Liberty’s girls tennis team is prepared for a match-a-day week this week after confronting some challenges and scoring some victories in its 2021 start, including last Thursday’s 5-0 win against William Allen at Liberty.

“Across the board we’ve see tremendous improvement,” said Hurricanes head coach Chris Conrad. “We’re going to have our learning curves, but we definitely learn from playing some of the better teams in the district, and now we get to translate that into a different part of our schedule. If we can be successful in the last part, maybe we can qualify for districts.”

The Hurricanes are a truly young team with Sruti Tekumalla at number one singles, up from second doubles, who defeated Melody Herrera, 6-0, 6-0, freshman Stephanie Zheng at number two singles, who defeated Isabella Macsisak, 6-0, 6-0, and sophomore Sophia Csatari at number three singles, up from fourth doubles, who defeated Ciabrella Ramirez, 6-4, 6-2.

“I think we’re doing well, and we could make it to districts if we keep trying and keep winning,” said Tekumalla.

Csatari and Ramirez had the biggest challenge in singles matches on Thursday.

“A lot of her balls had good angles on them that I wasn’t expecting, and her serves were really good, but then eventually, I learned what she was doing, and was able to expect what was coming,” said Csatari. “When she would hit the ball it would go really close to out of bounds, and I would think it was going out, and then I would lose that point.”

And for newcomer Zheng, the adjustment to high school tennis is going well.

“High school tennis is very different because everyone hits consistently, but through practices before school started, it helped a lot,” she said. “I pushed [Macsisak] back to the baseline, and it helped a lot because she would hit shorter balls and then it was easier for me.”

In doubles play, Bella Cantelmi and Ava Ronca defeated Karen Martinez and Lexi Horn, 6-1, 6-2, and Elizabeth Beckley and Rokia Whitehouse defeated Sally Boose and Alesha Boose, 6-1, 6-2.

The Hurricanes will take on or will have taken on East Stroudsburg North, Northampton, Dieruff, Whitehall, and Bangor, all this week.