With a strong start to the season, the girls varsity tennis team is getting ready for conference matches. The NWN had a chance to talk to assistant coach, Brad Wilson about this year’s schedule, upcoming matches, and the team’s promising players.

NWW: How is the season coming along so far?

Wilson: The season has gone fantastically so far. We’ve only lost one match, and we won our tournament, and we’ve had beautiful weather, and our players have been very accepting of coaching and advice.

NWN: What expectations do you have for the rest of the season?

Wilson: The schedule is going to get tougher as we go into our conference part of the season, and so we expect that the level of competition will be much higher and hopefully our levels of play will rise with the level of play of our opponents.

NWN: Is there any team in particular that you’re watching out for?

Wilson: No, not particularly. We just want to make sure that we play our best, especially against the teams in our sectional. So, we want to do well, especially against Maine South and Glenbrook South.

NWN: What are some of the teams’ strengths?

Wilson: Certainly our experience because we have a lot of  returning  players from last year’s varsity team, that’s a big strength, our athleticism is definitely a strength, and again, our openness to new ideas and willingness to new things.

NWN: And weaknesses?

Wilson: We continue to work on our footwork. I don’t know if that’s a weakness or an area of our game that we’re trying to improve on.

NWN: Who are the team’s star players?

Wilson: Right now, our fourth slash third doubles team of Amy [McBride] and Smita [Jain] I believe is undefeated at 9-0, so any time we have any player or doubles team that is succesfull and helps us to win matches, that’s clearly, in our mind, helpful and qualifies as being a star player. We’ve had Analise Vujica playing number one singles pretty much the entire year, which is a tough spot  to be in in our area because we have a lot of good players, so they typically draw the number one player on the team, so that qualifies also. And our one doubles team has been together and has assembled a very nice record at one doubles, so Alexa [Bits] and Kristine [Park] have done a wonderful job there.