John’s Journal: Sisters And Teammates Is A Winning Doubles Formula

Quick, name a sport in which a team is composed of two athletes. There aren’t many, with doubles competition in tennis standing out. It’s a very simple concept: two players, competing together, working in concert, anticipating each other’s moves, reading each other’s minds.

The mind-reading part of the equation can be even easier when the doubles partners are also siblings. Case in point: Nana and Fatemeh Vang of Blake, who captured the Class A doubles state championship Friday at Reed-Sweatt Family Tennis Center in Minneapolis.

The Vangs – Nana is a senior and Fatemeh a ninth-grader – defeated senior Greta Johnson and ninth-grader Chloe Alley of Minnehaha Academy 6-0, 6-2 in the title match.

The Blake duo’s championship didn’t come after years, or even months, of playing doubles together. They were the Bears’ No. 1 (Nana) and No. 2 (Fatemeh) singles players during the regular season before becoming a doubles team in the Section 4 playoffs. A year ago, Nana and then-senior doubles partner Allyson Jay were the state runner-up in Class AA.

“Allyson was amazing,” Nana said. “She's a year older than me and she graduated. It's a perfect time (to play with Fatemeh). This has always been my dream, she's my sister. Tennis is everything for us and I really appreciate her doing this with me.”

Nana is indeed the big sister on the court, exhorting, urging on and congratulating Fatemeh. They frequently talk strategy, but Nana also knows when to provide what she called “tough love” and “soft love” to her little sister.

“With a lot of doubles teams, it's not that they're good individually, it's that they make each other better,” Nana said. “If my sister needs some tough love, that's what I want to do. If she needs some soft love, that's what she needs. Being on a doubles team doesn't mean taking over the net, it means what can you do to help your partner? It took me a while to learn that, but with her it's really easy.”

Fatemeh said her sister’s tips “definitely help. I get negative a lot and she's always there to pull me back up.”

There weren’t many negative moments in Friday’s match, or at any point during the two-day doubles competition. The Vangs, top-seeded among 16 teams, opened play with a 6-0, 6-2 win over Madisyn Claseman and Delaney Hanson of New London-Spicer, then defeated Ally Mersman and Macy Sohre of Maple River 6-0, 6-1. In the semifinals they defeated Lauren Rutten and Ronnie Noska of Staples-Motley 6-2, 6-0.

The sisters also played vital roles in singles competition earlier in the week as second-seeded Blake won the Class A team title, defeating Providence Academy, Pine City and top-seeded Rochester Lourdes. 

“I think what makes a good doubles team is having a complementing style of play, and they do,” said Blake coach Mike Ach. “Nana is the finisher in the group and Fatemeh to me is more of a set-up player. Fatemeh was phenomenal today, that's the best I've seen her play. But they work so well together, they complement each other.

“You want a team that melds, to have a player who sets the other one up, with more of a steady player and more of an aggressive player. But you have to have the right players or it doesn’t seem to turn out quite so well.”

As steady as the Vang sisters were on the court, there was some tension behind the scenes when Nana fell ill between Friday morning’s semifinals and the title match.

“I got sick,” she said. “I got a headache and I started throwing up. I don't know if it was nerves but it was freaky, for sure.”

Fatemah said, “When she got sick I was like, ‘Oh my god, it's over.’ ”

Nothing was over, however, until the Vangs said it was over (paraphrasing a line from a famous 1970s movie).

“It was really scary,” Nana said. “But I'm glad that when we got on the court it all kind of melted away.”

--MSHSL senior content creator John Millea has been the leading voice of Minnesota high school activities for decades. Follow him on Twitter @MSHSLjohn and listen to "Preps Today with John Millea” wherever you get podcasts. Contact John at [email protected]