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Thorpe Tennis: 2016 Year-in-Review

As I look back on the last three “year-in-review” posts, I am reminded of just how long I’ve been writing what my students affectionately refer to as “the blog.” This is not a new site, and Thorpe Tennis, now seven years old, is not a new thing either. However, I am inspired daily to bring new and better content, methods, and insights to my work.

I feel this way because I have a passion for teaching the game of tennis and particularly for having an impact on young lives. There are few things in this world I enjoy more than seeing the light go on about getting that service contact point up a little higher or cutting off the angles at net; the moment where a player realizes they can compete against that crazy-good opponent; building mastery day-by-day out of desire. These are the little things that make the big difference and not just on the tennis court. These are experiential building blocks for life and I feel very fortunate to be part of that process of growth.

In 2016, there have been challenges, but as a tennis community, Thorpe Tennis has been extremely successful. Here are just some of the many high-points of the year:

Spent more than 1,000 hours on-court, coaching 61 players from age 9 to 60.
Directed a third, and perhaps, the most successful year of my tennis camp for middle schoolers and incoming freshmen.
Coached Laguna Blanca Boys’ Tennis to a 12-4 record, which saw us ranked as high as #9 in CIF D4.
Led Cate Girls’ Tennis to a 10-1 regular season record, during which time we were ranked as high as #1 in CIF D2 before finishing #4. We also made a return to the Quarterfinals of CIF D2, after recording a 69-68 victory over a senior-laden Xavier Prep. With regards to ranking and division performance, these are achievements accomplished by no other team in Cate Athletics history.
Individually, my students at Cate had a big year as well:
- Grace Fuss finished Runner-Up in Tri-Valley League Singles and won a round of CIF Individuals, before finishing the year ranked #525 in the country for her class.
- Jackie Cai & Carol Cai won the Tri-Valley League Doubles Title and their first two matches in CIF Individuals. Jackie now sits at #860 in the country, while Carol is ranked #1098; Both are primed for a significant jump in the next year!
- Summer Christensen & Sarah Polowczak completed a remarkable 26-0 regular season and went on to finish Runner-Up in league (l. to sisters Cai), before also making the third round of CIF Individuals.
Thorpe Tennis can boast a growing number of players active at the collegiate level, with Phillip Hicks and McKenna Madden making the club teams at Yale and Boston College (respectively). McKenna tried out along with 60 other young women for 6 roster spots and made the cut as a freshman!
Julia Gan began her season as a starter for Haverford College, but will transfer to NYU, where she had been heavily recruited last year, for the spring season.
Posted 40 blog entries, including many player photos, that were viewed by more than 1,400 visitors to this site.
Brought together Thorpe Tennis students for an awesome group lesson during the holidays that spanned six of the seven years I’ve been coaching in Santa Barbara (pictured at top).

Happy New Year to everyone out there reading “the blog” and I look forward to working together towards an even better 2017!

Thorpe Tennis: 2015 Year in Review

Barbara Hallquist DeGroot Celebrity Coach Laguna Blanca Summer Tennis Camp Another great year is in the books and I am thrilled by the progress my students have made in 2015. I’m already excitedly looking forward to raising the bar again in 2016, but before we get ahead of ourselves…

A few highlights from the year at Thorpe Tennis:

Worked with 63 different players from age 8 to 52.
Spent over 1,000 hours on-court teaching lessons and coaching high school matches.
Directed a second successful year of the Laguna Blanca Summer Tennis Camp, oriented towards middle schoolers and incoming freshmen interested in playing at the high school level.
Coached Laguna Blanca Boys’ Tennis to an 13-3 regular-season record and won a CIF playoff round for the third consecutive year.
Led Cate School Girls’ Tennis to what was likely the most successful season in team history, going 13-1 during the regular season and making the CIF D2 Quarterfinals.
Coached an unheard-of six Cate girls to Tri-Valley League All-League 1st Team and received Coach of the Year Award.
Completed a two-year project with Edward Cho at Cate, helping him achieve his goal of going from JV to Varsity singles starter
Began utilizing photos and slow-motion video within lessons to give players another angle for understanding their game.
Helped Julia Gan finally break the top-400 in the country, while also winning the Tri-Valley League Singles Championship and getting widely recruited to play college tennis. We even made her an awesome recruiting video!
Had the pleasure of watching senior students matriculate to fine schools such as: Cal Poly SLO, St. Andrews, Carnegie Mellon, NYU, and University of Colorado at Boulder.
Expanded community interaction with my students, their families, and other supporters with 28 blog posts that were visited by 1,800 people and viewed 5,000 times. This year also featured many photos of players in action that are free to download and share!

Thanks to all of you for being part of my tennis family. It is my passion and pleasure to be part of yours. Here’s to another great year of tennis in Santa Barbara!

Trevor Thorpe

Tri-Valley League Individual Tournament Results: Cate Dominates!

The Tri-Valley League Individuals Tournament was held at Cate today. All five teams (Cate, La Reina, Carpinteria, Malibu, Nordhoff) were represented by two singles players and two doubles teams each.

In what was expected to be a competition dominated by Cate and La Reina, Cate proved their strength with both singles players and doubles teams advancing to the semifinals and securing all-league honors. Continue reading “Tri-Valley League Individual Tournament Results: Cate Dominates!”

Pre-Season Recap + First Match of the Girls’ Season

Pre-Season & Introductions

For the second year running, pre-season was a welcome indicator that a new, invigorated team mentality is taking hold at Cate. Now in my 13th season as a high school coach, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a team come back so ready to pick up where they left off nine months earlier. We even got a visit from alum Victoria Herman, who jumped right into play without missing a beat.

In addition to a good level of readiness, the girls’ team will benefit from the addition of a new assistant coach, Sara Scott. Now a mother of two, living in the Santa Barbara area, Coach Sara brings a wealth of experience as a top-ranked junior player and successful D1 athlete (she played four years for the UCLA Bruins). Continue reading “Pre-Season Recap + First Match of the Girls’ Season”

Summer Tennis Camp 2015 Wrap-Up

On Thursday, we had the opportunity to learn from another highly decorated tennis player in Sara Scott. After a four-year turn at the #1 singles position for UCLA, Sara went on to be ranked as high as #400 in the world during her professional tennis career. She is a self-identified “aggressive baseliner,” and so her court was all about weight-transfer and driving through groundstrokes. After saying goodbye to Sara, we enjoyed a meal from Backyard Bowls before heading out for some more match-play in the afternoon.

During the last two days of camp, there was a dramatic shift in the Owl Points week-long competition, with Team Fresh 2.0 dominating the abbreviated format match-play in the afternoon and then fielding the top two doubles teams in the Friday morning doubles tournament. Coming from down 13-8, Team Fresh 2.0 ended up winning the competition 26-22.

Individual honors for the camp went to Taylor Kleine and Luke Williams, both of whom were models of competitive drive and sportsmanship.

Taylor won a number of doubles matches with different partners throughout the week and helped make the difference for his team on the last two days, going undefeated in singles and doubles play, earning himself MVP honors. Luke was our Coaches’ Award recipient, in part because of his strong play throughout the week, but even more so because he was a go-getter. Luke was ready to be challenged and to compete every day and was a total class-act in victory or defeat.

Harrison Fell and Ben Newton put on a spirited hat competition all week, something that has become a sort of tradition at Laguna Blanca Summer Tennis Camp. Who will be top hat next year?

We ended the camp with our customary pizza party and then moved on to the team award. As part of the team competition, the winning team got to take a photo with their coach in the owl suit, and despite protests from the losing coach, Tristan and I lined up for one round of “butts up,” during which not a single camper dealt a glancing blow. Luckily for us, not even coach Ben hit his mark. Maybe next time, guys!

On behalf of my staff, I ‘d like to thank all the campers, celebrity coaches and celebrity players that participated in our second Laguna Blanca Summer Tennis Camp. We’ll see you next year!

Team Anti-Fresh Takes Commanding Lead, but Team Fresh 2.0 Not Worried

In an interview following the day’s events, in which Team Anti-Fresh swept the point-earning opportunities to go up 8-2, Coach Ben of Team Fresh was quoted as saying, “I’m not worried.” When pressed on the matter, Coach Ben explained that his team was conserving its resources in order to make a final push during the last two days of camp. Coach Tristan declined to comment for reporters about his team’s dominance thus far, but it is widely held that the presence of his dog Boo at today’s camp may have made the difference for Team Anti-Fresh.

In reality, today’s Owl Points were earned by the narrowest of margins. Team Anti-Fresh won the early-morning footwork relay race by one stride and followed up with a narrow victory in Around-The-World just before lunch-time.

In the afternoon, Team Fresh battled back from a 5-9 deficit in sets to reach 8-9 before succumbing 6-3 in the final set of our high school format dual match.

Then, during DJ Conrad’s guest music set, everything was up for grabs until the last possible moment, with the mini-tennis tournament points changing hands in the ninth and final round of the day.

Here are some photos of the day’s action:

An ITA Hall-of-Famer Celebrity Coach + Anti-Fresh Takes Slight Edge in First Dual Match

Anti-Fresh has taken a 6-4 lead in the first of two dual matches to be held this week. The match will be completed tomorrow afternoon to break the 2-2 tie in the week-long competition for Owl Points.

In the morning, Team Fresh 2.0 put in a dominant performance untangling themselves from “the human knot” to take a 2-1 lead, but Team Anti-Fresh countered with a win during the footwork relay race.

During the early-day court rotations, we had the pleasure of welcoming celebrity coach Barbara Hallquist Degroot, arguably the most successful female player in USC history. After becoming the first female athlete at University of Southern California to receive a scholarship, Barbara went on to lead USC to four consecutive national titles, and another as a coach several years later.After her stellar college career, Degroot went on to reach #30 in the world after a quarterfinal performance in the US Open. She also reached the quarters twice as a doubles player.

Needless to say, the slice and touch-volley court featured a very talented and experienced celebrity coach today. I had the pleasure of coaching with her at Cate School for five seasons so it was great to be on the court with her again! Continue reading “An ITA Hall-of-Famer Celebrity Coach + Anti-Fresh Takes Slight Edge in First Dual Match”

Laguna Blanca Summer Tennis Camp is Here!

Day one is done and dusted, and what a day it was! Talking with our returning coaches Ben and Tristan while setting up this morning, we were all excited to reunite with our returning campers (Laguna campers are the best), but we also enjoyed welcoming some new players into the fold. Continue reading “Laguna Blanca Summer Tennis Camp is Here!”

Julia Gan Takes Title at Oxnard Winter Junior Tournament

Last weekend we drove down to the Oxnard Winter Junior and on Sunday afternoon came back with the hardware.

Julia has had some tough luck with draws in her first few tournaments in California, but this time breezed through an easy first-round match without dropping a game and followed that up with a convincing 6-1, 6-4 win over #1-seed Yu Mu. Mu trains full-time at Weil Tennis Academy and is currently ranked #498 in the country in the senior class.

In the finals, Gan faced a challenging 2.5-hour match against Dominique Derse. In the first set, Gan had a 4-2 lead and several break-point opportunities to go up 5-2, but Derse fought through the long service game and came roaring back to win the first set 7-5. The second set was also close, taking over an hour to complete, with Gan taking it 6-4.

The beginning of the third set looked troublesome for the Cate junior, with Derse breaking in the first game and going up 40-0 in the next. However, Julia Gan’s tenacious style-of-play was taking its toll on her opponent and Derse began to fatigue, making more unforced errors than in the previous two sets. Gan took the break back and from there she rolled on to a 6-1 third-set victory.

Julia Gan now sits at #534 in the nation for the junior class and holds the #16 spot in her native North Carolina, according to tennisrecruiting.net.

Julia Gan Collegiate Tennis Recruiting Video

It’s my pleasure to have the opportunity to work with talented players who have NCAA aspirations. One such player is Julia Gan, who will be graduating from the Cate School in spring of 2016. Here is a showcase video, presented by Thorpe Tennis: