Blistering temperatures, blustery winds, and snow on the ground. Perfect weather for some tennis, right?

“No, absolutely not!” girls coach Nancy Brough said. “This is horrible weather for tennis.”

Last March the Virginia High School League decided to move girls AAA tennis from fall to spring after a court case challenged that it violated Title IX rights. A and AA girls tennis were already being played in the spring, so VHSL officials voted 18-5 to move AAA tennis to the spring as well. They believed that this was the easiest solution without disrupting too many sports.

“What they don’t understand is that the sport will suffer for it,” Brough said.

Brough believes that by moving the sport to spring, the team has lost many valuable players, and so the quality of the team’s talent has gone down.

“We lost all of our returning top six players except for our number one seed,” Brough said. “There are so many more sports for girls to choose from in the spring, I don’t know what [VHSL] was thinking.”

In the fall, there are four girls sports, but in the spring there are six sports that girls can participate in. Last year, nearly forty girls tried out for the team. This year, only twenty girls came out.

Brough isn’t the only unhappy one with the move. The team’s number one seed, Laura Marie Blisk, thinks it was a bad change as well.

“There are three reasons why I hate the change,” Blisk said. “One, all the girls are gone. Two, one of the reasons they changed it was because they wanted colleges to have time to recruit players, but colleges don’t recruit players based on high school play, only on junior ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals) standings. And three, worst of all, the weather is awful!”

The weather was so bad yesterday that Brough stopped practice after less than an hour because of the cold and wind.

“The weather has been killing us,” Brough said. “Thanks to the snow, my schedule has been pushed back by a week. I should have had my final roster by last Monday but now it looks like I won’t have my final roster till next Monday.”

Another problem that the team faces is having to share the courts.

“This has not just inconvenienced us, but the boys team as well,” Brough said. “Before, both teams could enjoy the courts all to themselves. Now, we have to work on sharing the courts.”

Brough believes that McLean is not the only team to suffer from the move.

“After speaking to some other coaches in the district, we’re all in the same boat,” Brough said. “The sport is suffering throughout the state.”

Brough hopes that after this season, the sport will be moved back to the fall.

“Hopefully they’ll see how many complications and problems this has brought up and will switch it back,” Brough said.

The team’s first game is March 29 against Woodson.