With the continued spread of COVID-19, the state of Virginia declared this a state of emergency and mandated that all high school sports cease practices and games for two weeks. This mandatory closure allowed sophomore Adam Osinkosky to reflect on his past tennis scrimmage, as well as discover improvements he can make in future matches for the HHS tennis team. 

“My tennis match [Thursday, March. 12] went really well. I won ten games to four, but I do have things I want to improve on for this break. When I first started playing my match, I had to learn how my opponent played so I could counter his shots, which I found challenging, but I think this break will be an overall plus for me because it gives me time to practice before actual matches since our last was just a scrimmage,” Osinkosky said. 

The HHS tennis team scrimmaged against Fort Defiance last Thursday in preparation for the upcoming season. Using this match as a way to evaluate the top six, the scrimmage offered Osinkosky the opportunity to play at the three seed in singles as well as the opportunity to spot improvements he needs to make for the actual season. 

“My serves during my match on Thursday were not the best. I double faulted a couple of times and that threw off a few of my games, but [mostly] I think I need to focus on improving my form on serves and my ability to get across the court so I can slim down the number of mistakes [I make,]” Osinkosky said. “I plan on improving on those mistakes by spending this time off practicing with people from the team and focusing specifically on those things.”

The mandatory delay on all sporting events was to diminish the spread of COVID-19, but it has severely interrupted the sports season for all high school spring athletes. Osinkosky has a schedule for how he will stay in tennis shape for this closure and hopes the rest of his team has a routine in place as well. 

“I think this break may affect our team negatively because I don’t think that every person is going to continue practicing and that may mean they fall out of practice, but at the same time I feel like this break [could be an] overall good thing for the team because if we were to continue practices and matches, some of our players [could]  have gotten sick and most likely the rest of the team along with them and that would lose us a lot of our matches. We were supposed to have three matches next week and we need our players to be in the best shape possible without getting sick,” Osinkosky said.