The tennis team starts the 2015-16 school year with four new tennis courts that were added over the summer to allow the Eagles enough room to practice as well as host matches for the first time.

“With the new courts this year, we will be so much better,” varsity tennis player Reeves Moseley said, “We won’t have to be crammed into one court during practices anymore.”

The tennis team now has use of the four old courts, and four new courts, making for an easier, more spread out practice.

“[The added courts] make it to where we can actually have a full blown practice,” team captain, Brandon Couch said. “In the past, with only four courts we couldn’t spread out enough.”

Previously, the practice would not be complete due to a lack of space, but, with the new courts, it allows for more space for both JV and Varsity teams. A full practice will now include warm ups, then, after players get assigned to certain courts, they begin playing challenge matches against their teammates.

“We start out warming up at the net,” Couch said, “do that for a little bit, work our way back and do ground strokes. Then we usually match play against people, either singles or doubles.”

Varsity tennis players get the privilege to use the new courts for the majority of their practices. This allows the players to practice the whole time, unlike previous years with the disadvantage of sharing courts, which caused a lot of sitting down time while the players waited for their turns.

“In the past, there was a lot of sitting down time where you’re not really doing anything, but now we can have a real practice,” Couch said. “Varsity is mainly on the new courts because they are nicer.” He added that “The balls bounce higher and slower because there is more friction.”

The tennis team no longer has to travel to different schools for every match. The Eagles successfully hosted the first of many district matches at home last Wednesday, Sept. 16 with the new courts installed.

“Now that we have new courts, we can finally host our own tennis matches,” Moseley said.