First published in the Sept. 25 print issue of the Glendale News Press.
The Glendale High School girls’ varsity tennis team emerged victorious in a league match over visiting Hoover, 12-6, on Thursday, Sept. 23, primarily due to the Nitros’ nearly perfect doubles teams’ performance.
“We’ve been working hard with the doubles teams in practice, and we’re trying to be more aggressive on our volleys,” said Jim Jenks, Glendale’s head coach. “Good things happened today.”
Glendale (2-4-1 overall record, 1-3-1 in league) certainly was aggressive, as doubles teams Sona Amroyan and Lilit Arakelyan, and Lizzy Davtyan and Tiffany Tarbinian earned sweeps over Hoover’s Ani Weimar and Arpy Terabramians, Malvina Karapetyan and Katherine Nalchajayan, and Sosi Mkrtumyam and Mini Yen.
Amroyan and Arakelyan won by scores of 6-2, 6-1 and 7-5, while Lizzy Davtyan and Tarbinian swiftly swept their games 6-0, 6-3 and 6-2. Glendale’s Sarah Davtyan and Nahnor Ghazarian also won two of three sets, 6-2 and 6-0.
Before being replaced by Terabramians, Hoover’s No. 1 doubles team, Weimar and Julia Jagatspanyan, earned the Tornados only doubles win against Glendale’s Sarah Davtyan and Ghazarian, 6-4.
Despite the loss, Hoover’s No. 1 singles player, Agape Keshishian, earned the Tornados’ (1-2-1 overall and league record) only sweep of the afternoon, defeating Glendale’s Ani Harutyunyan, Natalie Mirzakhanyan and Liana Aghakhani by scores of 6-1, 6-1 and 6-2, respectively. To round out Hoover’s five total singles wins, Jacklyn Tolmoyan and Camille La Torre were victorious by scores of 7-6 and 6-4, respectively, over Glendale’s Aghakhani.
“I think we’ve battled while even though we were down and losing, or if we were up and they made a comeback, we still fought through,” Keshishian said. “I think we are really prepared this season, and everyone should watch out.”
Glendale’s Harutyunyan did well in singles play, defeating Tolmoyan and La Torre by scores of 6-0 and 6-1, while Mirzakhanyan matched her teammate with two wins by scores of 7-6 and 6-1.
“There were a couple of matches that I thought we could have won in the first round that we didn’t, but the girls made adjustments, we talked about it between rounds one and two, and two and three, and they made those adjustments, and luckily we were able to pull out the win today,” Jenks said.
