Over a month ago on October 20th, the Girls Tennis League prelims were held at the Whittier Narrows Tennis Courts. The competition consisted of three singles and three doubles pairs from each school in the Almont League playing against each other in a bracket-style, elimination tournament. In addition, the schools that placed first and second place in the league got to choose a wildcard from their school to play in either singles or doubles. Each match was played best out of three sets, with the third set being a 10-point tiebreaker. The players that placed first and second in doubles and singles would earn the opportunity to play at CIF Individuals on November 20th. This is a high level tournament where the top singles and doubles players from different leagues played against each other in a championship similar to league prelims. The first two rounds of the tournament were played at Whittier Narrows, with league finals, which consisted of the semifinals and finals, continued on the following day at Alhambra High School.
After making it through prelims, senior, Dana Kunza, and junior, Noor Abani, crushed the other competitors in the singles finals landing them both 1st and 2nd place finishes respectively. Getting to the semifinals Kunza had to face the opponent that gave her the greatest challenge, “She had beaten me in the years before, and I knew I just needed to beat her to get the spot for CIF Individuals.” Keppel’s doubles players also took the top spots with sophomores, Valerie Ding and Valerie Dinh landing a 1st place win while sophomore, Giselle Chan, and freshman, Alyssa Luc, grabbed 2nd.
After about a month these players competed in CIF individuals where unfortunately they were knocked out in the first and second rounds. “I felt like I did good up until the end and the match that got me out was really close,” Abani said.
It didn’t hit me until my game was over and I realized that I’ll never play with this team ever again.
– Dana Kunza
The skill of these players is impressive and they have proved that they can play in big tournaments. The upcoming 2024 season will be an even greater challenge because, “Without the help of our seniors like Dana, next year is gonna be difficult,” Abani presumes.
