Even with an injured shoulder that required her to serve underhand, Coppell freshman Lindsay Patton won her doubles match with senior partner Sofia Sanchez at yesterday’s tennis match against Tyler Lee High School at the CHS Tennis Center, helping the team seize a 17-2 victory overall. 

“[Patton] was able to fight through, even without her serve at full strength, against a very good [doubles] team from Tyler Lee,” Coppell coach Rich Foster said. “Overall, we played very well today. Year in, year out, [Tyler Lee is] a very good team.”

Patton is the only freshman to consistently play in Coppell’s varsity lineup, as she has secured the No. 3 girls position. Seniors Aishwarya Kannan and Ruchika Khowala are No. 1 and 2 respectively, and often play doubles together.  Yesterday, they won their doubles match 6-3, 6-0 while utilizing the “I-Formation” strategy, which essentially allows the serving team to surprise its opponents with unpredictable court movements.

“[Kannan] is also more consistent than I am, so our focus was for her to keep the point going at the baseline, and for me to finish the easy volleys up at the net,” Khowala said. “We kept the point going until we got an easy finishing ball, which helped us make less silly mistakes.”

Tyler Lee was missing one of its top girls, which tilted the score slightly in Coppell’s favor, according to Foster. 

Although Coppell appeared to be the stronger team on paper as well, Foster did not let himself or his players feel overconfident. 

“I’m always nervous going into a match,” Foster said. “Because I know we can look at our team on paper all day long and look at how good they’re supposed to be, but that’s just on paper. In singles, yes, the player who’s supposed to win usually wins. Not always, but usually. But in doubles, you can have two lesser players that make a really good doubles combination.”

That is exactly what happened in sophomore Vinay Patel and senior Clark Parlier’s doubles match, as their opponents – seniors Evan and Cole Von Eschenbach – were brothers who worked exceptionally well together and beat them (3-6, 6-3, 11-9). The one other match Coppell lost – Cason Cole and freshman Nandini Thallapareddy’s mixed doubles match – was also in a third-set tiebreaker.  

“I’m a little disappointed to drop both of those breakers, but that being said, the only two matches they got off us, we took them to the line,” Foster said. “We didn’t give them anything easy, and I’m proud of our kids for that.”

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