Charles Hanks, in red hat and shirt, of the United States Tennis Association, leads a drill Wednesday morning at Argonaut High School. The first summer tennis camp was attended by about 20 children, plus a few adults, including Amador Tennis Club member and Jackson Councilwoman RosaLee Pryor-Escamilla, foreground and local player Sarah Daly, who in July was named Western Regional champion in the Junior Olympics' "Rapid Rally" tennis competition. Daly will be going to Colorado next weekend to compete for the national championship in the 8-9 age group. Amador County Rapid Rally tennis regional champs, from left, Giovanni Casillas, Sarah Daly, Meghan Daly and Steven Casillas, competed in regionals in July, where each won their respective age group's gold medal. Photo by: Courtesy to the Ledger Dispatch The four pose with the other regional medalists after their competition in West Sacramento in July. Photo by: Courtesy to the Ledger Dispatch Sarah Daly will be in Colorado next weekend for the Junior Olympics competition in USTA Rapid Rally tennis. Photo by: Courtesy to the Ledger Dispatch

A young new tennis star is headed east to represent Jackson in national competition next weekend.

Sarah Daly is one of 72 kids nationally who qualified for the U.S. Tennis Association Rapid Rally tennis competition regionally and she'll be one of 18 who will be in Colorado for the nationals this weekend.

All local kids from Aamdor won gold medals, said Benita Asher of the Amador Tennis Club, which hosted the local competition in May, then, in July, she and three others from Jackson went to West Sacramento to compete. Shortly thereafter, Sarah learned the good news.

"She was basically in the top three in the country," Asher said. "Sarah's Rapid Rally score had earned her the title of Western Regional Champion in her age group." Sarah also won an all-expenses paid trip to the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo., for the national championship finals competition.

Asher said the event is put on by the U.S. Junior Olympics Committee. The four day event includes an opening ceremony and a torch lighting, she said, noting the pomp and circumstance for the event was adding a formal air to the event, though the USTA Rapid Rally contest lasts only 30 seconds, during which each player sees how many times they can hit a ball back and forth on a wall.

She said Sarah's qualification and all of the players scoring well in the regional competition are good indicators of the effort Amador Tennis Club has made. Her focus is more on the younger kids, ages 5 and up. Her work has included Detert Park last year, plus events in Jackson last year. And on Wednesday, she started Jackson's first ever summer tennis camp.

Asher said she has an injured knee, so she was on the "disabled list" for the camp's opening. She said RosaLee Pryor Escamilla would be handling the workout duties at the camp.

Asher is trained and certified by the USTA as a "schools clinician," enabling her to go to each elementary and junior high school in the county to train teachers how to teach tennis.

She has taught teachers at the county schools. The good thing about the program is, once they get trained, the USTA sends tennis rackets to equip the programs. The program, through USTA, supplied Wilson sporting goods and tennis rackets to all of the schools. The county has come a long way from the past, now having equipment available at all schools.

"We've made a lot of progress from no youth programs to Sarah Daly, our little star, who went through our program," Asher said. Daly is daughter of Jackson City Administrator Mike Daly. The family is in Colorado for the national competition. Sarah was the only one of four local youths to compete in the West Regional championships in West Sacramento on July 8. Competing were Giovanni Casillas, in boys 8-9 age group, Steven Casillas, in boys 10-11, Sarah Daly, competing in girls 8-9 and Meghan Daly in girls 10-11.

"Our local winners practiced diligently at Detert Park in advance of the regional event and it paid off," Asher said. "Each took first place in their respective divisions, winning the gold Junior Olympics medal."

After the gold medals, the regional winners' results were compared to national results, with the top four qualifying to go to the national finals in Colorado Springs.

Shortly after the competition, the Daly family got a call saying Sarah's score qualified her to compete at the finals. Asher said she was in the top three and one of only 18 children from around the country to qualify for the national finals.

"It must be the tennis outfit," Sarah's mother Linda Daly said, after daughter Meghan successfully completed her segment of 16 hits without once losing control of the tennis ball. When dealing with nerves the night before, Linda's advice to her daughters was "If you go out to have fun, then it won't really matter how many you hit. You'll finish and you'll have had fun."

Asher said the children enjoyed the regional championship, which was "very well run in conjunction with basketball, soccer and track and field competitions."

The national championship, presented by Kellogg's Frosted Flakes, pits boys and girls, aged 8-13, in speed contests in the four sports. It is geared toward encouraging youth sports with an emphasis on fair and friendly competition. In the USTA Rapid Rally, each competitor serves a low-compression ball and the continues to hit the ball against a wall and above the net line as many times as possible in a 30-second time period.

Contestants are given a 30-second warm-up period and then the pressure is applied as program managers call out "server ready?" Asher said, before starting the official clock. Each of the four Amador County contestants faced competition from West Sacramento, Beale Air Force Base, Rocklin and the greater Sacramento area.