“The huge blisters on my hands and feet are worth it,” Fisher said. “It feels satisfying that these past few months I have been working REALLY hard and its finally paying off this summer.”

 

Molly took down Tara Donaho 4-6, 6-2, 6-3 in the semifinals, and then knocked out Kelly Zhu in the finals 6-2, 6-4. Molly credited her extra time spent in the gym with Coach Emil Iankov for getting her the endurance needed to come back in matches late in the tournament.

 

“It also helped that Coach Estevam, Meghan and Payton as well as my other team mates were cheering me on,” Molly said. “The match becomes bigger than you when your best friends are wanting you to win as badly as you do.”

 

 

O’Malley took down her first two singles opponents convincingly, before falling in the round of 16 3-6, 3-6 to Caroline Otto.

 

“I really feel that Meghan is on the brink of seeing her hard work paying off in terms of results,” Coach Lucie said. “She is in a great shape and striking the ball very well.”

Also competing in Abilene, Payton Holden and Tyler Wilkie both bounced back from early losses to win the back-draw championships. Wilkie defeated M. Arimilli 7-6, 10-5, 6-3, and Holden defeated T. Haynes 6-0, 6-1 in the back-draw finals.

“We had a great tournament in Abilene,” Coach Strecker said. “I think this weekend showed that our younger kids are moving in the right direction and I think in a few years we will be contending for the title in all age groups.”

In San Antonio, Charlie Shin fought his way to the semi finals of the boy’s 18s draw. Charlie beat Adolfo Gonzalez, Steven McMullan and Jimmy Zhang before going down to Tomas Stillman in the semis.

In the same draw, Andrew Parks battled his way to the quarterfinals. He took down Alexander Huffman and James Bronson. In the backdraw, Landon Weiss worked for three-straight wins to reach the final round. Liam Leddy also earned a victory in the consolation draw.

While the Super Champ athletes were in San Antonio and Abilene, the ZAT players went to work in Austin. Four players from ATA reached the semi finals in their respective draws. Avery Schiffman, Varun Somarouthu, Jackson Foreman and Kyler Bender all secured semi final spots.

Jackson battled through to the final round, and Avery earned Champ status with the semi final finish.