After a year of competition and training, some of our players went on to challenge themselves at a national level in year-end winter nationals. Congratulations to Jenya and Tasha for rising to this challenge and representing the LTA at the USTA National Winter Championships in Scottsdale Arizona. Jenya won his first three rounds, beating Daniel Faierman, Aaron Poliak, and Anthony Tsodikov (who is tenth in the nation—Go Jenya!!). His next two matches, however, were extremely challenging, and he lost in close sets to Wyatt McCoy and Ace Matias. “I feel like I played really well in this tournament, and it was a ton of fun” Jenya said after his match. Additionally, Tasha competed in this event—challenging herself with tough national competition. Britney Sanders defeated Tasha in the first round, but Tasha put up a fight against this top-20 ranked junior, and played a close 6-4, 6-4 match. Tasha was able to battle back in her first round of the consolation draw and won in three close sets 6-2, 4-6, 7-5. Her next match was against 47th in the nation Brittany Borsanyi, in which she lost in a close match.