Who's Hot?
Prince Hot 100 List - November '11
by Amelia Thomas, 16 November 2011
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2011 Fall Signing Week has passed, and a sense of normalcy has returned to the Tennis Recruiting Network. As always, many junior tennis players are still getting geared up and ready to impress. We recognize some of these performances in this month's Prince Hot 100 Lists.
The Prince Hot 100 lists are published each month, and the November Hot 100 lists feature the one hundred boys and girls who most improved their ranking during the month of October. You can find out more about the Prince Hot 100 - and how the lists are calculated - by reading here.
The very latest lists, published earlier today, are available here:
We caught up with a few of these players...
Roundup
Jennifer Skonieczny (Cedarburg, Wisc.)
Three-star eighth grader Jennifer Skonieczny has been working on her mental game. By this, she doesn't just mean controlling her emotions, even though she possesses this skill. "She never lets her emotions get the best of her on the court," her mother, Tracie Skonieczny, said.
By "mental game," Jennifer Skonieczny means strategies of how to beat certain types of players, such as pushers.
In addition to her mental game, Skonieczny's coaches, Rick Vetter of North Shore Elite and Mark Goldin of SMACKtennis, cite her determination as a source of her recent success. "My coaches say that I am different because of my work ethic in practice," Skonieczny said. "I work hard the whole time and try my best." True enough, Skonieczny illustrates this work ethic in the time she devotes to the sport. She plays year round, and she trains twice a day during the summer at SMACKtennis.
Skonieczny also credits her strengths in her forehand and volleys for her performance last month. "I have worked hard to get to a point where I am very confident hitting these strokes," she said.
Skonieczny had the chance to demonstrate her strengths in a match last month. Her recent improvements, along with some advice from her coach, allowed her to impress in this match against three-star eighth grader Chiara Lommer in the finals of the A.C. Nielsen October Classic. Skonieczny was the number two seed, and Lommer was number one. Lommer won the first set 6-4, but Skonieczny came back in the second set, 6-3. Before the tiebreaker, Skonieczny's coach told her to "play smart and hit high percentage shots." This advice proved to work, and Skonieczny won 10-3. This win ensured Skonieczny the championship.
This is Skonieczny's second consecutive appearance on the Hot 100 List this fall. Her win over Lommer brought her record for the past two months to 14-7, catapulting her nearly 80 spots up in the TennisRecruiting.net rankings into the top spot in Wisconsin in the Class of 2016.
After witnessing their daughter's recent success, Skonieczny's parents explained a possible factor. "She has become a more well-rounded player and not just a hard hitter," Tracie Skonieczny said.
Jennifer Skonieczny, a straight-A student, also loves to play golf. In the summer, she plays at least three times a week at her family's country club. "If tennis and golf were not the same season at my high school, I would definitely be on the [golf] team!" she said. Even though Skonieczny enjoys both sports, she is loyal to tennis. "I loved [tennis] from the start," she said.