Smith Navigates Tennis Amid COVID-19

It’s fall and in St. Louis, that means it is time for girls’ high school tennis. This is a year like no other for the majority of teams in the St. Louis area due to COVID-19. Some teams will have the opportunity to play with a severely reduced schedule, while others have canceled their season entirely. 

This is Doug Smith’s 22nd season coaching tennis at St. Joseph’s Academy (SJA). He has seen some unusual situations in his coaching tenure. After bringing home his tenth state title at SJA last season, the 2020 campaign may officially go down as the most unusual yet.

Smith is a member of the USTA Missouri Valley, USTA St. Louis and the South Dakota Tennis Hall of Fame. 

St. Louis County had restrictions on scrimmages and gatherings until September 11. Once that was lifted, his team could proceed further with tryouts. The team also struggled with COVID-19 quarantines, which temporarily sidelined several players and coaches.

Now that those restrictions are lifted, the team is chomping at the bit to get down to the business of defending its state championship.

“This is, of course, a year and a tennis season like none other,” Smith said. “Usually, we make our cuts after day two or day three of tryouts, but because we were still in Phase 2 of St. Louis County's pandemic regulation we were restricted from scrimmaging, which caused us to extend the tryouts farther than usual while we assayed the players' abilities.”

To further complicate matters, with the USTA limiting tournament play until the beginning of June, many players did not get the reps they normally might during the summer. USTA tournaments often prove invaluable to a player gaining experience that carries over to the prep season.

“In my previous 22 years at St. Joe I've had the girls play an almost exhaustive schedule of in-house matches to establish line-up positions, but because it wasn't until September 11 that we were even allowed to scrimmage, we had to start what has been a substantially truncated season without the usual intra-squad match results.”

While this certainly put a wrench in the spokes of the 2020 season, things may get especially interesting as the season progresses. Why? Three of the area’s top teams—John Burroughs School, SJA and Visitation Academy—have all moved to the new Missouri State High School Activities Association Class 3 designation. 

Even more interesting? Smith said the schools could very well end up in the same district. Only one of the trio of top schools would punch its ticket to state. 

Because the pandemic restrictions confined competition to a certain area, the team lost the bulk of its tournament action. This was the majority of the first half of the season. Amongst the lost matches are tournament trips to Chicago and a cross-state trip to Kansas City. There is also a cancelled annual tournament at Edwardsville where the team faces schools from mid and southern Illinois. 

The team returns a strong nucleus of players to defend its title. Junior Ellie Choate returns as one-half of a defending state champion doubles team. Smith said she will be paired with sophomore Abby Gaines. Gaines finished third last season in singles state. Smith is also excited about the addition of Bella Hong. Hong transferred to SJA last season and is now able to enter the line-up.

“Unlike some years when we experiment with various doubles combos, this year our doubles pairings are actually pretty set,” Smith said. “Losing Lexie Woodman and Shannon Sims to graduation certainly took a bite out of our line up, but Ellie has been pairing solidly with Abby Gaines and Morgan McKinnis with newcomer Bella Hong right behind them.”

Smith, like many other St. Louis area coaches, has to adapt in many different ways to the unique circumstances of the 2020 season but remains committed to the success of the team.