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As Hollister High’s Jina Youn battles it out on the tennis court, her mother always watches via FaceTime—from 16 time zones away in South Korea. Youn, 16, moved to the United States two and a half years ago and has already made a name for herself as one of the toughest competitors in the Central Coast Section’s Monterey Bay League.
“She’s lost only one league match to probably the best player in the league for Monterey,” said Girl’s Head Coach Ed Cecena. “She’s got a very strong forehand. She’s fast, she’s strong, and she’s in really good condition. She just doesn’t get tired.”
Youn began playing tennis when she was in the second grade living in Korea but said she didn’t have much time for it because there were no extracurricular activities like club sports available to her.
“We usually had to focus on study,” she said. “I was just focused on that, and it is the big reason why I stopped playing tennis in my middle school year. I never played a match before I joined the Hollister High School team.”
Having spent six months in the United States when she was five years old, Youn said her parents wanted her to spend her high school years here, in part to help improve her English.
“We do learn English in school over there,” she said, “but we mostly study grammar and vocabulary, we don’t really learn conversation. I like school better here—it’s really fun, and it’s been a good experience meeting all the people here.”
Youn joined the tennis team during her freshman year, and her interest was rekindled after taking a lesson at Ridgemark.
“I don’t know if I was good right off,” she said. “I started playing doubles as a freshman, and I had never played doubles before, so I learned a lot of things from that, like volleying skills and how to interact with a partner.”
Jina Youn has only lost one match against Emi Okada-Alonzo from Monterey High School. Photo by Robert Eliason. 
Jina Youn’s coach said she is fast, strong and in really good condition. Photo by Robert Eliason. 
Jina Youn began playing tennis when she was in the second grade living in South Korea. Photo by Robert Eliason. 
Jina Youn has made a name for herself as one of the toughest competitors in the Central Coast Section’s Monterey Bay League. Photo by Robert Eliason.
She now plays singles and said that there is a totally different kind of pressure when she is on her own.
“There is no partner to blame the mistakes on,” she said. “Sometimes I blame the racket, but I know it is mostly me. But tennis is one of my talents, and I want to show other people that I’m good, and I can hit pretty decent.”
So far this year, Youn has only lost one match against Emi Okada-Alonzo from Monterey High School, who also defeated her in the semi-finals last year.
“Monterey might be challenging for me in the finals,” she said. “Last year, she beat me 6-0, and she beat all the other girls too. I keep thinking about what I should do against her.”
Youn will again be facing Okada-Alonzo, a junior USTA tournament player, for the second time this season in an important match coming up against Monterey on Oct. 19. Cecena said he thinks Youn is up for the competition and that even when she is not playing well, she still toughs it out.
“She is beginning to understand what the other girl is doing to her,” Cecena said. “She needs to play with a better margin of error but she has already learned a lot from that loss and is already incorporating some of that stuff into her game. It will be a good matchup.”
With a season standing of 7-0 in league games, Cecena says that his team has positioned itself nicely to go for a league championship.
“It’s hard for schools to show up every match with their strongest lineup,” he said, “but we have a large roster and a lot of depth, so we can deal with the adversity issues. I would emphasize that we want to win our league undefeated and leave no doubt.”
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