This athlete spends her time out on the courts, in the sun, playing a super strategic sport. She practices everything ranging from footwork, volleys, serves, and normal games like singles or doubles. Josie Freese started playing tennis during the summer before her freshman year and has been playing on our Granada girls’ tennis team for 2 years. She is now a sophomore and enjoys being out on the courts to have a fun time with her teammates.
Tennis is known to be a tiring sport that takes a lot of techniques to succeed. It’s an eventful sport that has you running all across the courts. Josie’s family has been involved with the sport of tennis for a long time. She explains, “My uncle is the coach and my sister played for 3 years and my cousin is playing right now and my other cousin just graduated.” Josie’s family members are her biggest supporters when it comes to her tennis career. She has been keeping the tennis legacy thriving through her family. She explains that her teams are great supporters too, saying “…my teammates..motivate me to be my best self. I really like being with my teammates, they’re really great people.” All of her many supporters have helped her become a great student-athlete.
In tennis, there are two certain ways to play a match. There’s either a singles match where it’s 1v1 or it could be a doubles game where it is 2v2. Josie explains her relationship between these two different types of games. She says, “Oh I love doubles. I hate singles. I get way too lonely in singles. But for doubles, I really love playing with my partner. I got a really great partner this year so I’m excited about that.” Playing doubles can really test your communication skills and it takes a lot of trust and partnership to win a point while playing doubles. Josie enjoys playing doubles because she has a partner to work together with during a match. Singles do not require much communication, as you’re just playing against one opponent. This tends to be easier for some, but Josie enjoys having a friend to accompany her.
With tennis being a very competitive and complicated sport, you need lots of practice in and off-season. Josie explains her busy schedule, stating, “I play off-season. I play four days a week off-season, but in the season we do four days a week and then we have a couple optional practices.” To keep her skills intact she practices every day with the help of her coaches and teammates to give her extra tips on certain skills. Josie believes that a positive mindset plays a huge role in your performance. Before a match, she gets, “some Starbucks and some music.” This gets her hyped up for the match and lowers the anxious feelings before a match.
For Josie, tennis helped her gain a bunch of new friends and a new extracurricular activity. She says her favorite part about being a student-athlete is, “The friends I’ve made. Pretty much all of my friends have come from sports.” Josie has had an awesome time playing tennis due to all the love and support coming from her family, teammates, and coaches. Josie says her favorite professional player is, “Serena Williams definitely.” Serena Willams turned professional when she was just 14 years old and she is also Josie’s role model when it comes to tennis.
Josie is a varsity player who enjoys playing doubles. She has been spending time carrying on her family’s legacy of playing the sport of tennis by continuously practicing every week. Due to Josie’s supporters, excellent teamwork, and hard work at practice, she is a successful student-athlete on the Granada Varsity tennis team. Josie’s tennis career is just getting started. She has a bright future ahead of her and we can’t wait to see her development in the next few years!
