Wrapping up their 2021 season, the Diamond Bar High School girls tennis team confidently serves between their triumphs and losses in this year’s league.

Senior Laura Gao and junior Chloe Cadelina won first place this season in individual league finals, both finishing with a score of 6-1 that qualified them for the CIF Individual competition in first place.

“I feel that I worked very hard this season, especially towards the end when I really worked hard to figure out how to keep up with Chloe when playing doubles,” Gao said.

Gao and Cadelina ended the season with an overall record of 18-0 as a doubles team with an overall record of 19-3 and 23-2, respectively.

“I’m pretty content with the way I performed this season,” Cadelina said. “I still have lots of things to improve on but I’m still happy with the way I played this year.”

This season has been slightly unorthodox for Cadelina as she is usually a singles player for the team. However, playing this year as a doubles team with Gao has still been an interesting experience for her. 

“Outside of Diamond Bar, I play lots of doubles and to be able to play for our school, made me really excited,” Cadelina said.

Among the other strong players at the competition were the doubles team of senior Julienne Nguyen and sophomore Jasmine Buenafe, who lost in an intense tiebreaker against the number one seed at a close score of 10-8. Junior Emily Tsao and freshman Grace Lu also competed at League Finals, facing each opponent with fierce Brahma spirit. 

“It was a very spring match because we adjusted our strategy and played both at the back rather than one forward and one back,” Buenafe said. “Next season, I hope to improve my double plays.”

Buenafe describes that head coach Feix had changed double teams lineups in the middle of the season. However, she thinks that the sudden change soon proved to have a greater positive outcome than they expected it to have.

These new double teams cancelled out each other’s weaknesses,” Buenafe said. “And the points became longer because we were able to return every ball back.

This year, most of the girls tennis team will be unable to continue onto CIF competitions due to their overall record. Only Gao and Cadelina will continue to CIF as a competitive doubles CIF individuals team. 

“Until CIF, I will be working on doubles strategies and volleys as well as practicing with Chloe so we can be more connected in our playing,” Gao said.