Emmaus got off to a strong start to the tennis season and the Hornets are in pretty good shape for both the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference and District 11playoffs.

The schedule has slowly gotten tougher as the season has gone on, especially with matches against Easton (8-0, 9-0) and Freedom (7-1, 7-1), both of which turned out to be 6-1 losses for the Lady Hornets.

“When we go up against some of those teams with more depth, that’s where we run into some problems,” said Emmaus head coach Dimitri Diamandopoulos. “Some of these teams are so strong right from their number-one player through all of their doubles teams.”

Doubles have turned out to be a strong part of the Emmaus team this season, with the combination of Cindy He and Sonya Boukengotts going 6-3 and Tara Wu and Rina Hollinger going 5-3.

When number-one singles player Elise VanOrmer and number-two Tina Zhang have teamed up in doubles, they’ve gone 2-0 in matches. As the top player for the team, VanOrmer is 7-3 in singles play this season.

“I’m happy with how I’ve been able to develop this year,” said VanOrmer “We still have a lot of season ahead of us this year and we’re still developing, but we’re definitely improved.”

VanOrmer credits attending a summer tennis camp at Lehigh University. At the camp, a number of college coaches helped attendees with different aspects of their game and VanOrmer believes it was really beneficial to her development.

Even though Emmaus has already faced top teams like Easton, Freedom and Bethlehem Catholic (8-0, 9-0), there are still a number of tough matches left to play. Just in the coming week, Emmaus has Northampton (7-2, 7-2), Nazareth (6-2, 7-2) and Parkland (6-2, 7-2) on the schedule.

“The matches against the better teams and better players definitely help us,” said VanOrmer, who is in her senior season. “Even though it’s a lot of work, it helps us improve when we play against the best players.”

“She’s been playing number-one since she was a sophomore and she’s really developed into that position as far as maturing in match-play and she’s really matured as an individual,” said Diamandopoulos. “She’s a solid player who has matured every year. She’s running into some tough number-ones and the scores don’t always make it seem like it, but she really is playing those girls tough.”

In between the losses to Easton and Freedom was a 7-0 win over Dieruff (0-6, 0-6), after starting the month with a 4-3 win over Pleasant Valley (1-5, 1-5).

“When I look at the schedule at the beginning of the season, there are matches that you say ‘that should be a win,’ and there are some where you figure it’s going to be tough to come away with a win,” said Diamandopoulos. “It’s those other matches, the ones that can go either way that can determine how your season winds up and we’re doing OK in those matches, which definitely helps us overall.”