HAMILTON — Caroline Boyle has had a decent amount of inspiration throughout her tennis career.
It’s the type of motivation the Badin High School senior will never let go of either.
“For fun, when I was younger, my grandpa would take me out,” Boyle said. “He kind of taught me, and we’d hit for a while.”
However, Boyle didn’t get serious about the game of tennis until around seventh grade.
“I had to choose between tennis and soccer,” she said. “I ended up choosing tennis.”
Boyle made the right decision. The journey has led her to a third consecutive trip to the Division II state tournament.
Boyle will face sophomore Iva Karagirova from the Columbus School for Girls on Thursday, Oct. 17 at the College of Wooster. The tournament finishes up on Saturday, Oct. 19.
“My season’s gone pretty well so far,” said Boyle, who is 15-0. “It’s felt different this year. It’s my last year, so I really just want to enjoy it — especially during the season, having my teammates with me and being able to be on a team. It’s much different from USTA playing by myself. The main goal is to have a lot of fun and just to continue to be better.”
In her prep tennis career as a first singles player at Badin, Boyle went 65-2 in regular season matches — including a combined record of 48-0 her sophomore, junior and senior seasons. She finished 17-2 as a freshman.
When Boyle advanced in 2022, she was the first girls state qualifier for Badin since Jessica Flannery and Kylee Wiegand captured the doubles title in 2003.
“My game has improved overall from last year,” Boyle said. “I’m trying to hit bigger balls, go after more, get my serves in. That was a problem last year as well. So just kind of everything has improved overall. Get to the net more, just focusing on stuff that I’ve been working on.”
Boyle placed fourth at state as a junior — losing to Eaton’s Mallory Hitchcock 6-3, 4-6, 6-3 — and said she’s learned from that experience alone. Boyle could face Hitchcock in the state semifinals this year.
“Fourth last year was a bummer, definitely,” said Boyle, who reached the Elite 8 as a sophomore. “Just going into this trying to stay calm and relaxed, just kind of focus one game at a time because that’s all you really can do. I’ve just got to remember to play my game and have fun while I’m doing it and see where it takes me.
“I’m excited. I kind of just want it to start already. That week break, you just get a lot of time to prepare and stuff. So I’m ready to go up and play.”
Boyle said she’s prepared to face her opponents — and the possibility of uncomfortable weather conditions.
“It was nice because districts, it wasn’t that cold,” Boyle said. “It was perfect weather. It wasn’t windy. It wasn’t super hot, though it wasn’t cold. It just got really cold the past two days.”
But Boyle, who plans to play collegiately yet is currently undecided on where that will be, said she has support behind her regardless.
“My family’s a big motivator for myself — especially my grandpa,” Boyle said. “He comes to every practice. He comes to watch me all the time, so I kind of got my love for tennis from him. I definitely contribute a lot of my success to him because he’s the reason I learned to play tennis in the first place.
“The support from my family has been great. They’re driving me up tomorrow. They’ve driven me all over for tennis tournaments and practices, so I’m really grateful for that.”
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