Balanced Girls Tennis Team Begins Season On Wednesday
David Creed •
The girls tennis program has had some strong teams in recent years, but this spring the Whalers may have one of their deepest rosters in recent memory thanks to some hard work over the winter that helped them hone their skills and prepare for the season ahead.
“There were like six, seven, eight of them who basically took initiative to meet together in the offseason either in some evenings during the week or on the weekends because some of the kids were doing high school sports who would only join them on the weekends,” Whaler head coach Luke Thornewill, who is entering his fifth season as the varsity coach, said. “But for the first time, there were a lot of people excited to do that. That was fun to see.”
The Whalers will be led by plenty of returning faces including sophomore Viktoria Bozhkova, juniors Fiona Keltz, Sara Dussault, Sutton LeBrecht, and Preslava Penkova, and seniors Elis Vieth, Andrea Bunlerssak, and Gabby Fee.
“Honestly I have to tell you we really have 12 strong players this year,” Thornewill said. “We have had some great teams, but I think this year we will have the strongest doubles teams we have ever had. We have this huge backup this year. Then you look at our singles players and they are very strong. They are as good as we have had. We got Elis back (from prep school) which will be huge. So I think this team is at a higher level than we maybe thought before the year, which is very exciting for all the coaches and the kids.”
Due to the depth of the team, Thornewill and assistant head coach Mark Gerardi decided to have the players perform in a tournament among themselves to determine who the singles players would be in their first regular season match. Thornewill said the competition has been impressive and that this will not determine singles for the remainder of the season.
"We had this tournament to establish the ladder rankings for singles," Thornewill said. "This was a singles tournament and basically put the girls to the test in terms of really playing a competitive match. The coaches and I seeded the players we thought were deserving, and then we let them play it out and over the course of this, there have been a few upsets and surprises. I think what we've seen is there's been some mental toughness that we didn't know was there, and some collapses we thought maybe wouldn't have been there. But you know it's the early part of the season and everyone's just kind of nervous.”
Thornewill said Vieth and Bunlerssak will begin the season as Nantucket's top two singles players with Keltz competing for a spot as well. He expects senior captain Vicky Todorova to make a push for a singles spot once she returns from injury.
But Thornewill said Bozhkova has caught their eye and will be the team’s third singles player to begin the season. He has also been impressed LeBrecht, who will be on the first doubles team alongside Dussault.
“I think Vicky B is a real good player," Thornewill said. "We've always watched her. She's a sophomore but man, she is so solid. She played third (singles) a couple of times last year. Then we got Sutton LeBrecht and oh my gosh, she has improved significantly. She is going to be pushing hard on those singles spots this year. She is solidly in our number one doubles. It is going to be a fun year.”
Thornewill said that he was appreciative of the Nantucket Yacht Club and the Great Harbor Yacht Club for their efforts to support the island's high school tennis players, which he believes has played a significant role in their development and him having as much depth as he has to work with this spring.
Nantucket will begin their regular season on the road Wednesday, April 2nd at 4 p.m. against the Monomoy Sharks and then travel to the Vineyard on Saturday, April 5th for a 12:15 p.m. match.
“They are two of our toughest matches,” Thornewill said. We got Monomoy and the Vineyard. So it's a really tough start for us, but also a tough start for them too.”