It’s entirely possible that a Nipomo High School boys’ tennis team would not exist if not for Titan senior and No. 1 singles player Jon Johnson.
Johnson vouched for a team when it didn’t exist during his freshman and sophomore years. He rallied his friends and collected signatures from interested students.
“When I was going to Nipomo, I was all ready to play on the tennis team and I found out they didn’t have one. I thought that was weird,” Johnson said. “I got my friends together and we started getting signatures and seeing if people wanted to play, and eventually, we got the team started.”
Johnson is wrapping up his senior season in impressive fashion, boasting a 32-5 record with an invitation to the PAC 8 finals playoff all but locked up.
While Johnson’s individual success on the court is duly noted, he said it’s his improvement as a teammate that’s been most gratifying this year.
“I’m a lot better team player this year than I was last year,” he said. “Last year, I was always trying to practice with my private coach but I think the reason why our [team] record has been going up is I’ve been helping my team get better, doing one-on-ones with some of the players. That helps me and makes me a better leader.”
Nipomo tennis coach Teresa Downey applauded both Johnson’s maturation and premier tennis skills.
“He’s got incredible potential—he’s strong, he has incredible hands, he can hit with anybody, and then he can throw in a drop shot,” Downey told the Sun. “His mental growth and on-court presence has also really progressed.”
Johnson discovered tennis when he was 8 years old and already a devoted baseball and basketball player.
“I played with my family a lot just for fun. I guess I liked it so much,” he said. “My coach that I play with now, I met him down at the park and he made it really fun for me and my sister when we started playing. That sort of made us stick with it I guess.”
Johnson is headed to Cal Poly for college and he hopes to make it onto the tennis team as a walk-on.
“I’m going to hopefully see if I can get on the team, it’d be cool if I do,” Johnson said. “If not, I’ll just be on the club or something. I just want to use it for the experience and maybe I can take tennis past college and maybe into the pros.”
This article appears in Apr 28 – May 5, 2016.
