The Sedona Red Rock High School tennis team served its opening day at home on Tuesday, Feb. 27, against the Page Sand Devils.

“At this point, we have just enough players, it looks like we are going to have a season, so it looks like we’re moving forward,” head coach Andrew Ellis said on Feb. 20. “We just had a large mandatory meeting about player status. We have nine players who are going to have their approval by Friday, so we [will] have a team [and] we will be able to play.”

The team got a late start on practicing because of delays in getting all the players’ paperwork finalized. “But at the same time, [SRRHS athletic director Pedro Ortega Sr.] was concerned about actually having a season,” Ellis said. “And [Ortega] said, ‘Once you lose a season, it’s hard to bring that sport back.’ So he’s very concerned that we actually do go ahead and have a season even if we’re marginal on the number. So he’s pretty adamant that we go forward, and so am I.”

Low turnout forced SRRHS to cancel the girls’ varsity soccer season in the fall. Sedona-Oak Creek School District Superintendent Tom Swaninger announced during the Tuesday, Feb. 13, SOCSD Governing Board meeting that the district was working on “a marketing push for our students” to get more involved in school sports, “especially at the middle school level.”

Considering the low number of tennis players, Ellis wasn’t concerned about the future academic eligibility of members of his roster. “They’re all academic high flyers,” he said.

“Demographics have changed [in] this area in the last 10, 20 years. I’m new to the area,” Ellis said. “But I know based on what people have said. And I [from] my own experience working as a teacher for 30 years, that there’s less desire to play sports for some reason than there was.”

This is the second year that Ellis will be at the helm and his 30th year coaching sports.

“My dad [brought me to Sedona]. He was very sick and getting closer to dying,” Ellis said. “He was living in Cornville, and they had an opening for an art teacher here. I’d been a teacher forever, [but] I’d never taught art, but I was an art major in college. I thought, if I can move out here and be closer to my dad, then that’d be really good … I had only intended to stay here for the year. But then I loved it here and my dad passed away, and I’m like, ‘Well, I’m staying.’ I decided to stay because the people are great, the place is great, and it’s a great job.”

Court etiquette and fundamentals were the major topics that Ellis stressed before the start of the season.

“The biggest thing in tennis is for these kids, they have to call their own shots, so they have to be their own referee,” Ellis said. “That’s very challenging for high school kids. I coached sailing for 30 years back east, and it’s the same thing in sailing … That’s a real challenge because you’re dealing with high school students who are having to make the call and they’re young and learning.” 

Ellis hopes to improve on last year’s season, which produced individual match winners “but we didn’t win a whole meet.”

“If you just try to make a goal of ‘we’re going to improve our our season or improve our match number wins,’ you can’t do that because you can’t control the other opponent,” Ellis said. “In coaching, I’ve always taught that you need to set realistic goals. One of those goals [has] nothing to do with winning, because winning is not something you can control. What you can control is your practices, you can control your mindset, you can control how you play, you can’t control how your opponent plays or anything to do with your opponent. So setting goals that revolve around someone else is pointless.”

Sophomore Glenna Barnes said that she has been taking some of the skills from being on the SRRHS cheer team to the tennis court.

“I love cheering my teammates,” Barnes said. “I like all of them and they’re all great people. … I [played] when I was about five, and then I did before COVID, and I liked it — me and my brother [played] it together. Then COVID started and my coach moved … I haven’t played in four years. And I’d like to play again. Because the girls on this team I really like, because they’re supportive and my friends. They kind of pushed me into doing this again. I’m glad they did.”

Daisy Nez, a junior, will be bringing years of experience playing tennis at Posse Grounds Park to the team, along with cardio training from being on the track and field team last year.

“I didn’t want to [return to track] because it was hard on my body,” Nez said. “Most of my friends were playing tennis and I decided to join and I like playing tennis too … I also did volleyball this year.” Nez’s goals for the season are to improve ball control and have fun and to build on her “pretty good” serve to start matchups. Valentina Ramos, a junior, is returning from the 2023 team.

“Last year, our team was pretty tiny, it was just six players, and a lot of us weren’t as experienced,” Ramos said. “I learned a lot just from actually playing because I’ve never actually played as an actual team before. So working as a team, and also individually, because you play singles a lot. I got a lot more confident calling the ball or when I felt like there was kind of an unfair play … I’m really looking forward to this season.”