Six “Team of the Year” honors over three years!

Girls’ varsity tennis at Pingry was named the NJ.com Team of the Year in 2024, 2023, and 2022, and Skyland Conference Team of the Year in 2024, 2023, and 2022.

The “wow” factor of these achievements reflects the ongoing “wow” factor of what the girls’ tennis program has accomplished in recent seasons—to put it simply, absolutely dominating the competition in 1st singles, 2nd singles, 3rd singles, 1st doubles, and 2nd doubles. Consider these “big picture” statistics, which help tell the story of this tennis dynasty:

- 3 undefeated seasons in a row (2024, 2023, 2022). The 2024 team compiled a 17–0 record; of those 17 matches, the team went 5–0 in 16 of them and 4–1 in the 17th.

- No. 1 ranking in the Skyland Conference (2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2019)

- No. 1 ranking in the NJ.com Top 20 three years in a row (2024, 2023, 2022)

- No. 1 ranking in NJSIAA Non-Public, North/South (2024, 2023, 2022, 2021)

The program’s continuous success in tournaments is nearly mind-boggling: 2024 marked the fourth consecutive NJSIAA Non-Public State Championship and 11th in program history (sixth most in state history); sixth consecutive Somerset County Tournament title, sweeping all five flights for the first time since 2021; and fourth consecutive sweep of the NJISAA Prep A Tournament. They were also Prep A Co-Champions in 2019 and advanced to the NJSIAA Tournament of Champions finals for the first time in 2021, the final year of the tournament.

Along with those competitions, players have tallied numerous individual accomplishments in recent years, including Anika Paul ’25 who won at 1st singles in the Somerset County Tournament all four years of high school. The 1st doubles team of Isabelle Chen ’25 and Leila Souayah ’25 won the Somerset County Tournament as freshmen and sophomores in 2021 and 2022 and won the NJSIAA State Doubles Tournament in 2021 and 2022, becoming the first repeat pair of students in the doubles tournament for girls since its inception in 1999. Pingry’s players also became finalists in the state singles and doubles tournaments in 2024, when Anika Paul reached the singles finals and the 2nd doubles team of Nandini Iyer ’28 and Angelina Gao ’27 emerged victorious—the fifth pair in Pingry history to win the state doubles championship.

For Head Coach Marion Weber, who has been leading Pingry’s tennis program since 2010-11, a key to the girls’ varsity team’s success is the Middle School program that has been developed over the years—she is thrilled that tennis starts in Grade 6 at Pingry, giving the athletes time to put in the work to move up to JV/varsity, and giving the coaches time to get to know the players and their potential.

Since 2013, Coach Weber worked with Coach George Roser to develop and cultivate this feeder program for the Upper School (Coach Roser recently passed leadership to Middle School Assistant Teacher Tina Atkinson). “We use the same ideas in Middle School that we use in the high school program,” Coach Weber says. “We set in motion drills that are similar, we foster a similar team culture, we nurture a rapport with the players who will be moving up, and we develop an expectation of what happens once they enter ninth grade. Middle School is hugely important because, by ninth grade, they understand the team culture and expectations. And we know who they are as students as well as tennis players.” Coach Weber estimates that 80 percent of the girls’ varsity team has come through the Middle School program.

The varsity program itself is also run more like a college program, Coach Weber says, in that the team works on skills that will help with the transition from high school to college for those players looking to continue their tennis journey. “It’s more than hitting balls—it’s the psychology and mental/physical strategy of the game. It’s a more well-rounded program, and [Director of The Center for Performance and Leadership] Dr. [Brandyn] Fisher works with the team on a regular basis.”

Another key to the girls’ team’s success is the success itself. “We’ve developed a program that’s attractive to potential students who already play tennis at a competitive level,” Coach Weber observes. “It is hugely successful, so Middle School students see something ahead of them that they can aspire to. They are putting in more effort because they know what they can achieve, and what lies ahead.”

Notably, when Coach Weber joined Pingry in 2010-11, the idea of building a tennis program really appealed to her, and the School is seeing all of that hard work pay off. “When I started, Pingry was not known as a ‘tennis school’—now, it’s known as a ‘tennis powerhouse.’”


Contact: Greg Waxberg ’96, Communications Writer, Editor of The Pingry Review