Tennis serves up Area win

Westlake played in the Area tournament Oct. 17-18 at the UT Whitaker courts. Varsity singles player junior Julian Sweeney, a second line singles player, said there was a riveting tension as Westlake recovered from a near loss and made a huge 10-9 comeback against Westwood in the semi-final match.

“Trouble came when the doubles starting losing their matches and we fell behind,” Julian said.

He credits the success to the singles team’s ability to pick up the slack and flip the loss to a win. The next day, Westlake played against Lake Travis in the Area final and defeated them 10-9 to become Area champs.

“I’m really happy we won this meet,” Julian said. “It was huge for Westlake, and it really helped to get [people’s] confidence up.”

The following week, the Chaps traveled to Tyler for the Regional meet where they lost to Plano West 7-10.

“It was extremely disappointing, especially since we lost to them last year as well,” varsity singles player junior Charles Tan said.

Charles lost his mixed matches, but won his singles matches at the Regional tournament.

“Regionals was hard because of how almost every team was about the same level,” Charles said. “We all knew it was going to be a tough tournament and there wouldn’t be an easy match. Now, I’m just going to focus on performing well in spring.”