DAILY PILOT HIGH SCHOOL ATHLETE OF THE WEEK:

So far, the most difficult match of the girls’ tennis season for Sage Hill School’s Julia Blakeley has been the one against the paperwork.

It took a couple of weeks to get the CIF paperwork finalized for the sophomore’s transfer from University High to the Lightning. The days passed at the beginning of the season, and then the matches started passing, too.

Blakeley couldn’t play in a scrimmage against Santa Margarita or matches against Calvary Chapel or Mater Dei. The anxiousness mounted. When would the player who Coach A.G. Longoria called the best tennis player ever at Sage Hill make her debut?

“I knew she was an impact player,” Longoria said. “She was anxious to play, and we just said be ready to go. Right up until the last minute, we thought we could get something done.”

Blakeley can be patient though. The 15-year-old Irvine resident has to be when she’s in national tennis tournaments, waiting for matches to begin.

Plus, in her tennis career, Blakeley said she has missed 18 months with a torn hamstring, five months with a broken foot and three months with tendonitis in her wrist.

“I’ve been out for almost all of the 14s,” Blakeley said.

But once she was cleared, Blakeley, the Daily Pilot Athlete of the Week, immediately started making up for lost time in her red-hot start for Sage Hill.

She swept nine matches to help the Lightning win their Lightning Invitational on Sept. 15 for the third year in a row. Three days later, Blakeley won three sets against Los Alamitos, a Division I school, including a 6-3 win against highly regarded Griffins senior Alyssa Nafarette.

Nafarette is ranked No. 96 in Southern California in girls’ 18s. Blakeley is ranked No. 64 in the girls’ 16s.

Blakeley has won all 12 of her sets this season. But what may have impressed Longoria more is her attitude among her teammates.

“On the very first day of tryouts, she immediately was just talking with everyone and laughing,” Longoria said. “I was concerned that she was the superstar and she wouldn’t talk with the girls, but that wasn’t true at all. In 15 minutes, they were talking about the school, the dance, the football team, whatever.”

Blakeley said she likes having the camaraderie. She played tennis in her freshman year at Uni, too, but the aforementioned broken foot ended her season after just one match. She then left the school in February to go into the Irvine home school program.

“It just didn’t work out [at Uni],” Blakeley said. “I did miss regular school. The students and teachers [at Sage Hill] were really supportive and nice. The tennis team was also a factor. It’s really fun being involved with a team for tennis. I really enjoy it. It’s a great environment.”

It helped that she already knew a couple of the players. Blakeley first met Lightning No. 2 singles player Jaclyn Smrecek when they were in elementary school. And this summer, she met teammate Isa-Marie Taskinen at the Advantage Tennis Academy in Irvine, where she trains.

The addition of Blakeley, Longoria said, should help Sage Hill stay near the top of the CIF Southern Section Division IV rankings.

“She has an all-court game,” Longoria said. “She can bang from the baseline and she can volley. She has all sorts of weapons. Good volley, good hands, good serve. She expects a lot of herself, and she’s very tough mentally. If something’s not working, she’ll go to something else.”

But it is her fiery demeanor on the court which Blakeley, whose younger brother David also plays tournament tennis, said is one of her biggest assets.

“My attitude is a really big part of my game, pumping myself up and being mentally tough on the court,” she said.

And that also means never giving up on a point.

“She’s always running after everything,” Longoria said.

MATT SZABO may be reached at (714) 966-4614 or by e-mail at [email protected].