Freshman Rachel Cheung has been playing tennis since she was in fifth grade. She was excited to learn that her hard work paid off when she got the news that she made the varsity girls’ tennis team.

The team is led by captains senior Amanda Merkin, senior Angela Wu, junior Jennifer Yeh, junior Kavya Rajam and coach Mateo Cevallos, a graduate from the class of 2013.

The team is welcoming 10 returning players and four new players. The top four players on the team play singles while all the other girls’ play doubles. The singles players (in order of skill level) are: sophomore Annie Dong, freshman Helen Sarikulaya, sophomore Ellie Esterowitz and sophomore Lafi Joao.

Girls’ tennis previously took place in the fall while boys’ tennis takes place in the spring. But this year, Montgomery County has made all girls’ tennis teams begin in the spring along with the boys.

Esterowitz does not like that girls’ tennis is now in the spring. “The team practices from 2:45 to 4:35 p.m. every day. Because boys’ tennis also practices at the same time, the girls’ normally have to use the courts at Frost because there are only four courts here. “This is kind of annoying because we have to walk up to the courts and when you’re tired after practice, you don’t want to have to walk all the way back to Wootton. Even though I don’t prefer having tennis in the spring, we have to do whatever the county says,” Esterowitz said.

Even with the sudden season change, Yeh is confident in the team. “We are versing a lot of division one teams this year, but the girls’ team has a lot of good players so I am not worried. If I was to be worried about any game it would probably be Whitman or Walter Johnson. Whitman is normally good but WJ beat us at counties last year. But I think we can fix that this year,” Yeh said.

Even though she is no longer the coach, Cresham is also confident in the girls’ team. “Since I could only coach one team, I decided to coach the boys because I started with them and there were a lot more boys who tried out than girls. But I also know that the girls have a very strong team this year so it will not be very hard to coach them to win counties,” Cresham said.

There have been two matches scheduled but they got cancelled due to rain. The first match played by the girls took place on Mar. 26 against Northwest. The Patriots won 7-0. The next next took place on Apr. 2 at 3:30 p.m. against Bethesda Chevy Chase at home, too late to be included in this issues.