Friday, May. 09, 2008

Mixing it Up

Tennis Journal

By John English

Contributing Writer

Alex Hanno and Haley Holt have been leaders in the Grapevine tennis program for a number of years, and earlier this week, the two joined forces to try to bring home a state tournament medal for the Mustangs as a mixed-doubles team.

Hanno played singles last season, while Holt was on the girls doubles team, and both advanced to the regional meet.

At 43-2 heading into the state tournament, coach Angel Martinez said his mixed-doubles team is looking pretty good and hopes they can make some noise in Austin.

"These two are our best players," Martinez said. "They lead by example, and when you have people like that at the top, everybody strives to play as well as they can."

Holt said she felt that she and Hanno had a good showing at region and really did not know how they would fair going in.

"I am very satisfied," Holt said. "I felt that we played very well. We weren’t sure how it would play out … so we went into it with an open mind."

The Grapevine junior played on the regional qualifying girls doubles team for Grapevine last year, and said the switch to mixed doubles was not a hard one at all.

"I think it has gone great," Holt said. "We seem to work very well together. Both of us wanted to get to state coming in, and that was one of our main goals."

Hanno qualified for region last year as a boys singles player, and said the adjustment for him to playing doubles was not a difficult one, either.

"This year was the best I have ever done at regionals, so I couldn’t have asked for anything better," Hanno said. "It has been easy to go to doubles. I’ve always liked doubles, and I actually played doubles my freshman and sophomore years. It was actually easier for me switching from singles to doubles than from doubles to singles."

Hanno is headed to Villanova next year and said that to have a good showing at the state competition, he and Holt would have to work together.

"I think both of us are going to have to play as a team and not go in there playing as two separate people," Hanno said. "We just have to continue on what we did at regionals at state."

Hanno and Holt lost in the state quarterfinals. Read about their experience at state in the May 16 edition.

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