Girls tennis team picks up victory in opener against Riverhead

The Shelter Island junior varsity girls tennis team started the 2013 season with a solid 5-2 win over Riverhead at home on Monday, September 9.

By the 4 p.m. match time, there was a great crowd to catch opening day at the tennis courts. It was nice to see so many families, friends and local tennis aficionados showing their support.

Because Shelter Island only has four courts, not all players get to start at once. (We play four singles and three doubles, for a total of seven matches.) Against Riverhead, we chose first and second singles and first and second doubles to play first.

Keri Ann Mahoney, our first singles player, had an easy 6-0-6 win against Kathleen Gregory. Second doubles, Taylor Sherman and Caitlin Binder also had a quick 6-1-1 win versus Brianna Corwin and Stephanie Costello.

At second singles, 8th grader Madi Hallman had a bit of a struggle but did an awesome job on key points, prevailing 6-4, 6-4 in a straight set win over Rebecca VanHauten.

First doubles, Nicole Poleshuk and Evi Saunders, had a close match but pulled out another 6-4, 6-4 straight set win against Nyleigh Green and Perla Leon.

Jenny Case and Brianna Kimmelmann played third doubles and won an easy first set 6-1 but had a battle in the second set, winning 6-4.
Emily Hyatt had a long, hard-fought match at third singles. The first set went to a tiebreaker, which Riverhead’s Kace Campanelli won 8-6. The second set was won by Emily, 7-5 so we played a third set tiebreaker. Unfortunately, Emily lost 7-4, but it was an excellent effort.

As said earlier, we play seven matches but unfortunately, we had two players with not enough practices so we defaulted fourth singles. Caitlin Binder played this spot and won, but it didn’t count as she already had played a doubles match.

I heard a few people say they were not sure of the scoring system. Here’s a quick crash course: high school scoring is a little different than the pros. If anyone watched the recent U.S. Open, you probably heard the announcers use the term “ad,” meaning “advantage.” We do not use “ad” scoring since it would make the matches too long. We score 0,1,1,3, game or 0, 15, 30, 40, game, whichever the player prefers. If the score is tied 3-3 or 40-40, whoever wins the next point wins the game, instead of having to win two in a row, the way “ad” scoring is used. Also, when the score is 3-3 or 40-40, whichever player is receiving the serve gets to pick the side on which they wish to receive the serve, either the right (forehand) side or the left (backhand). This is done since it’s believed the server has the advantage in putting the ball in play. Therefore, the returner picks the side they feel better returning from as somewhat of an equalizer.

Another difference in high school play is that we play two out of three sets, but if each player wins one set, the third set will be a shortened set, a 12-point tiebreaker.

It might seem a little confusing, but once you watch a few games, it becomes easy. Plus, the girls call out the score before each serve, with the server calling her score first.

Thanks to everyone for coming to watch. Congratulations to the girls for an opening day win. I hope to see you Friday, September 20 for our next home match versus Southampton.