All-orange Belt Girls Tennis POY, Claire Nuno

A notable attribute of tennis is the emotional displays of triumph from top athletes like Serena Williams and Rafael Nadal. From the screams of joy to a simple fist thrusted into the air — they’re the sounds and sights of winning in tennis.

But on the courts of Porterville High School an even-tempered Claire Nuno, does a lot of winning with little reaction. As the 2017 All-orange Belt Girls Tennis Player of the Year, Nuno is the two-time reigning East Yosemite League doubles champion and the first Panther to qualify for the Valley playoffs in six years.

“For our league and our level, she’s just obviously been a dream,” PHS head coach Kurt Nielsen said.

One half of Porterville’s No. 1 doubles duo for the last two seasons, Nuno’s calm personality made her easy to play with no matter the partner. Never one to chew out a teammate for a missed ball or hang her head, Nielsen said the senior makes those around her better.

“She just makes everybody better because she pumps them up and doesn’t get down,” Nielsen said. “You don’t see her in the corner, [teammate misses] a shot, hang-dog look, give her the stink eye like, ‘Why can’t you play better?’ look, she never does that. She stays even keeled, that’s the one thing about Claire — you can almost not tell looking at her whether she’s winning or losing.”

An accomplished doubles player, one of Nuno’s biggest wins came in No. 1 singles against last year’s All-orange Belt POY — Monache junior and three-time EYL singles champion Maddie Giannetto. Not one to show emotion, Nuno had a pure look of shock on her face after the win.

“It was surprising,” Nuno said. “I didn’t even know the game was over cause the last time I played her, I won the first round or like the first set, and then after that I lost. And then the game kept going back and forth kinda, so when I found out it was already done and I had won it, I was kind of shocked.”

For a player that faced the Valley champion Stockdale duo of Erica Paradise and Greta Kruegar, Nuno said upsetting Giannetto 6-3, 6-2 in the final EYL match at Porterville was her toughest match of the season because of how hard Giannetto could hit the ball and the length of the rallies.

“[She] just out rallied,” Nielsen said about Nuno. “Served, lobbed, kept the ball in play. Other girls get impatient, Maddie’s a bigger hitter as you know, so she just got impatient and tried to over hit. You sort of have to decide are you going to take the pain to get that gain, are you going to stay out there all day to beat somebody cause they don’t beat themselves.” Nielsen added, “Not a big person in size so she gets around that with great mental toughness and great speed and quickness…her forehand’s very good, her backhand is solid, but a pretty good volleyer. Quick and fast and when you’re a tough competitor you can beat a lot of people.” Along with doubles partner Jenny Smithey, the Panthers No. 1 duo was undefeated in dou- bles with a 10-0 record and able to defend the EYL doubles title Nuno won last season — the only thing Nuno really wanted to win and her favorite moment of the season.

“My goals were just to [win] the EYL doubles champion,” she said. “I’m glad because I didn’t want to lose when I won it [in] my junior year.”

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