With the arrival of the first day of school being even earlier this year, Timber Creek’s fall sports have been working twice as hard to prepare for their upcoming season. For the Falcon tennis team, this includes the incoming freshmen, practicing not only with the team as a whole, but also individually training all summer to get ready for the 2017-2018 season.
“Kids have played USTA tournaments and worked hard at their drills.” Coach Roger Thomas remarks, referring to the United States Tennis Association.
Not only have the athletes been competing over the summer, but several of them have taken advantage of former professional tennis player Taylor Dent’s tennis lessons. With such determined work ethic, the team looks towards continuing to thrive in the fall.
Unusual for the team this year, however, is the amount of underclassmen that will outnumber the upperclassmen.
“This year’s team has only five seniors,” notes Coach Thomas. “The past two years, we have graduated several students, so this year’s team is rather young.”
While they are new to the high school level of competition, the freshmen are proving to be very talented. Skylar Rust and Raegan Pence will be playing #1 and #2 (respectively) on varsity, and with the returning students, Coach Thomas believes Timber Creek will have the strongest women’s’ team in school history.
The men’s team will be led by sophomore Rahul Gopalan and juniors Kiryll Pokudin and Josh Robbins.
Looking ahead, the team also aspires to make the fall playoffs for the first time in school history, as well as to have more players qualify for regionals in the spring, building off of the previous years’ success.
The first pre-season tournament for tennis will be held this Thursday, Aug. 10 and Friday, Aug. 11, in Arlington. The first match will be against Birdville High School.
Keep an eye out for Timber Creek High School Tennis this year, and if you know any tennis players, wish them good luck at their first tournament!