Dynamic Duo Leads Dolphins' Doubles

The girls tennis team is one win away from the City Section title and a big reason for its success this season has been dominance in doubles.

The Dolphins have traditionally possessed potent doubles lineups and this year is no exception, led by the duo of Perri Zaret and Julie Takakjian. Just how good has the pair been? The numbers speak for themselves.

Zaret and Takakjian are 12-for-12 in sets and have won an astonishing 82 of 87 games at the No. 1 position, all the more impressive when one considers that Zaret was a singles player for her first three years and both of them started the season with different partners.

"I wasn't sure how doubles would work out at first, but I told Coach [Sean] Passan that I'll do whatever is best for the team," said Zaret, one of the Dolphins' two senior captains and a varsity player since her freshman year. "I couldn't have asked for a better partner than Julie. We have each other's games down, we high-five after every point and we communicate very well."

In the Dolphins' season opener at Mira Costa, Zaret played with freshman Jesse Zand while Takakjian, a sophomore, played with junior Katie Pfannkuche. Call it "intuition" or "playing a hunch" but Passan united Zaret with Takakjian for the next match against Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies, they won 8-0, and the rest is history. 

"Every doubles teams needs to have an experienced groundstroke player," Passan explained. "Perri was the perfect candidate to be paired with Julie because their strengths complement one another. They've just begun to be tested and now having played them myself with my own doubles partner at practice I know there's more for them to prove against future opponents."

No opponents have managed to take more than two games off the Dolphins' top tandem, which has won 75 percent of its sets at love. The pair was even more dominant in Western League play, winning 40 of 41 games. In the postseason, against higher caliber teams, Zaret and Takakjian have won 24 of 26 games.

"Tennis has been the best part of high school for me, this team is like a family," said Zaret, who takes lessons from her private coach and whose father Tom and 8-year-old brother Noah, who is a student at , are also avid players. "I've wanted to win City since I was a freshman so it's great finally having the chance to do it."

Takakjian is following in the footsteps of her older sister and former Dolphins doubles specialist Katie, now a freshman at UCLA, who finished the team season undefeated in 2009 and again last year with partner Charlotte Farrant. Julie and Emily Wettleson (now a senior co-captain) rallied from a 1-4 deficit in the first set to prevail 7-6 (2), 6-1 at No. 3 doubles in Palisades' semifinal playoff loss to El Camino Real last season.

"Katie set a great example and it really helped having my sister on the team my freshman year," said Takakjian, who honed her skills training at . "Playing with Perri this season has been amazing. She's got a great serve, she's really positive and sets up so many easy shots at net."

Takakjian is right-handed and plays the deuce court while Zaret is left-handed and plays the ad court. In fact, all three of the Dolphins' doubles teams have a right-lefty combination and that is by design. Palisades' No. 2 duo has Zand (a righty) and Pfannkuche (a lefty) and the No. 3 duo consists of lefty Wettleson and right-handed Melody Wilkenfeld. Like Zaret and Takakjian, the No. 2 and No. 3 teams went undefeated in league.

"Every varsity doubles team we have has a lefty on the ad side, which tends to create problems for their opponents," Passan said. "Adding to that, Perri's great groundstrokes tend to create a lot of opportunities for aggressive volleys by Julie."

Zaret and Takakjian will likely be among the top four seeds in the 24-team City Individual doubles tournament, which is scheduled to start next Tuesday, but the first order of business is Monday's team finals at in Encino, where the Dolphins' "Dynamic "Duo" will attempt to maintain its perfect record and help dethrone Granada Hills, which is after its fourth straight title. 

The final was supposed to be played Friday at noon but got postponed because of rain.

"I can't wait [for the finals]," Zaret said. "We're both great teams so it should be a close match and hopefully we can pull it out."