On April 6, the Issaquah girls’ varsity tennis team competed against Bellevue High School after several reschedules. Before the game, Issaquah coach, Nico Hakes, stated that “Bellevue is notorious for having really good players and for being really strong traditionally, so I am expecting a really strong match, but I also expect that our players will give it their all today.” It was tougher to gain these results since five Issaquah players were not present for the game. Despite these obstacles, Issaquah demonstrated resilience and persevered through these hardships to eventually have their second doubles win a deciding match after losing the first set and it is what allowed them to win against Bellevue with a score of 4 to 3.

Senior Mina Jo stated, “I was feeling a little tired before the game, but I was excited to play. I think overall our team did really well! We had our second win of the season and even though we had people missing we still all worked hard and had a lot of spirit!” The team was ready to tackle their opponents and had put in a lot of practice to prepare for the game. Coach Hakes stated, “We have had some other matches, some successful wins, and some tough losses, and I think that gives us some mental fortitude to be able to deal [and overcome] with some adversity. We have been playing really well and progressively getting better so I am feeling really positive about where we are going and expecting some really close results.” The team has put hours into practicing and used takeaways from their previous games in their playing strategies in their current matches. Junior Adora Hsien stated, “My takeaways from the match are to stop overthinking during a game [and] just turn off the mind because tennis strategies are pretty straightforward.” Jo adds, “A takeaway I had was that mental stamina is key. We had a lot of long matches and although my match was not the longest, our points and rallies were really long so maintaining mental fortitude is really important.”

Overall, the entire team dedicatedly played all their matches; however, two players that stood out were seniors Chelsea Park and Amanda Ro. The two players lost the first set and were losing later as well, but ultimately recovered and caught up, eventually winning their match. The team continues to practice for wins at their future games after this deserving win.