INCHEON, South Korea—You can easily catch a tangible sense of eager restlessness emanating from Denise Dy. Being around her is like being around a thoroughbred behind a starting gate.
Any time soon, it feels like she will explode into any form of physical activity. She’ll do lunges. She’ll slap forehands across the net. She’ll run around the court. She’ll get up from her seat to fetch the day’s scheduled matches from the tournament office. Anything.
She’s going to find a better use for that energy on Sunday morning at the Yeorumul Tennis Courts here.
Dy and Katharina Lehnert comprise the Philippine women’s tennis team in the 17th Asian Games. It’s the two of them against the world. Or, to be more apt, against the continent.
“It’s tiring,” said Dy, who isn’t new to the experience. The 25-year-old California-born ace tangoed with now coach Czarina Mae Arevalo against Asia’s finest in the 2006 edition of the Games in Doha, Qatar.
“Other teams can spread out their athletes, but we can’t,” she said.
Nepal, for instance, has a gaggle of teenagers fielded in the women’s team event. Six, to be exact.
“That’s more than our entire team, men and women,” she said.
That means they’ll each play singles matches and join hands for the deciding doubles. And to make things even tougher, Dy and Lehnert will open against host South Korea.
While expectations are tempered when it comes to the girls’ team, there is optimism—however restrained—on Dy’s looming partnership with Treat Huey in the mixed doubles, Arevalo said. The two, after all, have already proven their class, winning gold in the 2011 Southeast Asian Games in Indonesia.
“We’re still going to see if we’ll get paired but I am super excited at the chance to play with Treat,” said Dy.
Dy handles the high performance program of the Central Park tennis club in Seattle. After the Asian Games, she will fly back to the US to start her new job as assistant coach of University of Iowa’s tennis team.