THERE’S A NEW CHAMP IN TOWN: LAUREN RODRIGUEZ
(Press Release) Eagle Pass’Lauren Rodriguez won the 12 year old girls ZAT (zone advancement tournament) that was contested on October 4-5, 2014, at the Bentwood Country Club in San Angelo Texas. By winning the tournament, Lauren not only got a shiny first place medal but also qualified to play in the USTA Champs division. She will now be competing against girls from throughout the state of Texas that have qualified to play in this highly competitive division.
A sixth grader from Glass Elementary in Eagle Pass, Lauren has been playing tennis for over two years now. She trains under the tutelage of Antonio “Tony”Sifuentes and his wife, Karla Sifuentes, both college players in their own right. Lauren came into the tournament as the No. 1 seed by virtue of the points she had earned from winning previous matches. Although Lauren had won a few “open”events, she had never won a ZAT tournament before last weekend. She has been competing in the Girls 12 category since January of this year and the farthest she had advanced had been the semifinal round in four previous events. The victory did not come easily as she had to win three tough matches to capture first place. Fourteen girls were entered into this tournament and that meant that the top two seed got byes (i.e. didn’t have to play in the first round).
Lauren’s first match was in the quarterfinals against Annabelle Etchison of Lubbock. The match was competitive but Lauren was able to prevail 6-3;6-3 to get to the semifinals. Her next opponent was Laney K. Montgomery from Amarillo who had taken out the third seed. Lauren was hoping to get past the semifinal round because if she did so she would earn enough points to advance to the Champs level. She had already been in this same position in her last two tournaments only to lose in the semifinal round. After Rodriguez took the first set 6-4, the match looked like it might be a routine victory for Lauren until the gamey right hander from Amarillo made a game of it by taking the second set 6-2. The match would come down to a tie-breaker. Lauren, although nervous, was confident because her Coach, Tony Sifuentes, has prepared her for such situations by having her practice tie breakers during practice. It also didn’t hurt that her rocket first serve decided to start going in at precisely that time. She was soon up 5-1 on the changeover and ended up winning 10-6 and was into the finals.
The championship match was played on Sunday October 5 and the weather, clear, dry, sunny and cool temperatures was perfect for tennis. Her opponent was also named Lauren. Ms. Stanfield was a hard hitting right hander from Amarillo who had trained at the John Newcombe Tennis Academy in New Braunfels, Texas. Ms. Stanfield had won three matches the day before defeating Esther Santee of Abilene 6-1, 6-0; dispatching local hopeful Chandra L. Ross of San Angelo 6-1, 6-3; and eliminating Taylor Nichols of San Antonio, 6-1,6-2, who herself had taken out the No. 2 seed in the previous round. Lauren was ready, and was not intimidated by the “Newks”T-shirt her opponent was wearing because she practices with young ladies here in Eagle Pass that provide ample competition.
The match couldn’t have started better for Lauren. Ms. Stanfield quickly lost her serve and was down 0-1. Lauren, usually a slow starter, was anything but on this day. All of her different variety of serves were working this day. Her kick, slice and flat serve were all dropping in which rattled her opponent. That is not to say that it was an easy match, there were long rallies but most were won by the Eagle Passan. She put on a clinic, hitting solid topspin forehand shots, slice backhands, two handed topspin backhands and even an occasional drop volley. Her opponent had her moments as well. Down a set and down 3-1 in the second set Stanfield battled back to take the lead 4-3 only see Rodriguez win the next three games to take the championship by the final score of 6-4, 6-4. Lauren and her parents Liza and Robert as well as Maryam and her mom Mari Tere were all elated over the victory.
