Varsity Raiders Off to a Strong Start

Though the Scarsdale Girl's Varsity Tennis team may never again live up to the team's historic 117 match winning streak from 1990-2000, this year's group has spunk and stamina and is off to a strong start.

Coach Jennifer Roane hinted that tennis may not be as popular in town as it once was – with about 40 players vying for 26 spots on the Varsity A and B teams this year, when previously the tryout would draw 60 hopefuls. Despite the numbers, the team of returning players and six newbies are posing a challenge to their opponents.

We stopped by to see Scarsdale meet Ursuline on a sunny warm September day and found the matches to be riveting. Junior Ashley Granieri is back playing first singles and on Thursday she played against her sometimes doubles partner Keira Tobia from Ursuline. The two battled it out from the baseline, hitting deep hard shots, alternating with drop shots to draw their opponents into the net. They played a lengthy match with Granieri winning the first set 6-0. In a second and also lengthy set, Tobia came out on top 3-6. This left the two to play a third set tie breaker which was great to watch. Granieri looked very pleased when she finally sealed the deal with a 10-6 win in the tiebreaker.

Discussing the match, Granieri explained that Tobia made more errors in the first set and hit more winners in the second. Ashley felt that she was able to win the tiebreaker because she was more consistent.

In second singles, senior Jessica Tsai also played a long match against ninth grader Laina Campos. Laina comes from a family of players and put up a great fight, despite being younger and smaller than Tsai. They had long deep exchanges in both sets with impressive backhand groundstrokes. When Jessica drew Laina to net with a drop shot, Laina hit beautiful down the line and cross court passing shots. It was nearly dark when Jessica narrowly won the match, 6-4, 7-5.

Tenth grader Phebe Denison is playing singles for the first time this year. She faced Ursuline freshman Vanessa Ciano who scored a decisive 6-0, 6-0 victory in the third singles spot.

Playing first doubles, seniors Anshi Barmecha and Kayle Waterhouse looked like they were having fun. Anshi would set up her partner from the baseline and Kayle was great at covering the net and deftly putting away the balls. It wasn't an easy match – with Scarsdale winning the first set 6-3, Ursuline taking the second set 6-4 and the raiders coming out on top at 10-7 in the tiebreaker.

The second doubles match also ended in a tie breaker in Scarsdale's favor. Scarsdale junior Sam Leichtner was paired with sophomore Lily Steckel. The two lost the first set to Ursuline 6-2. In the second set the girls say they "got motivated and tried to end the points fast by coming to net." That worked and they came out 6-2 in the second set. The tiebreaker was tense with Scarsdale scoring an 11-9 win, in another closely-contested match.

The third doubles team of tenth grader Michele Getselevich and 9th grader Elizabeth Sinyavin are playing together for their first time this year. They lost 6-4, 6-2 to Ursuline and said their opponents had found their weaknesses and attributed the results to unforced errors.

The fourth doubles team of Haley Sontag and Natalie Breitkopf played together for the first time against Ursuline and failed to win, but fortunately Scarsdale came away with a 4-3 victory.

That was Scarsdale's third victory of the season – after a 4-3 win against Bronxville on September 8 and a 6-1 win over Clarkstown on September 9.