- zero except for doubles three and doubles one whose final score was six- one and six- four. During Regionals at Cherry Creek High School, Denver. There were seven Teams. Cherry Creek, Chatfield, Chaparral, Eire, Legend, Poudre, and Windsor. In the first round Singles, one- three, and Doubles two- four all lost their first match. Doubles one won theirs. The second round was a deciding round. What this is, if the team that beat you wins their second match then you are back in the tournament. All of the singles lost their match and the same for doubles two- for. Poudre Ended up making it to the second day all because doubles one won their third match of the day. The second day was absolutely frigid with fog and mist the whole day. Most of the team went into CCHS to get warm and strike up a conversation with the Legend and Erie players. Doubles one had a really close match against Chatfield. However, they did end up losing. One nice thing about the tennis team is that you are allowed to challenge yourself. Meaning JV can double one and can challenge varsity doubles four. The only downfall to that is, if you lose your challenge match you stay at your level. If you are the ones being challenged and you end up losing you take the winner's previous spot, even if they were on JV. For the singles players that is what happened. Finley was singles one but got challenged by Ashton. Ashton ended up winning and Finely got bumped down to singles two. For the varsity doubles four, it was originally Mateus Kaywood and Wilder Gribble but they also got challenged up by Elias and Anker. Elias and Anker won the challenge and took their spot for varsity doubles four. As you could imagine, practices for the three different levels were very different. JV practices the beginning intro to tennis warm-ups and drills. Varsity practices advanced stills like one-hand backhands, one-hand overheads, sometimes drop shots, and spin serves. The singles players practiced some of the drills of the doubles but they mainly practiced placing shots and hitting hard to return forehands and backhands. A hard-to-return ball would be, a ball hit deep into one of the corners on the baseline or a volley that barely bounces once it touches the ground. For Ashton, those would be drop shots. A drop shot is when you “slice” the ball to generate spin on it. Once it hits the ground it can bounce sharply to one side or the other. There are many different shots that have spin, for example, serves. Serves can come in many different styles from the lefty spin to a flat serve. A flat serve is a see that has no spin all force. A kick serve is a serve that when it hits the ground it shoots up quickly. A slice serve is a service that you hit somewhat sideways to create a high amount of spin to one side. A normal spin serve does not have a whole lot of spin but enough to make it hard to return. There is a serve that not many people use but is legal and that’s an underhand serve. You can put a spin on these types of serve and if they are done well you can have the tennis ball do some odd things. For many tennis players, the best feeling is when you ace your opponent. Acing an opponent is when you have a hard enough serve to return that they miss the ball. For many different people on the Poudre tennis team, acing a coach is the best thing that can happen. This year very few people aced a coach.

Many tennis courts are concrete with sand on them for grip but there are also two different types of courts other than concrete. You have dirt tennis courts and grass tennis courts. With dirt courts, you can have some unfair advantages like having your opponent's side uneven or the groves from hitting the ball can create divots that can make odd bounces. On a grass court, you have to cut the grass pretty short in order for the ball to bounce. These types of courts are often used in the US Tennis Open or Wimbledon. But that can also be used recreationally like in Steamboat Spring, Colorado. For many different reasons, people love to watch tennis even though it’s a sport that not a whole lot of people pay attention to. But tennis can be played all over the world. All you need is a tennis racket, tennis balls, and someplace to hit them against. If you have someone that can and does play tennis, maybe ask them if they want to play a set. However, a wall also works fairly well for getting returns. A wall can also be used for setting up a shot. All of these things are great but the true best practice that you can get is playing against someone. Honestly, I think that tennis needs to be a more recognized sport like basketball, baseball and football are. In tennis, there is constant action and you would be very impressed with some of the things that people can make a tennis ball do. Whether it comes to generating spin or acing an opponent. Tennis can surprise you in many different ways.

Nate Meeter is a junior at Poudre High school. He mountain bikes, skis, and plays baseball and tennis for fun and for a living. But mainly for fun. This is his first year on the Poudre Press. He also runs a blog that you can check out here!