As the school year continues on, it’s time for another Redwood Boy’s Tennis Season. Lucas de Lima, ’25, Carter Cook, ’26, team captain Wesley Ball, ’25, and Coach Russ Brown all gave their inputs on the 2025 tennis season beginning and what their goals are for the season.

By: Ben Newell

The tennis players were asked what they were looking forward to for the upcoming tennis season.

Carter Cook, ’26
Photo B.Newell/Gigantea

Carter Cook, ’26, says, “I’m looking forward to this new season because of all the new players, and I feel like we are a lot tighter and better of a group and as friends. We still have a lot to learn, but I think we can pull off what we learned last year and continue on with that this year.”

Lucas de Lima, ’25 says, “I’m looking forward to a tough preseason. We have a lot of good matches against some high-level Clovis schools and after that, looking forward to winning some important matches in EYL and continuing our streak of being the best team in the league.”

Lucas de Lima, ’25
Photo M.Flores/Gigantea

Team captain Wesley Ball, ’25, says, “I’m looking forward to having a lot of fun this season. This is my last season and I just want to live it up and have fun with it.”

Coach Russ Brown says, “This will be a challenging year because we lost our top four players from last year’s 10-0 EYL championship team. We only have three of the ten varsity members returning in seniors Wesley Ball and Lucas de Lima, and junior Yong Lee. We have not been threatened in league since 2014, the last time we lost a league match. With the personnel losses from last season, we will be in a fight this year to keep that streak alive.”

Like every other athlete starting a new season of a sport, they all have their goals that they want to accomplish during the season.

Wesley Ball, ’25
Photo A.Ceballos/Gigantea

Cook says, “I hope we can beat a few Clovis schools, those are always hard. I really hope that we can get a good doubles match, and that’s something we struggle with sometimes, but I think being more connected this year will help with that.”

Coach Brown says, “Although league championships have been regular for the last decade-plus, winning league is always the first goal. With our inexperienced team this year, winning league would be much more meaningful. Outside of this, I always stress that our personal goals should be improving our skills and having fun. Winning and losing will take care of itself, and winning is more fun, but there is value in the journey despite our win-loss record.”

Ball shares his goal for the upcoming season, saying, “My goal for the upcoming season is for the team and for myself to stay undefeated in league.”

de Lima shares his thoughts on the team chemistry this year. de Lima says, “I think the team chemistry is pretty strong this year, even though we have a smaller group. We usually have about 30 kids, this year we have about 20 to 22. But it makes it more compact and we have strong team chemistry, and I like our group. I think tennis always has a strong group of kids and this year is no different.”

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Ben Newell
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Ben Newell loves writing and telling stories. Ben is creative and loves listening to the world around him. Newell is currently writing for the sports section

 

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