Butch Noble
Falcons’ No. 2 singles player Nadean Hurtado lunges to return a shot during a quarterfinal of the BVAL singles tournament. PREVIOUS PAGE: Kendall Markham was part of a doubles team which notched 13 victories in 2010.
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She’s content because she competed. “When I don’t win, I get really mad,” she says as her sliced turkey deli wrap is delivered to the table. “But after I calm down, I’m just happy that I got to play tennis.” Perhaps that’s because she had only committed herself to playing competitive tennis a mere five months earlier. And when she made the girls tennis team in August, it was her first venture into Freedom athletics after already spending three years on campus. Markham’s story is the perfect microcosm for a Falcons tennis team which wasn’t as talented as its predecessor, but came together — sometimes in odd circumstances — to claim the school’s first team tennis title. ◆◆◆ Steve Amaro can honestly say that he didn’t see it coming. A season ago, behind USTA-ranked players Sarah Osborn and Emma Fister, Freedom’s girls tennis team took a third-place finish in the BVAL. That team, Amaro said, was arguably the best in Freedom history. And coming from Amaro — who has coached the Falcons’ boys tennis program since the school opened in 1996 and the girls program since 2000 — that statement carries some weight. So after losing seven of his 12 starters from that team to graduation, the coach’s expectations weren’t extremely high. And a 9-0 season-opening loss to Carondelet didn’t help matters. In the second match of the season, Amaro was absent serving jury duty when he received an update from assistant coach Elisha Hall: Freedom was leading Granada. “I remember how frustrated I was as a coach,” Amaro said after receiving the update. “As I thought it may
be one of the few wins we would get this season.” Upon his release from jury duty, Amaro was on hand to see wins over Clayton Valley, Livermore and Ygnacio Valley. “We were improving with every practice, but I couldn’t conceive we were on our way to a magical season,” the coach said. Nicole Zanarini didn’t see it coming either. Zanarini returned for her fourth year of varsity in 2010, and was a natural selection as the team’s No. 1 singles player after the graduations of Osborn and Fister. “We’ve always strived to be league champs, and we’ve just barely missed it,” Zanarini said of the three previous Freedom teams she’d been a part of. “I think that of any of the years we would’ve done it, I didn’t expect it to be this year.” So what happened? Markham happened. And Nadean Hurtado happened. And Jenna Botorff happened. The list could go on, but let’s get back to Markham for just one second. In her years prior to picking up the tennis racquet for the Falcons, she was a competitive horseback rider — not exactly a gateway sport to tennis. “I was with her during tennis camp (over the summer),” team captain and No. 3 singles player Alex Gerundio recalled. “I was the one helping her and teaching her all the fundamentals, and then she just took off. She’s amazing. This is probably only her fifth month playing tennis.” Playing almost exclusively in the No. 3 doubles slot, Markham and Weaver won 13 matches together. That included an 8-2 record in league play. Of the five
November 11, 2010
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