With the Rancho Cucamonga High School boys varsity tennis season starting, the players hope to reach their goals and prepare during the preseason.
“I’m just trying to be there for my team, and just kind of be a supporter for everybody and try to make everyone elevate their game,” senior Atticus Ruiz said. “It would be cool to make CIF, and I know we always lose to Osos, so just play Osos as hard as we possibly can because they’re really good, and they’re our rivals.”
Another player who shared his goals was senior Grayson Ciudadano.
“This season, I am excited for just getting to hang out with my friends, teammates, and I’m just excited for the competition. Our team is going to take a lot of effort for us to win. It is going to take a lot of effort for us to win and I’m enjoying that process,” Ciudadano said. “Another personal goal would be getting back to where I was before I got injured.”
Tennis head coach Daniel Moisa also has goals for the team.
“Always looking for the fight to get to CIF, try to make CIF, which we’ve been doing for the last couple of years,” Moisa said. “I’ve been here for about 10 years, I think, and I think we’ve only missed CIF once.”
In practice and preseason, the boys worked on improving their technical shots, specific shots, and the physical aspect of the game. In addition to self-improvement, they worked on finding their chemistry and different combinations in doubles as a team. As the season continues, the team is looking for its nine best players for the league’s starting lineup.
Practice and preseason games helped determine the players’ abilities. Leading up to their third preseason game, the team faced off against Glendora, where the game was close in competition with many tiebreakers between the teams.
In the third preseason game, Alta Loma High School, a well-known competitor, defeated
Rancho 80-86 in games. Both coaches that day hoped to switch their teams around and get the best one-on-one games.
With their three rounds for singles and doubles, the team struggled in the first round but slowly found their way back in the second and third rounds.
In the first round of the game against Alta Loma, there was a rocky start for two of the starting players. For singles, Ciudadano lost his first set 1-6, junior Jarrett Soriano won his set 6-3, and sophomore Amanvir Singh lost 3-6.
For doubles, sophomore Ethan Hou and junior Arthur Cheng lost 2-6, and senior Kavin Murugan and sophomore Sathvik Kommireddy lost 6-7. To close out the doubles matches, Then, senior Samuel Dalaguit and junior Ziyo Khusainov won 6-4.
After getting an overall score of 5-8 in the second round, Rancho won 2 out of 3 sets for singles and 2-3 for doubles in the last round. This brought both schools to a tie, 9-9, so they had to count the games of the sets. Although losing 80-86 games, the team put up a good match.
