When Mingus Union High School girls tennis coach Andrea Meyer went to the Clarkdale-Jerome School several years ago to coach a tennis day for the Physical Education class, she met Lana Booth.
“I said to her, ‘when you go to high school, you might try tennis, be good at tennis,’” Meyer said. “And here she is.”
Now a senior, Booth is the No. 1 player on the team.
She said it started out a little rougher, largely focusing on defense.
“It’s easy to play on defense and just … return the balls,” Booth said. “But I know I personally want to get better at going in and just attacking — ending the point instead of just playing.”
A lot of it has to do with understanding the game better, too.
Booth joined the school’s team in her freshman year along with several other of her friends, including Chloe Grenough and Kate Poole, the No. 3 and No. 4 players, respectively.
“Freshman year, the thing I was focused on most was just trying to get the ball over the net,” Poole said. “But going on over the years, now I’m able to hit the ball in different ways – place it in a different spot to where the other girl has to run to get it.”
Preparations for the athletes’ final season began early this year, practicing three to four times in the preseason, adding an occasional Saturday practice.
“During preseason, you can notice what you’re doing wrong when you need to work on your weaknesses,” Grenough said. “So we could write that down and we could read it before every game and know, ‘OK, this time I work on backhands, forehands.’”
“This is something you have to keep up, I feel like,” Poole said.
Now, they practice daily except when there’s a match.
Even once the season is over, they said they want to continue playing with each other.
“I think we’re all going to try, maybe, for club tennis,” Grenough said.
The girls’ first regular season match, at home against Lee Williams, was Thursday, Feb. 26, and started with doubles play.
The No. 1 double ended in a loss for the Marauders, 8-5, which included Booth and the team’s No. 2 player, senior Coco Zuniga. Poole and Grenough, who made up the No. 2 double, lost 8-4, and the No. 3 double, made up of sophomore Elisabeth Kraus and senior Angel Hernandez, lost 8-3.
“The singles is two out of three sets with a 10-point match tie breaker,” Meyer said.
Booth and Kraus, the No. 6 player, won their respective singles. The other top five Marauders lost theirs. The Marauders lost overall 7-2.
Meyer has been coaching the girls tennis team for 26 years, so even if she didn’t meet them when she’s out at one of the elementary schools, she’s been coaching them since their freshmen years.
“The greatest gratification is seeing them grow,” she said. “Seeing them go from a hesitating forehand, timid footwork to really taking a dominance on the court.”
She said the 11 students on the girls team are very committed.
“When I’m in the office, tied up with paperwork or doing something like that, I come up to the courts and the captains have already started the warm up,” she said. “If there’s a discipline issue on the team, the captains help me resolve that.”
Poole said part of that is the individual discipline players need in the sport. It’s easy to get in your head and overcome mental struggles.
“My sophomore year, I said I was going yo quit, and then I came back junior year because everyone was still playing, and I had FOMO,” she said, or “fear of missing out.” “I think the mental aspect of it can be really hard, but I think once you get over that and just realize that it is what it is, and you can only do your best, then it gets better.”
Booth, who also played on the MUHS volleyball team in the fall, said she’s most excited about senior night, which will happen in April.
“Ms. Meyer usually says speeches about us,” she said. “We get little gifts, kind of like a celebration.”
The team’s next home match will be on Thursday, March 5, at 3:30 p.m. against the Tempe Buffaloes.
