Thomas Jefferson’s girls tennis team has won five consecutive South Puget Sound League division titles.

The last four titles have come a little easier thanks to the work of their talented senior doubles player, Crystal Lee.

On May 9, Lee won the SPSL doubles tournament, earning the top seed to the district tournament. By winning the tournament, she finishes her career 20-0 in the SPSL tournament, an accomplishment that few tennis players will ever have the chance to even attempt.

“It’s awesome,” Lee said. “It’s a tournament that was really close to my heart, especially because I won it all four years. I continued to improve and uphold my standards and my reputation. It’s something that I’m really thankful I got to do.”

Throughout the seasons, Lee has partnered with multiple teammates to achieve her SPSL success. This season, freshman Ally Peterson was by her side through the finals. Last season it was Rileigh Qualls, and in her freshman and sophomore years it was Cindy Park who teamed up with her.

“Every partner I’ve had is completely different,” Lee said. “Being able to get to know them personally and finding out their strengths and weaknesses and their insecurities about tennis and working around it to make your partner the best she can be is really what makes me and anyone I play with successful.”

Lee grew up playing singles tennis, but she made the decision to switch to doubles as soon as she made it to the high school level. She believes that having a partner she can lift up or that can give her the boost she needs has allowed her to improve her game more than she would have if she continued to play singles.

The matches were not always easy for Lee and her partners. At last Monday’s tournament, she and Peterson had a tough first set in the championship, winning it 7-6. They won the second set 6-3.

According to Jefferson head coach Andrew Buchan, the toughest match Lee ever had in the SPSL tournament was against her teammates Qualls and Makaylie Moore during her sophomore year, before the thought of going 20-0 was even really a thought.

Qualls and Moore took Lee and Park to three sets. Lee and Park were able to come out on top of the back-and-forth match with a 7-6 win in the final set.

“It could have gone either way,” Buchan said. “It was incredible. That was the closest match they’ve played. There have been some tough ones along the way, but it’s kind of neat to go 20-0. It doesn’t happen very often, especially in doubles because oftentimes a person will switch over and want to play singles or vice versa.”

Buchan has been coaching Lee since she was in the third grade, and very early on he noticed that she was going to be a special player. He says she’s always had an aggressive nature on the court and a love for the game.

She takes risks on the court and it has paid off for her. She likes to out-power her opponents, something that many of them are not ready for.

“It’s indescribable, just the amount that [Buchan] does,” Lee said. “It’s not something that’s just from 2:30 to 4 every day. He’ll text you and encourage you in your school work and your life. He’s not just a tennis coach, he’s become like a father figure, someone to look up to and go to for help. I wouldn’t be here today without Buchan teaching me every day. Because of that, I am successful.”

Lee says the main thing that allowed her to take the next step was going from trying to be competitive with tennis and instead focusing on having fun. She still has goals she wants to accomplish on the court, but those come second to enjoying herself.

One of those goals is to make the state tournament for the fourth time. Last season, she and Qualls placed fifth at the state tournament, her best performance.

“State is just purely for fun,” Lee said. “It’s the hotel, the team, the dinners. A lot of it is the competitive tennis and the high level you don’t get to see in the league or the district. But most of it is about being at that hotel with the team and getting to know them more. It’s like a final goodbye before the season ends and school is out.”

To get to the state tournament in Richland, Lee and Peterson will have to be one of the top six teams to make it through the 16-team tournament. She believes they can win it, but she’s mostly focused on enjoying the competition one last time.

The season started out strangely for Lee. During a soccer match the Saturday before the first practice, she took a cleat to the face that knocked out both of her front teeth and put the beginning of the season in doubt.

“I get a text from her that Saturday saying,’Coach, I might not be at the first day of tryouts,'” Buchan said. “I text back, “I’m sorry to hear that; I’ll see you the second day’. Then she sends me a picture of her face all messed up with her teeth gone and blood around. She said, ‘I wanted to show you I was really hurt.’ I’m like, ‘I trust you; I don’t need to see this picture.’ I can’t get rid of that vision I’ve got of her with no front teeth.

“And then she was still out there on Monday. She didn’t practice, she had a mask on, but there she was.”

The incident caused Lee to miss more practices than she had in any other year, but she said it just makes her appreciate being out on the court even more.

Originally, Lee was supposed to partner with Moore this season for doubles. Buchan believed the duo had enough talent and experience to win at the state level.

But the plans for that team fell through when Moore also suffered a soccer-related injury, tearing her ACL in her first spring match with her premier team. Lee has teamed with both Peterson and Michelle Kim since then.

As her senior year winds down, Lee, who just turned 18, has already thought about her future. One of the things she’s looking forward to the most is moving on from competitive sports and just doing them as something she enjoys.

Lee plans to attend Highline College for the first two years of college. As of right now she’s hoping to go to Central Washington University afterwards, studying in their physical education program.

“She’s gonna always love tennis,” Buchan said. “Whether she plays at the next level or not is to be determined. A lot of people from T.J. enjoy the T.J. experience and they’re also academics. She’s very intelligent, and she has other things she wants to do. She’ll play tennis and she’ll coach tennis – she’s an amazing coach – for the rest of her life. But how much she plays competitively from here on out, who knows. Right now, that’s not something she wants to do.”

“It’s all fun right now,” Lee said. “But to not have that trophy or that medal waiting for me and finding a motivation to keep on playing tennis is going to be the challenge, and I feel like that’s going to make it fun.”

Buchan believes Lee is in the conversation as one of the Jefferson tennis greats. Though many talented players have come through, he says that Lee’s name will be mentioned closer to those of Carol Chang and Quyen Pham, who won the state doubles title in 1999.

Regardless of how the West Central District and state tournaments play out, Buchan will still hold her in that high regard.

“It’s been a fun ride,” Buchan said.

The West Central District tournament began this morning at the Boeing Employees Tennis Center in Kent.