This year’s tennis team is facing many new changes with the arrival of new coaches, Kevin Jhang and Ping Wang. Mr. Jhang is a professional, local tennis coach who has begun training the AISG tennis team last week. He will be the lead coach throughout this tennis season. Ms. Wang isn’t an entirely new coach for the AISG tennis team; she has trained them in the past but she took a break from the team for three years. This year she has decided to be the assistant coach once more.
18 is the number of students that have tried out for the team this year. Last year, only 11 people tried out and there were just enough girls to make the varsity team. This year, the three new female players that have been recruited and have joined the team in addition to the four former players are the senior Ruth Zou, the junior Elly Atwood, and the sophomore Regina Kim.
Grace Tang, the first singles player for the team, says she looks forward to meeting new people on the team and that she is also very excited for the two main tournaments of the season, Tricities and APAC.
On the boys’ team, many new players have joined who will definitely be a great addition to the already existing male team. Yiuwai Yuen, Gordon Liang, In Hwa Mo, Dylan Chen and Adam Xu are the new players. “I’m really nervous because it’s the first year I’m playing tennis at a serious level”, Yiuwai Yuen explains, “but I’m excited to learn and grow in this new sport.”
In a week, the team will be traveling to Beijing to compete against the Western Academy of Beijing, the International School of Beijing, and the Shanghai American School Pu Dong in the annual “Tricities” Tournament. This tournament is helpful for the athletes to get used to playing serious matches and also to get to know their adversaries for the futre APAC tournament that will be held in October. Before that time, they will be training hard to improve their skills in preparation for both tournaments.