Here at Pahrump Valley High School, we have many sports options. One sport I will be highlighting is the tennis team. Tennis is a very interesting and fun sport that is played individually against a single opponent or it is played in teams of 2 players each, also known as singles or doubles. The objective of the game is to hit the ball into the other player’s court so that it can’t be returned and win as many points as possible. I got the opportunity to interview some students on the tennis team and here are their responses.

One of the students I interviewed is Alexis Staples. One of the questions I asked Staples was “What do you love about this sport?” To which she responded, “I like how you can play for yourself and you can improve for yourself instead of being on a whole team of girls like volleyball”. Staples explained, “The only thing I really find challenging is mentally you beat yourself up a lot if you miss the point then its; it’s a lot.” I feel this is very important to talk about since I know what it’s like to beat yourself up mentally over mistakes, little or big.

One of the important things to know before you start playing a sport is that you have to be mentally prepared because it won’t always be easy. According to Staples, the team gets along pretty well and everyone is really close. Before Staples joined the tennis team, she didn’t even like tennis at all and her sister used to play, but everyone on the team was so close and the coach was so nice so she decided to join the team. In her opinion, she thinks private schools are the biggest threat to their team because they have more experience. The team’s biggest strength according to Staples is their bonding and friendships because they are really close and do a lot of things together.

Bracken Christensen, a tennis player at the Pahrump Valley High School noted that the only challenging part of the sport is that you have to have very good skills. The greatest strength of their team is that they are very close friends, Christensen decided to join the team after one of his friends told him about the sport and suggested that he should join. Although Christensen enjoys playing this sport and is close to his team, he doesn’t plan on joining next season. According to Christensen, the team’s biggest threat is Moapa which has great playing skills and was ranked 2nd seed for the southern region in the year 2022. One of his favorite tennis players is Serena Williams. Serena Williams is an awesome tennis player and is considered one of the greatest players of all time. Christensen explained that “Tennis is a difficult sport, at least to be good at it”.

Overall, tennis is a wonderful and interesting sport. If you are interested in playing tennis, I highly encourage you to join our tryouts next season. You can contact the team coach Dela Rosa at [email protected].