Millbrook High School 15-year-old sophomore<\/p>\n
Sport:\u00a0Tennis.\u00a0Position:\u00a0No. 2 singles and No. 3 doubles\u00a0<\/p>\n
Parents:\u00a0Carrie Smith and Paul Lopez<\/p>\n
Hometown:\u00a0Winchester<\/p>\n
What do you love about tennis?:\u00a0I like the mind game of [tennis], and going and playing with your friends is always really fun. [I enjoy] getting better, and just playing the game is a lot of fun for me. Mind games, meaning, if your opponent is really good, you need to figure out ways to break down their barriers … so you need to get in their head basically before you can start winning, because if not, if they’re way better, they can obviously just beat you.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Most memorable moment in tennis:\u00a0Being part of the team and having a good team. I feel like both of the years that I’ve been on Millbrook’s team, we’ve had strong teams. We went to [regions] both times. I love making memories, like going after to eat and celebrate a win, that’s is always a great memory, especially if it was like against a really good school. But yeah, I love celebrating wins and cherishing them with my friends.<\/p>\n
Most embarrassing moment in tennis:\u00a0Losing a point in a funny way, like if someone serves an underhand serve … that’s happened a couple times. Or if I am playing with a friend and serving between my legs, and I miss, that’s embarrassing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Most difficult moment in tennis:\u00a0Playing good against opponents that are better than me, but I still played very well against them. For example, against Handley, their No. 2 [Will Brubaker], the first time I lost 8-0, and the second time I played him in [regions], I lost 6-3, 6-1. So overall, I think the most difficult part about it is getting better and advancing to be better. It’s a lot of patience, but I think the more you practice, the better you get.<\/p>\n
Three people you can have dinner with, dead or alive:\u00a0Jesus, [professional tennis player] Ga\u00ebl Monfils and [former American chess grandmaster] Bobby Fischer. That’s who I look for influence to strive to be better. I love playing chess, I love watching and playing tennis and learning new things. And then I love to grow spiritually, too.<\/p>\n
Biggest athletic influence:\u00a0I think my teammates influence me to be better. My friends are great influences; I’ll rally for a couple hours with one of my friends [Samridh Rangineni], and he makes me better.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Favorite teacher:\u00a0Mr. [Benjamin] Ratliff. He teaches AP Pre-Calc, Calc AB, and Calc BC. I pick him because I think he’s done the most and has had me learn the most all the time I’ve been at school. I grasp the material better, even though it might be difficult sometimes. He’s always open for emailing or tutoring before class or after class, or whenever you need, he’s great with that. I think he’s a great teacher.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Favorite athletes:\u00a0Ga\u00ebl Monfils and Novak Djokovic\u00a0<\/p>\n
Favorite team:\u00a0I don’t really have a favorite team. My mom’s side [of the family] loves the [Arkansas] Razorbacks [college teams].\u00a0<\/p>\n
Favorite movie:\u00a0“The Pursuit of Happyness”<\/p>\n
Favorite TV show:\u00a0“Squid Game”<\/p>\n
Favorite song:\u00a0“Is This Love” by Bob Marley and the Wailers\u00a0<\/p>\n
Favorite food:\u00a0Norwegian reindeer curry<\/p>\n
Worst thing you\u2019ve eaten:\u00a0Olives\u00a0<\/p>\n
Plans after high school:\u00a0I’m looking to get into a college in Virginia, hopefully UVA, if not, maybe a different college in Virginia that’s also very good. I’d like to maybe study something through engineering or architecture, something around those areas. I like the math side of it, and I also like the building side of it. So, I feel like I would like doing both. So, I guess maybe it would make me happy.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2014 Compiled by Joe Tuman<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Millbrook High School 15-year-old sophomore Sport:\u00a0Tennis.\u00a0Position:\u00a0No. 2 singles and No. 3 doubles\u00a0 Parents:\u00a0Carrie Smith and Paul Lopez Hometown:\u00a0Winchester…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39246,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2529,2531,13364,50,2532,28,2528],"class_list":["post-39245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-eedition","tag-high_school","tag-millbrook","tag-sports","tag-spotlights","tag-tennis","tag-winchester_star"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39245\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}