This year, the girls tennis season is going very well as they are going 8-2, which is a very good start. Girls varsity conference has more competition as they are playing teams like Argo, Reavis, Lemont and more, which are more of a challenge as compared to Tinley, TF North, and TF South.
Mr. Daniel Doyle head coach of Girls Varsity Tennis team is very proud of his varsity girls as he claims, “the 2024 season has been going well and the girls have been improving a lot since the beginning of the season to the end.”
Mr. Doyle has known some of these girls since their sophomore and junior year. He enjoys being able to work with them throughout these years seeing improvement as time passes. Education is also an important part of tennis, if you don’t have good grades then you might be ineligible to play.
Mr. Doyle is an English teacher, so he is also willing to help find ways to study and understand certain topics more. He is an understanding coach, as long as players cooperate with him. Understand that Mr. Doyle also doesn’t want players slacking in your classes and you need to be respectful to your teachers and peers. Mr. Doyle says, “It doesn’t matter if you’re the best on this team, if you don’t have respect for your teammates and teachers consider yourself not a true team player.”
Mr. Doyle has some players that really stuck out to him this season, and they are Eliza Janik and Jessica Komperda as they are both senior leaders to the team.
Mr. Doyle states, “they are really showing the rest of the team how to play the game, and how to comport themselves being ro-models for the rest of the team.” Mr. Doyle is all about teamwork. As a tennis team we have to work together, helping each other and being pleasurable. Although there are some things that we can still work on as a team.
Mr. Doyle says, “I think as a team we need to work on our play at the net and work on our conditioning, being more consistent with the forehand stroke.”
Taking advice from your coach is really important as they know what they are doing and they are just trying to help you get better. Mr. Doyle is an understanding coach and he has a good sense of humor, so don’t be scared to crack a joke or a few.
I think that you should join tennis because it’s a fun sport and it’s one that you can do all throughout your lifetime.
Mr. Doyle says, “Tennis is a sport that requires a fast response of movement, and one that you can play for the rest of your life.”
Some people start at a younger age and some people start at an older age, so as an OLCHS Spartan on the Girls JV Tennis team, I would highly encourage students to try it out! People on the JV team usually range from freshman-junior and the Varsity team from junior-senior and sometimes sophomores.
The tennis team has diversity and talent and all the girls work hard to improve throughout a short period of time. When talking to Mr. Doyle, he said that he’s seen many improvements from the JV and Varsity team and that really made him happy knowing that the girls have the strength and courage to work harder and harder everyday showing up to practice to get better. There have been many improvements and changes since the beginning of the season and we hope to see you join the tennis team next year.
