A few years later, a single star emerged at BLS – the daughter of a municipal judge, Sarah Redd.

She achieved newsworthy status because of her expertise, much of it learned at the Sportsman Tennis and Enrichment Center on Blue Hill Avenue in Dorchester, where children and teens were taught tennis.

And so it was with delightful surprise that I noticed that the recent Boston Globe All Scholastic insert named BLS senior Vanessa Vu one of its ten stars for singles: she had captured the state individual title without dropping a set across five matches. Heading the doubles list were BLS sophomore Gisele Ngo and junior Lillian Nguyen, who helped propel the twosome to the Division 1 title match. On the very small Honorable Mention List was BLS senior Halina Nguyen. On the expanded list for Dual County All-stars was Maya Nguyen. Yikes!

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Where did all this skill in tennis come from? Sportsman Center? Coaching? Practice?

I dunno but congrats to all five for helping prove that tennis is not solely a suburban bailiwick.