Q&A with CPHS Girls’ Tennis Coach, Dr. Meier

Leila Abdel-Qader

As the chill of autumn arrives, the Girls’ Tennis season begins for the school year. For this year’s season, Girls’ Varsity Tennis Coach Dr. Meier was kind enough to share some thoughts about the team.

Q: Who are your captains?

A: Our captains are two incredible kids: Winnie Zhao and Ximena Cruz.

Q: Who are your returning star players?

A: Everybody on this team, in one sense or another, is a returning star player. With COVID-19, it has been a very insane season, causing some team members not to have the ability to return. So, just to have students who have played in the past is an amazing feat. To really quantify specific players, once again, Winnie Zhao, Ximena Cruz, and Rubi Orellana. The list can go on to fit the entire Varsity team.

Q: What makes a good leader for your team?

A: Leadership is all about what one can do when they lose, basically showing good sportsmanship no matter what. Taking into account last year, with COVID-19, our team was still able to win an award for this trait. In the larger picture of life, what we do and how we act is really what we can take away from playing a sport in high school.

Q: What is the best thing about your sport and coaching it?

A: The best thing about coaching tennis is the kids that I get to work with. In my 23 years of coaching Tennis, I have never really met a kid who wasn’t wonderful. As far as the sport itself, at 67 years old, I’m still able to play tennis. Unlike soccer, football, and basketball (which are all sports I love), tennis is timeless. In fact, sometimes, the older you get, the better you get at the game.

Q: What makes your sport unique?

A: The sport is unique because you have the ability to play as an individual or with a teammate. When I was younger, I preferred to play singles. But, as I got older, I had an amazing doubles partner. Either option is available to you. In doubles, if you’re able to figure out the strategy of the game, you are able to play teams that are much better than you and win. It can be a lot like chess in the mental strategy you must have.

Q: Where did the team rank this season?

A: We finished with three wins, making us tied for second place behind Fort Lee. No matter who wins or loses, the sportsmanship and the way the team played makes me really proud as a coach.

Q: What are you and the team working on in practice?

A: The single hardest athletic thing to do is to serve a tennis ball. One can spend hours working on simply where to throw the ball. You have to throw the ball yourself, hit it yourself, and get it over a barrier. It is a very unique athletic feat. Hence, we focused a lot on serving within practices.

Q: What expectations do you have for your players?

A: Win or lose, try the best that you can no matter what. I would consider playing with other schools almost as prep for life, as we’re going to have countless successes and failures. It is just about how you deal with them.

Q: What do you want your players to take away from the season?

A: The first thing to take away from the season, as we just said, is to try your best. It is about learning how to deal with adversity and how to react. I can still remember the relationships formed between players and opposing teams, despite the tension that is meant to be accompanying them. Another thing to take away from the season is the relationships that the players have made with each other and these opposing teams.

Thank you to Coach Meyer for his time. We wish the Girls Tennis Team luck in all their upcoming games!