The summer came to a close with the Pacific Northwest Junior Sectional Tournament that was held on August 18th-24th. Chris and Angela took ten LTA players, including Tasha Kadie and Allie Hueffner, Nick and Tommy Mulflur, Katie Lorish, Valerie Frank, Betsy Sauer, Sam Stephenson, and Peter Beatty. Half of the traveling players made it through to the second round of the tournament before losing to highly seeded players. Sam Stephenson had a great match against Michael Charmerski who made it to the semi-finals of the tournament before losing to Emmet Egger. Betsy Sauer competed strongly against singles finalist Lea Jansen. Kadie Hueffner reached the semifinals of the consolation, Nick Mulflur got to the third round of the tournament before losing to to sixth seed Scott Goldner, and Valerie Frank and Tommy Mulflur lost in their second round of consolation. Valerie Frank demonstrated mental toughness by battling back from being down 3-6 2-5 and coming back to win the second set 7-5 against Carlina Jow, and winning the match 10-5 in the third set tiebreaker. Lastly, Katie Lorish and Belinda Niu made it to the finals of the doubles and were defeated by the first seeds Nikole Novikova and Christy Sipes.
Other LTA players that played in the tournament, including Arianna Fardanesh, Taylor Rees, Elizabeth Johnson, Erin Larner, Trevor Apple, Jenya Pereverzin, Christina Le, and Stuart Tierney. Jenya won three rounds, making at all the way to the semifinals of the boys 18s. Stuart made it to the semifinals of the boys 16s, moving through four rounds to get there. Trevor Apple also demonstrated great skill in his consolation match, working through three sets with Spencer Moore. Though Trevor could have easily beaten S. Moore, he lost in a close tiebreaker. Furthermore, with many LTA players cheering from the sidelines, Erin Larner won the entire girls 12s singles draw. Congratulations to ERIN on a job well done!!
LTA’s competitors always have high hopes of performing their best tennis in every tournament they compete in. During their training week prior to the tournament, the players learned new lessons from guest coach Chris Lam. As a retired touring professional and UCLA graduate who played for the National Championship team as their #4 player, Chris offered the team honest advice and fresh inspiration. We would all like to thank Chris for spending time with the LTA, and we wish him the best with his new assistant coaching position at the University of Denver.