The Piedmont High School girls tennis team won’t have a superstar at the top of the ladder like it did the past two seasons. But the ladder will be very strong with solid players up and down and several more looking to crack the top 10.
“We don’t have any superstars,” Highlanders coach Jim Landes said. “Tania (Kononova) is gone. She came in third in NCS. I don’t anticipate any individual doing that well. But we’re solid. We’re pretty good all the way down. We’ve got depth. That’s our biggest advantage.”
The top three are probably settled. Carolina Romanczuk, Kate Jumper and Arianna Kortum will be the top three singles players to start the season. Romanczuk is a senior and Jumper and Kortum are juniors. All are back from last year. Landes said he hasn’t settled on the order yet.
Sophomore Faith Chin will likely open as the fourth singles player.
In doubles, the depth really shines through. Senior Emma Eisemon and junior Madeline Tran are possibles for the No. 1 team. Juniors Inara Mehta and Samantha Huynh would start as the No. 2 team. No. 3? “Third doubles is a tossup,” Landes said.
Emma Eisemon 
Madeline Tran 
Inara Mehta 
Samantha Huynh
Some in consideration include freshmen Chiara Silvio and Ella Thomasson, sophomore Amelia Addington, senior Abigail Call, sophomore Emma Chan, junior Lila Rosen and senior Alina Shahid.
Piedmont will once again face its West Alameda County Conference Foothill Division opposition. Landes has also scheduled top NCS teams such as University-San Francisco, Lick-Wilmerding, Marin Academy and Head-Royce.
The team will play an all-doubles tournament in September, which Landes said won’t help for NCS seedings but should be fun for the girls.
The first match is August 28 at Las Lomas. That will be a nine-point match (meaning six singles matches and three doubles) as opposed to the seven-point matches Piedmont normally plays.