The ABS Lady Trojans have gone 4-luv against their opponents in the past four matches on the court. More than just the past four matches, the team has won five of their past six.

This means that, in the past six game days, ABS has won at least 25 individual matches between their singles and doubles competitions.

“The way a high school tennis match works is that there are nine separate matches, six singles and three doubles,” Steve Klein, head coach of the Trojans explained. “To win, you have to win five of the nine.”

ABS tennis is doing extremely well in the face of conditions that make the game a bit more challenging. 

Alabama is divided up into four sections for their tennis programs. As one of three schools in the county with a team he said, ABS is a part of a large section that takes them from North Alabama playing opponents like Athens High School and Lindsay Lane down to places such as Pell City, where the team won their fourth straight match against Victory Christian.

“The travel is huge and challenging, but our parents and players are figuring out how to cope with it and have hung in there really well,” Klein complimented the ABS tennis family. 

Being an outdoor sport, the ever changing weather can make it hard to schedule games.

“We were supposed to play tonight until five minutes ago,” Klein said on Friday, referring to the rain forecasted for the day.

The bigger scheduling challenge — hopefully one that will come to an end for ABS in the coming years — is the fact that two tennis teams call the public Swann Creek Park tennis courts “home.”  

Eventually, the Lady Trojans will be able to host tennis matches on the school’s campus as a part of the Play it Forward master plan. Klein looks forward to having a true home court for his team that would allow more freedom with scheduling matches than the current options.

“That would be really helpful to our program … would also alleviate some crowding and pressure at the public tennis courts,” Klein said. 

ABS tennis is scheduled to play next on Thursday, March 23, against the Alabama School of Cyber Technology and Engineering at home at 3:30 p.m. For more information about ABS’s Play It Forward initiative and the team’s efforts for a new court, contact the school at (256) 233-2525.