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Derryfield girls tennis team earns 3rd straight Div. I title -- again on deciding No. 2 doubles match

HOOKSETT — Pola Jankowska and Neha Veeranna balanced the pressure with encouragement. Jankowska and Veeranna hyped each other up between games as they narrowly pulled out their No. 2 doubles match, securing Derryfield School its third straight NHIAA Division I girls tennis championship. The Cougars defeated Bedford by a 5-4 score for the third straight year at Southern New Hampshire University. Each year, the title was decided by the No. 2 doubles match. “I know that court,” 26th-year Derryfield coach Gustavo Moral said after the team won its 11th overall state title. “I have my spot over there. My heart knows where to go.” Bedford (16-1) was undefeated entering the final and beat the Cougars (16-1) by a 5-4 score in the regular season. Jankowska, a senior from Hollis, and Veeranna, a freshman from Bedford, earned an 8-6 win in their back-and-forth match against Bedford’s No. 2 doubles team of Lucy Novak and Anna Diaz. The Derryfield duo’s strategy was to create long rallies and make N...
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Why Diana Shnaider's French Open upset of Aryna Sabalenka could be a breakthrough moment for college tennis

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NC State tennis coach Simon Earnshaw’s plans for the weekend changed just a bit Wednesday morning when Diana Shnaider stunned No. 1 seed Aryna Sabalenka to make the French Open semifinals . “It shouldn’t be that I just show up for the final,” Earnshaw told Yahoo Sports as he was scrambling to get ready for an overnight trip to Paris to watch Shnaider face qualifier Maja Chwalinska on Thursday. “I got kind of nudged by people at school that maybe it would be a good idea to have a presence [at the semifinals] as well.” Though college tennis has made huge inroads on the ATP Tour in recent years with a high volume of players, led by Ben Shelton and recent Roland Garros quarter finalist Rafael Jodar making a seamless transition from the NCAA to the pros, women’s tennis is a different beast. While some notable former collegians like Emma Navarro, Danielle Collins and Jennifer Brady have gone deep in Slams over the last handful of years, the perception has always been that women develop and p...
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French Open quarterfinal recap: Jakub Menšík and João Fonseca’s generation game

Follow The Athletic’s French Open coverage Welcome to the French Open briefing, where The Athletic  will explain the stories behind the stories on each day of the tournament. On Day 10, the ATP kids prove that they are alright, another teenager showed growth and off-court tennis politics continued to rumble. Why is the ATP Tour’s next generation in good hands? Throughout the early part of this year, and especially against João Fonseca in their French Open quarterfinal Tuesday night, Jakub Menšík has dispelled any doubts about his mental and physical strength. Until January’s Australian Open, when he reached the fourth round, the 20-year-old Czech had not made it to the second week of a major. Unfortunately for him in Melbourne, an abdominal injury ruled him out of that fourth round match against Novak Djokovic. That had been the story of his Grand Slam career up until this year’s French Open, physical ailments interspersed with brutal five-set defeats. And then he arrived in Paris ...
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