Harris sets standard for LC women's tennis

When she disembarks from the train on the occasions she gets a break from school, Wendy Harris, the Lynchburg College sophomore’s mom, has come to count on one thing.

“When she’s home, the tennis channel is always on. It’s one of those cable add-ons we pay for,” Wendy said with a smile while watching one of her daughter’s matches last week.

Wendy, of course, is happy to do it.

In the two years Christina’s been at LC, about three hours from her hometown of Falls Church, Wendy has had to adjust to a considerably lighter schedule.

The hours Wendy spent driving Christina back and forth to tennis lessons are a thing of the past now that Christina’s away at college. Wendy has swapped those trips for the considerably longer drive to Lynchburg whenever she can to watch her daughter play.

“I love watching her,” she said.

And when Christina is home, it only makes sense that Wendy would be happy to let her daughter use whatever means available to hone her craft, she said.

There’s plenty of natural talent in Christina, first-year LC coach Chris Johnson explained. But maybe it’s the years of lessons and practice — and perhaps even the hours she’s spent watching her favorite player, tennis legend Serena Williams, battle on some of the world’s biggest stages — that’s added to Christina’s edge.

Combine all that with her dogged pursuit of improvement, Johnson says, and you’ve got one of the best players to come through the LC women’s tennis program in Christina.

In just her second year on the team, Harris has racked up 42 singles victories, just four shy of the program-record 46 recorded by Megan Cuccia in four years from 1990 to 1993.

This season, Harris has lost just one singles match, a three-set battle against Michelle Fleenor, of Washington and Lee, the conference’s top team.

“She has rolled through. At this level, it’s so special to have a player like Christina who does play above the level of most players,” Johnson said.

While occupying the No. 1 singles spot this season, she’s also picked up four ODAC player of the week honors.

Christina isn’t worried about personal accolades, though. Instead, it’s all about remaining in the moment, concentrated on winning each point.

“I’m not necessarily focused on how many wins I’m gonna get,” she said. “I just focus on playing each match, and the results will come.

“My mindset is, ‘I don’t care if you get 100 balls in play; I’ll get 101 balls in play, and I just kind of try to play each point the same and just try to figure out my opponent’s weakness and go from there.”

Johnson, who coached at nearby Liberty University for more than a decade, said of all the athletes he’s mentored, Christina stands out for her approach to each match. It’s one of the reasons, he concludes, she’s been as successful as she has at LC.

“One of the things that’s fun about coaching athletes is you see so many personalities. The way I stack them up is: ‘How do they compete?’ And it really doesn’t matter if they play [No.] 1 or 6 or they’re No. 1 in the nation or they’re not. …

“Christina really does a great job emotionally of kind of taking the ups and downs of the matches, and that’s one of her strengths. She certainly has great skills, but when you look at how competitive she is and how she competes during the match, she really sets herself apart.”

Christina leads her team into the first round of the ODAC tournament today, when they’ll take on sixth-seeded Roanoke.

After two setbacks to W&L and Randolph-Macon to end the regular season, the Hornets enter the tourney with the No. 3 seed.

A season after finishing seventh in the conference and with just eight total wins, the Hornets are in a much better place this year heading into the postseason, Christina explained.

“Since our confidence level has gotten better, our playing level has gone up as well,” she said.

Johnson said his team very much mirrors the competitive nature Christina displays, too, helping them to a 12-6 record overall, and 8-3 in conference play.

“This girls’ team competitively is as strong as I’ve seen for a whole group of ladies,” Johnson said. “They get as much out of their talent as I’ve seen any team. It’s just that they play the matches so well. It doesn’t mean that we win every match, but we don’t lose them because we can’t keep our composure.”

With a win in today’s first-round matchup with Roanoke (12-5, 7-4 ODAC) — set for 2 p.m. at the LC Tennis Courts — the Hornets will tie a program record for wins in a season, set in 1991.

A win also would help LC advance to the tournament’s second round for the first time since 2008.

Johnson and his star player know there’s plenty on the line and the potential for tough matchups as the tournament progresses this week and into the weekend, but if the Hornets focus on what they can control, they have a good shot at making history, they say.

“We have to stay confident with the way we play,” Christina said. “Trust our shots, trust our doubles partners and trust the process … and if we do that, I think we should have pretty good results.”