Paly’s girls’ tennis team is confident in its ability to win games this year and hopes to improve from last year.  Senior co-captains Aashli Budhiraja and Felicia Wang are hoping that this year’s team will make it into the Central Coast Section (CCS) playoffs once again this season, even with the loss of several indispensable senior players.

“I think this season is going to be one of the best we’ve ever had,” Budhiraja said. “I was nervous about losing three key seniors last year, but we got some great new players that really work hard, so I know we’ll be able to recover quickly.”

The team consists of many returning varsity members as well as a new freshmen and a few members who were previously on the junior varsity team.The girls started off their season by attending the Santa Catalina Invitational tournament Sept. 6 through Sept. 8.

At the invitational, the team played against several private schools, including Mercy High School, Stevenson High School, Castilleja School, Santa Catalina High School, University High School and Crystal Springs Uplands.

Paly won 15 out of the 21 games played and the entire tournament as a team. The team defeated second-seeded Stevenson High School with a score of 27-21.

With that victory, sophomore Kelsey Wang is confident that this season will continue to go well.

“I think that the preseason win is proof that we are ready for the season,” Kelsey Wang said.  “We are eager to play our best.”

The week after a successful tournament, Paly played against Aragon High School and won 6-1.Even with the encouraging victory, the captains are still pushing the team to train hard and look forward to improvements this year. They expect more effort and are implementing more intense practices and workouts.

“This year we are making practice more serious,” Felicia Wang said.  “We want everyone to focus more and we’re also working out more. We have eight minute abdominal workouts and we didn’t have that last year.”

With these additions, the girls expect to make it into CCS playoffs again as well as win many more games throughout the season and improve their record from last year.

“One of our goals this year as a team is to defeat some strong schools that we were close to beating last year, like Monta Vista [High School] and Lynbrook [High School],” Kelsey Wang said.  “Even though our league is extremely strong, we have confidence that we can make it to CCS again this year with a better record.”