Boys Tennis loses to Peninsula 15-3 twice and look forward to rest of season

by Andrew McKenna

After losing for the frst time this season, Redondo boys varsity tennis returned home on Thursday, March 9 with a chance at redemption. Redondo had won each of its frst four matches this season before losing 15-3 at Peninsula. Now the team was given another shot at Peninsula just two days later, taking what they learned from their last meeting to help them do better this time around.

“A pattern that I’ve noticed (against Peninsula) is that they are usually really aggressive at the net once the frst couple of balls go by,” senior Ethan Chen said. “They’ll wait for two or three shots, and then the guy at the net will try to put the ball away. If you are looking for that, you can try to catch him out of position and you can anticipate where the ball will come out.”

A big problem that Redondo struggled with last match was performing in their doubles matches. Improvements needed to be made in this area if the boys wanted a chance at winning, and was consequently the focus of practice before this match.

“When you’re playing doubles, placement of the ball is really important,” Chen said. “In practice we work on trying to hit towards zone two (the edges of the court), because it is harder for the net player to poach. When they’re in the middle of the court, if you hit cross-court really wide or down the line on the alley, it is impossible for them to get to unless they’re already there.”

With these thoughts in mind, Redondo attempted to put their visions into action. Unfortunately for them, though, the result was the same. The team struggled to keep up with Peninsula, once again losing by the same score of 15-3.

“At the end of the day, I think that Peninsula just played better as a team than us,” senior Strachan Ambrosi said.

“There were a few mistakes we made that held us back a little bit, but at the end of the day, they’re just a really good team.”

Although the score might not show it, Ambrosi feels that the team was “much more competitive” against Peninsula this time around.

“It isn’t obvious when you look at the overall score, but the individual matches were a lot closer today than they were last time,” Ambrosi said. “I thought that our doubles teams did a better job of serving and fnding the alleys with our returns.”

While the last two matches were certainly not as successful as Redondo would have liked, Ambrosi knows that the results aren’t indicative of the potential of the team.

“It sucks that we couldn’t beat Peninsula, but I think that we learned a lot from our last two games,” Ambrosi said. “We still need to work hitting our serves and returns consistently, but playing teams like Peninsula will only help us improve. I’m excited to see how the rest of the season goes.”

Boys Tennis: 3/21 @ Palos Verdes

3/23 @ Mira Costa

3/28 @ Santa Monica 3/30 vs. Santa Monica

Other sports:

Baseball: 3/17 vs.Culver

Boys LAX: 3/17 @ Samohi

Girls LAX: 3/22 vs. Glendale

So ball: 3/17 vs. Palos Verdes

Boys VB: 3/17 vs. Samohi

T&F: 3/18 @ Mira Costa