After falling to Corona Del Mar High School 12-6 in CIF semifinals last year, the boys’ tennis team looks inward to player development to prepare for its upcoming spring season.

“Our team is pretty young this year but we have some good young talent,” team captain Max Rothman ’14 said. “I’m hoping that we can get back to a fourth consecutive CIF semifinal.”

According to Rothman,  Michael Genender ’15 is likely to make a large contribution to the team.

Genender moved up to 17th nationally as reported by Tennis Recruiting Network and second in the Boys’ 18s Southern California Tennis Association. Genender has earned this spot by dominating numerous boys’ 18’s designated tournaments, reputed to be some of the toughest USTA tournaments in Southern California.

“I have been training hard with my coach for upcoming international individual tournaments so I will be ready for the matches in high school,” Genender said.

He is not the only team member logging extra hours on the court. Sam Hummel ’14 and Rothman have been training with their coach to prepare to be a principle doubles team.  That said, there have been no full team workouts thus far.

Not only have members of the team put in outside work, but some of their rivals, University High school and Corona del Mar, would seem to have become weaker, losing their top three and two singles players respectively.

“I think we are just focused on trying to play our best at the end of the year and to go deep in the CIF tournament,” said Genender. “We will use these first couple months to test different lineups, get experience and grow as a team. I don’t think it is a good idea to put emphasis on a particular end result and say that if we make it to this point we had success this year and vice versa.”