Number One Freshman

Written by Trenae Alexander, Staff Writer

In the frigid January air with nearly frozen hands gripping the hard racket, Freshman Ayesha Ibrahim practices her serves, strokes, and volleys endlessly. Her hard controlled strokes and accurate fast serves are the product of her effort and have aided her in the defeat of almost all of her competition during the fall season.

In tennis, the players rank is in control of everything. Who you play, when you play, and if you play all depends on it. At Summit, if the player is ranked in the top eight, then you are on varsity, nine-sixteen is JV, and anyone below that does not play.

Usually, the freshman start off on JV and occasionally a select few would make it to the lower ranks on varsity. However, this year, Ibrahim has managed to not only make it to varsity, nut has taken the number one spot. Almost effortlessly,  Ibrahim breezed through the rankings and took the top spot.

“She hasn’t lost a challenge match, yet,” head coach T.J. Planas said, “It’ll be interesting to see if she can stay number one the whole year.”

During practice one day, Ibrahim played a match against the number one ranked boy Senior Tony Le. The match was called early and though Le was winning, even he was shocked by the talent that the young freshman girl displayed in their match. He left the court sweaty, tired, and with a new respect,

Ibrahim began playing tennis when she was only seven years old and has steadily improved since then. She is one of the most conditioned athletes on the team due to the past four years of playing basketball. Despite her obvious success, she still feels nervous about her rank.

“There’s a lot of pressure because I’m the youngest, a freshman, and I have to play a lot of people older than me, but right now I think I’m doing pretty good.” Ibrahim said.

She is known by classmates for being very quiet and more focused than anyone else. On the courts she can be seen hitting back and fourth with the upper varsity and mentally preparing herself for each match.

Senior Cassie Rodriguez, who was ranked number one last year but is now in the fifth spot, has watched Ibrahim come from the bottom of the ladder to the top.

“She’s holding strong, and she doesn’t seem to be worried about being a freshman because she’s strong-willed and confident in herself,” Rodriguez said.

So far, Ibrahim is doing more than is expected from any freshman, and almost everyone on the team expects her to be a strong contributer for the next for years at Summit.

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