Tennis Team Struggles to Compete

Mar 27, 2017 | Sports, Tennis

Halfway through the spring season, Nueva tennis has failed to capture the momentum that they had hoped for. In their inaugural season as a member of the West Bay Athletic League, Nueva tennis is struggling to pull together a good record. They possess a 3-8 overall record and a 3-6 record in the league. Currently, Nueva sits 7th out of 8 teams in the standings, and their road back to respectability seems treacherous. However, the season is only halfway through, and the Nueva tennis team has always performed stronger at the end of the season.

Identifying the reasons behind a weak season has not proved difficult for the team. Nueva players often don’t play year-round and, due to this, face a disadvantage against the other teams in the league. Inexperience in match play has caused problems, as

players often remark that they should’ve beaten a player or team that they lost to.

Head coach Riaz Shivji finds the problem to be a lack of desire: “Nueva needs to learn to compete.” Regardless of the underlying concern, the tennis team needs to find a way to remedy the problem in order to engineer success throughout the remainder of the season.

Despite the disappointment of the season so far, a large junior varsity team bodes well for future years. The varsity team is currently made up of mostly seniors, and a fresh crop of players will form a 2018 squad that looks vastly different from the makeup of the current squad. Hopefully, an influx of new players can change the outlook of Nueva tennis for the next few seasons.

Nueva needs to learn to compete.

- Head Coach Riaz Shivji