Updated 11/08/2010 03:05 PM
Athlete of the Week: Austin's Aces
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They're called the Dream Team.
It's a privilege to be a part of this team from the Austin Tennis Academy.
"We pick the best of the best to be on the Dream Team, and they go on to represent us at the National Tournament," Austin Tennis Academy (ATA) founder Jack Newman said.
ATA Junior Josh Hagar said it's a lot of hard work
"[We] wake up every morning at 6:30, get out here for morning practice, then school and then afternoon practice again," Hagar said.
ATA senior Aaron Chaffee agrees.
"We work really hard. We're putting a lot of hours in on the court, a lot of hours in at the gym and just being able to see all of that pull off really says something about the coaching staff here, and the work ethic we like to think we put in to the team event," he said.
Recently, they saw it all pay off.
This team is made up of eight high school tennis players. They won the city competition, moved on to state and then became one of 15 teams in the U.S. to advance to Nationals.
And they won it all last year.
"The atmosphere is so great. You go around. You have all these teams. You go around like, 'we're going to beat them. We're going to beat them too. We're going to beat them at everything. We're going to beat them at cheering. We're going to beat them with our attitude, with our effort, with everything,’" ATA sophomore Sydney Young said.
They didn't win this go around, but they finished second in the nation.
It's something to be proud of, but this group of overachievers wanted just a little more.
"I don't like losing at all. It sucks. Losing sucks," Young said.
But Chaffee said second place is not too bad.
"There are 5,000 junior team tennis teams playing in the 18 and under advanced division. So, to be top 2 of 5,000 teams is pretty dang good," Newman said.