On October 19-21, senior and Tennis Captain Riya Jain traveled to Buffalo Grove High School to compete in the Illinois State Tennis Tournament. Jain was the first member of the Parker Girls Tennis Team to compete and represent Parker at the tournament in the last fifteen years.
After watching all of the sweat and tears that the upperclassmen endured during past seasons, she saw how hard it was to move on from Sectionals and to the State Tournament. Jain said being able to advance and compete at State “was honestly the best feeling.” She added, “I’ve been trying to go to State for the past four years.”
Jain has been playing tennis since she was seven years old. She has dedicated at least two hours a day to school tennis practices, and on top of that, practices on her own one to two days a week. She also practices on the weekend with her family, and in particular, her dad.
“My dad has been a great influence on me as a player because he plays tennis, too,” Jain said. “He’s basically my coach.” In order to prepare for State, Jain spent a lot of time practicing with her dad at Midtown in addition to practicing with her teammates.
It wasn’t until she placed in the top three of four qualifying spots at Sectionals that Jain definitely knew she would be advancing. Based on her record in the regular season, Jain was able to first make the Independent School League (ISL) tournament and then she went on to Sectionals where she had to win two matches in order to make it to the state finals. Sectionals started with a bracket of sixteen players which narrowed down to four final players –– including Jain –– all of whom qualified for the State final.
One of her coaches, Jim Taylor, said that in tennis “the mental game is as important as the physical game, and one of the things that sets Riya apart from good tennis players who look great in warmup is that they are not as mentally tough as she is when the pressure is on.” Taylor added, “She is calm and stoic and focused and never gets rattled.”
Going into the tournament Jain was seeded twelfth of sixteen seeds out of a pool of sixty four players. On October 19, the first day of the tournament, Jain won two of her three matches. She beat her opponent from Woodlands Academy of the Sacred Heart 6-0 in straight sets. She also defeated her opponent from Marian Central Catholic High School in consecutive sets: 6-1, 6-2. However, in her third match she lost 6-2, 6-4 to the fourth seed from University Laboratory High School, which knocked her into the consolation bracket.
On October 20, Jain won one of two of her matches. She won her first match, a pro set, 8-4 to a player from Danville High school. In her second match of the day, she lost to a player from Fairfield High School 8-0 in another pro set, ending her State Finals run. Jain said her opponent from Fairfield High School was an, “Italian foreign exchange student who was flown here — recruited to play tennis — I don’t feel too bad losing to her.”
After a hard-fought run, Jain finished the 2023 season as the ninth-ranked player in Illinois. Although this was her last year on Parker’s tennis team and last chance at competing in the State Tournament, Jain is not planning to give up tennis anytime soon. “I definitely want to play tennis after high school and in college. I’m deciding whether the route for me is D3 or just playing club, at whatever school I go to.”
