High School Varsity Tennis rules

By Jackson Simon ’15

Last year, a committee gathered in California to conduct research and formulate a list of the top sixteen tennis teams in the country. This year, on March 20th and 21st, all sixteen teams travelled to Newport Beach, California to compete in the tournament of champions. Each team competed in four head to head matches, the results of which would determine their national ranking. Of the top nine teams in the country, all but one were from California: The Haverford School. Haverford finished sixth overall in the nation, which is extraordinarily impressive for three reasons. First, this is Haverford’s first appearance in the national championship. Second, while California, Hawaii, and Arizona players practice outdoor all year round, our players had been training indoor; moreover, when snow finally melted off the courts, the team had to play in forty degree weather with whirling winds. Third, unlike regional sports such as squash, the vast majority of the 37, 000 high schools in the United States have a varsity tennis team.

For the majority of the winter, each player had their own training regimen. Nathan Kidambi, third singles player and Sixth Form Captain, trained with his coach at Gulph Mills and lifted six times a week after school at both the Cynwyd Club and Philadelphia Sports Club. Fourth Former Connor Lees, on the other hand, practiced at Merion Cricket Club every morning before school at 5:30. Connor, along with Sixth Form Captains Zach Lieb, Ben Lieb, and Andrew Gushner as well as Sixth Former Mathias Fink trained three times a week at Powertrain. The goal was to enter the competition as the fittest team in the country.

The two weeks directly preceding the tournament, the team rented indoor court time late at night from 8-10:30 in order to carry out challenge matches and experiment with doubles teams. As a result, Coaches Fink and Gottlieb determined the following lineup.

#1 Singles: Zach Lieb

#2 Singles: Ben Lieb

#3 Singles: Nathan Kidambi

#4 Singles: Will McDevitt

#5 Singles: Connor Lees