With the win over a short-handed Cy Ridge team on Tuesday, Stratford Tennis cruised to 5-0 in District play. But with the team of the red pony coming to Stratford this coming Tuesday, the team respectfully requested some non-District iron to sharpen iron. Around here, respectful requests for iron get answered by Friday. On this Friday, it was the Tompkins Falcons from FBISD. Historically, the Falcons have a very strong tennis program with outstanding players and that definitely proved to be the case.

We started with doubles matches, as Tompkins edged out Stratford 4 to 3. Sparty’s very strong and experienced Mixed Doubles duo came through again. Nico Boza and Anna Sanchez have been Varsity players all four years and their chemistry came through with a dominant straight-set win against a very highly ranked Tompkins mixed duo squad. Line 1 duo Liam Collins and Emerson Hamlin have only been playing together for a month, but they are proving to be a formidable duo, giving up only a handful of games in a straight-set victory. Stratford got its 3rd doubles win from Ruthie Egger and June Lim, who came from behind to gut out a nailbiter in the breaker (11-9)!

Singles proved to be a tougher draw as Sparty won 4 of 12 singles matches outright. Of those eight losses, three were third set tiebreakers. Case in point—Nico Boza played in a grueling back-and-forth singles match with a Tompkins top player, when on match point his opponent’s ball hit the net cord and climbed over the net as Nico watched helplessly from the baseline. But it wasn’t all heartbreak. Freshman Liam Collins won his match while continuing to dazzle with a signature attacking style of play. Fellow freshman Brianna Johnson and Alice Jiang served up strong straight-set wins, while Renee Lee toughed out a third set win.

So while Stratford took the non-District loss, the experience of playing a tough opponent with a deep bench could prove useful as Stratford hosts Memorial this Tuesday at 3:00 pm.