Teamwork and practice paid off for young tennis players at Rye Racquet Club.

 

Teamwork and practice paid off for young tennis players at Rye Racquet Club. After a successful string of victories since January, the club’s USTA 12 & Under Intermediate Team returned from the USTA Section Championship in Schenectady on June 7 with the finalist trophy and medals for all the players.

 The team’s 13 members, who hail from Rye, Harrison, Greenwich, White Plains, Larchmont, Mamaroneck, and New Rochelle, were thrilled with the outcome. Last year, the team qualified for the section tournament but placed third. “This year, they were ready to fight,” said team coach Go Inagawa.

 Alison Zerbib of Larchmont, who barely dropped a game during the season, said she had a great time on the team. “It was fun to be on a team and have support from my friends, since tennis is usually an individual sport.” Teammate Nicolas Jaramillo of Rye added, “I would definitely like to go back and play one more match.”

 The USTA junior team format consists of boys and girls singles and doubles and mixed doubles, and unlike traditional tennis, a team victory is determined by the total number of games won, not set scores. “This encourages players to fight for every point,” explained Inagawa.

In the section tournament at Central Park in Schenectady, a round robin with matches of four-game sets with no-ad scoring, Rye Racquet won 80 games, trailing behind the winning team from Maywood, New Jersey, by just four games. Rye Racquet defeated teams from Highland Park, Huntington, Schenectady, Setauket, and Buffalo.