Bloomfield HS girls tennis team shows determination

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BLOOMFIELD, NJ — The Bloomfield High School girls tennis team seeks a successful season this fall.

Head coach Mike DiMasi has been impressed by his team’s focus and determination.

“The Bloomfield High School girls tennis team has been diligent and focused on this 2022 fall season since the beginning of June,” said DiMasi in an email to the Independent Press. “We are very fortunate to have such an experienced, intelligent, mature and assiduous group of scholar-athletes. We did not graduate any of our varsity starters from last season so we are entering this season with seasoned players.”

DiMasi said his players in early June were already organizing and dialoguing on how practices would be run and designing the warm-ups, drills and games at each court station. “Veteran and returning varsity players were debating how to best structure heterogeneous workouts and practices, so not only would they improve and grow this season but also assist those who were just joining this season to grasp, understand and develop the game of tennis,” DiMasi said. “The reason for this is that we had about 45 girls sign up and attend our interest meeting back in June to play tennis for this upcoming season due to our success from last season. As a result, many of June’s meetings and workouts were focused on watching tennis drill videos and constructing and preparing for practices with a large number of players. Our scholar-athletes are extremely considerate and thoughtful to others that their goal was to not only turn our many 3-2 losses from last season into 3-2 wins, but also to make sure they help the new athletes feel comfortable, mesh and bond with each other and develop powerful relationships, in addition, help and teach these girls to learn the game of tennis.”

In their preseason practices, the team had about 20 players, which was half of the number of players who signed up for June. “These 20 have attended practices with energy and vigor,” DiMasi said. “We have a tennis pro coming this week to work with the team.

“Furthermore, we engaged in a team bonding event by attending the US Open practice session (at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, in New York City) on Aug. 23. Our athletes were able to watch certain top players like Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray practice and prepare and observe other players competing to qualify for the US Open.”

Anjli Ghoniya and Anika Bhat have shown strong leadership.

“We are very proud of our captains Anjli Ghoniya and Anika Bhat in conducting our practices early on, communicating, and demonstrating their leadership through their zeal on the court,” DiMasi said. “Lastly, we are very grateful to have Mr. Billy Mills join us as our JV coach. Coach Mills comes to us with a myriad of tennis knowledge and background. Not only does Coach Mills have experience with coaching BHS JV tennis in the past, but he also coaches out of season. He has a plethora of quality tennis fundamentals that he will be able to share with our athletes and make them overall better tennis players.”

Bloomfield will host Nutley on Sept. 6 in the season opener.

Schedule

Sept. 6: vs. Nutley, 4 p.m.
Sept. 8: at Belleville, 4 p.m.
Sept. 9: at Cedar Grove, 4 p.m.
Sept. 12: vs. East Orange Campus, 4 p.m.
Sept. 14: at West Orange, 4 p.m.
Sept. 15: at Golda Och Academy, 4 p.m.
Sept. 20: Essex County Tournament, at Althea Gibson Tennis Center, in Newark, 9 a.m.
Sept. 21: at Nutley, 4 p.m.
Sept. 23: vs. Verona, 4 p.m.
Sept. 27: vs. Belleville, 4 p.m.
Sept. 29: vs. Cedar Grove, 4 p.m.
Oct. 1: at Shabazz, 10 a.m.
Oct. 3: vs. Golda Och Academy, 4 p.m.
Oct. 7: vs. Caldwell, 4 p.m.
Oct. 10: at University, 4 p.m.