Ethan Heckard, is embarking on his final year of high school tennis this season with doubles partner Josh Henderson.

“[Heckards] always been a little more serious, I could tell from the beginning he was going to go all out, just chase every ball down the court,” Duane Pomeroy, head tennis coach said.

Heckard has played tennis since his freshman year and has played doubles with Henderson for three years. Although Heckard loves the sport he will not be playing tennis in college.

The pair first met at a three-day tennis camp at Wood Valley one week before their freshman year. At first Heckard found Henderson to be weird but the pairs friendship has since then grown.

“I thought he was stupid, well I mean I thought he was weird,” Heckard said. “He knew about everyone there and I was probably the shyest kid on the planet.”

This season Heckard’s win loss record is five to one. Heckard and Henderson also took second in the Emporia match on Wednesday. The team has had its own victories as well, beating Shawnee Mission East for the first time since 1989 in overall scoring.

“My hopes for the season are to make state but really with it being senior year, for the guys to have fun and get close before we leave,” Heckard said.

Duane Pomeroy, head tennis coach, put Heckard and Henderson together, receiving no complaints the pair remained doubles partners. Heckard enjoys Pomeroy’s coaching style especially his bad jokes.

“He’s the greatest coach, whenever we’re feeling down he always has the worst jokes on Earth to bring us up,” Heckard said