The Steinmühlen tennis team placed fourth at the state finals of the “Youth Training for the Olympics” competition in Neu-Isenburg

After two schools canceled their participation in the state finals at the last minute—much to the surprise of the organizers—only four schools ended up competing for the Hessian title in Neu-Isenburg in a round-robin format.

Many of the matches in the state finals were of a remarkably high standard, as students from the Hesse squad also competed for the schools from Darmstadt and Wiesbaden.

Already in their first match against the Gutenbergschule in Wiesbaden , it became clear that our team had little chance of success at this level. We lost all the singles and doubles matches by relatively wide margins. The significant difference in skill level during this match made it difficult for some team members to stay motivated for the next two matches.

The Steinmühlen team also stood no chance against the eventual champion from Darmstadt. However, due to the tournament format, there was still a chance in the final game against the Wigbertschule from Hünfeld . The three doubles matches alone showed that these were two evenly matched teams. The girls’ doubles team of Laura Hertl and Nina Horn went on to secure the first points for the Steinmühlen team. Despite trailing 2–4 after the three doubles matches, the match could still have been turned around with three wins in the singles, but unfortunately, only Nina Horn managed to secure a victory in her singles match, meaning the team missed out on the bronze medal.

As is often the case at a state championship, many top-level students from Hesse competed in Neu-Isenburg. Therefore, despite finishing in 4th place, our team can be proud of its performance in its first appearance at “Youth Trains for the Olympics” .