The Wheatley Varsity Girls Tennis team is having an extremely successful season so far which is making it a lot of fun for the players! This year, it is clear that all the girls on the team have a desire to improve and are always working hard to get better. The girls all do their best in their matches and enjoy supporting each other. The team is made up of seniors Kavina Amin, Kaya Amin, Ilana Nimkoff, Megan Kaye and April Garnock, juniors Ryan Bogan, Marcella Kanes, Arielle Rokshar, Anika Mittle, Emma Melnikov and Laken Pomerantz, sophomores Jaina Shah and Valentina Tio and freshman Hailey Lessen and Riya Mittle. The team is led by co-captains Kavina Amin, Kaya Amin, Megan Kaye, and Arielle Rokshar. For many girls, it is their first year playing on the varsity team, although all girls have stepped up to the standards of a varsity player.
A new addition to the team is the coach: Mr. Lim! After a year of coaching the boy’s team, Mr. Lim is now coaching the girl’s team as well. Coach Lim has pushed all the girls on the team to improve and become better players. He has focused on developing Wheatley’s tennis program as a whole. Coach Lim always says “Practice with a purpose” and this has become an important mantra for our team. During practice, Coach Lim has the doubles teams constantly working on new strategies like poaching while the singles players focus on serve and volley. These strategies and this mindset of always looking to improve have helped lead our team to its success.
On Homecoming weekend, the girl’s varsity tennis team did not have a match. Instead, the girls gave back to the community and ran a tennis clinic. The clinic was a success and an enjoyable event for the 30 kids that participated. Students from North Side and Willets Road in grades 3-6 were able to participate and the team went through warmups, drills, and tennis games with them. Regarding the clinic, senior Megan Kaye said: “It was so nice to spend time teaching kids from our district and hopefully getting more kids to start playing tennis”.
Currently, the team’s record is 9-0 and will be playing in the county championships for the first time!