Despite her remarkable amateur tennis pedigree, San Marino High School senior Anessa Lee admitted she had a substantial case of the nerves on Monday afternoon as she squared off with Chadwick’s Casie Wooten for the CIF girl’s singles tennis championship at the Seal Beach Tennis Center.
Lee, however, overcame a 6-2 first-set loss, sweeping the final 12 games of the match to claim the school’s first CIF title in 20 years by a final tally of 2-6, 6-0, 6-0.
“I have never seen her like this,” Coach Melwin Pereira said during the intermission following the first set, referencing Anessa’s rare frame of mind.
Luckily, the jitters didn’t last long. Lee began running Wooten from one side of the court to the other, masterfully controlling the tempo of the match to win the championship in what became a battle of backhands.
Lee, a three-time Rio Hondo League champion with a caché of other awards to her name, has accepted a full scholarship to continue her tennis career at Vanderbilt University in next fall.
