Maisy Vue puts all of her five-foot-one-inch frame into
every serve and every ground stroke she hits on the tennis court. Her two older
sisters were also tennis players in high school so she had a little bit of
family history when it came to playing the sport at Luther Burbank High School.
But on Oct. 31, Vue, the school’s number one singles player,
teamed up with teammate Girlmu Vue in the Metro Conference’s super doubles
competition at the Natomas Racquet Club and found out real quick playing the
doubles game is a whole lot different than singles.
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| Burbank tennis player Girlmu Vue |
“It was a whole lot more competitive than singles,” Vue
said. “When you are up close to the net you’re trying to hit it hard at them.
When you’re on the baseline, you’re just trying to get the ball over the net.”
The Vues were dispatched quickly from the event, 8-1, by the
number two doubles team from Kennedy, Anstonia Ma and Shannon Lee.
Maisy wishes she and Girlmu could have hung around and
played a bit longer on that cool fall morning, but just getting the opportunity
to play tennis was fine, she said.
“It’s a different experience, but worth it,” she said.
Later on, though, Maisy was awarded an All-Conference Player
patch. She made the quarterfinals of the singles tournament a couple days
earlier, thus she qualified for the honor, the only Burbank player to earn the
award.
She was grinning ear-to-ear as she brought her patch back to
school. A senior, her competitive tennis career was now over. An excellent
student in the classroom she’ll go to college.
“Tennis from now on will be a hobby,” she said.
The event was a fun thing to be a part of for her, Girlmu
and the number two Burbank doubles duo of Pang Ying and Patricia Ojeda. All the
girls seemed to giggle with each other every time a shot went awry, even
pounded accidently over the tall fences surrounding the Racquet Club.
Not a word of trash talking, typical now-a-days in most high
school sports, was heard anywhere. No haranguing of officials, either. In fact,
there were none. The players, themselves, called balls knocked out of bounds.
They almost never argued with each other on those types of calls.
During breaks in the matches, a friendly word is exchanged
with each other. They all have one thing in common and that is tennis.
Unlike the more experienced, more tennis-savvy players on
the McClatchy and Kennedy teams, many schools like Burbank, Florin and Valley
(Sacramento and Johnson, two other Metro Conference schools, don’t field tennis
teams) struggle a bit to field players with much experience in the sport. Maisy
has played for four years. Her Titan teammates have less experience.
On Thursday, all those schools’ doubles teams were out after
the first round. McClatchy’s girls, many of who play year-round and take personal
lessons, placed three doubles squads in the semi-finals.
By finishing that high at the conference meet, it assured
all of them a spot in the Sac-Joaquin Section’s Division II Individual Tennis
Championships Nov. 7 and 8 at the Johnson Ranch Racquet Club in Roseville.
Valley’s Rachel Cuellar and Chienne Vang did find a way to
defeat a pair from Rosemont in the opening round and took Ma and Lee pretty
deep into the quarter-final match before losing, 6-6 (5-7), 2-6.
On Monday, the Valley squad kept up its improved play by
winning its opening match of the Division II team playoffs. They defeated
Patterson, 6-3. Tuesday, the Vikings played Bella Vista in the next round of
the team championships.
While McClatchy, the Metro’s top seed in the Division II team
championships, was outfitted in some of the finest in tennis gear and uniforms,
the other schools seemed to just have something that appeared to match.
The girls didn’t seem to mind. They enjoyed opportunity to
play on the picturesque courts of the Natomas club. Everyone walked away with
smiles, and some Halloween candy bars.
Tennis is fun for them.
