Helen Lahoda has been a workhorse for the Lawrence girls’ tennis team this season.
When friends and family watch Helen Lahoda play tennis, they have just one question.
Is that really Helen Lahoda?
The senior has had a solid season at third singles for the Lawrence High girls’ tennis team, going 8-6 through mid-October and winning a first-round Mercer County Tournament match in the process.
She has done it was an impenetrable patience, as she is willing to play marathon sets and matches while waiting for her opponent to falter.
This, of course, leads one to believe she is a very patient person in everyday life.
“Actually not at all,” Lahoda said with a laugh. “It’s really just tennis. I have no idea how I do it. I guess it’s because it’s a great game; I love it and I don’t mind playing it for hours. But in other ways of life, not at all. People can’t believe it’s me.”
Lawrence third-year coach Jeff Weber feels that on the court, patience is not just a virtue for Lahoda; it’s a weapon.
“She doesn’t go on the attack a real lot,” Weber said. “She’s not a real fun game to play, and she doesn’t play a very fun game to watch. She’s just a workhorse. She’s always sweating her butt off because she’s working so hard.
“She’s able to outlast people. She’s got patience and poise when she’s down, I don’t need to give her much instruction. She’s able to battle back herself and get back on top.”
Nottingham’s Angelina Sferra plays with the exact same approach. In fact, Northstars coach Jon Schwartz calls Sferra “The Wall” because she hits everything back, and Weber refers to Lahoda with the same nickname. So imagine when the two Walls got together earlier this year.
The match took three hours, and Lahoda won in two sets.
“I can’t even imagine if there was a third,” Weber said. “It would have gone like, four and a half hours.”
“Oh my God, that was really awful,” Lahoda said, laughing. “We played the longest set ever.”
But in the world of competitive sports, the bottom line is winning, and Lahoda has been the winningest player on a Cardinal team that was 6-9 on Oct. 15.
Lahoda began playing at around age 10, when she went to mini tennis camps for several hours a week in the summers.
“It wasn’t anything official,” she said. “I just did that and played with my friends.”
She didn’t explore tennis as a freshman at LHS, but decided to go out as a sophomore, which was Weber’s first season.
“It seemed like a good team experience,” Lahoda said. “My friend was on it her freshman year and she really enjoyed it. I had a lot of friends going out that year. I went out when Coach Weber started so it was kind of like a fresh start for both of us.”
Lahoda played on the JV team her first year, then moved up to varsity and played first doubles with Aleya Nelson.
Weber felt she would have been happy to remain at doubles this year, but won her challenge matches up to third singles, where she has been a mainstay.
“I don’t really care where I play,” she said. “I really liked doubles last year. I had one of best partners I could have had, so it was a good bonding experience.
“Singles is fun too. It’s a little different; it gives me a chance to see what I like better.”
As a singles player, Lahoda is aided by the fact she does not possess some kind of destructive bravado, in which she thinks she can overwhelm her opponent and inevitably beat herself. She keeps everything in perspective, which is how she became so willing to let the other player make the mistake.
“A lot of times I play girls who, skill-wise, are better than I am,” she said. “The way I treat them is by making them play against themselves. I just keep on hitting it back when I don’t think I can beat them skill-wise, until they mess up. That’s why matches go so long.
“I play very defensively. I try to just keep on being defensive, make them try to hit a winner against me and they mess up.”
She admits this strategy gets some opponents angry and frustrated.
“Oh definitely, but I try to do it as nicely as possible,” Lahoda said. “In general, I know some girls think they should beat me, and that’s probably true. But by the end of the second hour, they just get fed up.”
Weber admits that it’s not pretty to watch. But winning ugly is always better than losing attractively.
“She’s not somebody that has beautiful form,” the coach said. “But she is somebody that understands who she is as a tennis player. She understands what her game is and she executes that.
“She forces other people into making a move. She gets to tons of balls. Even when somebody is moving her all over the place, she makes sure everything is coming back to them. She’s very frustrating to play.”
Every so often, Lahoda will get a little playful and go on the attack. But if it doesn’t work, she will quickly retreat.
“Sometimes I go up to volley, I think it’s my better way to attack,” she said. “I don’t have a super strong forehand, sometimes I’ll go up to the service line and volley it, but it depends on the skill level. For a game or two, I can try it. If that doesn’t work, I go back.”
Lahoda is definitely a player who knows her strengths and limitations, and knows how to work them to her advantage.
But she knows other things as well, like how to make bagel sandwiches at her weekend job at Maidenhead Bagels. And she cares about our future, as witnessed by her co-presidency of the Lawrence High environmental club.
In fact, after graduation, she plans on taking a year off to join a program that has to do with wildlife or environmental conservation. After that, she will head for college.
It’s ironic, in a way, because if anyone needs conservation, it’s Lahoda’s opponents. They have to conserve a lot of energy in order to last an entire match with her.
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