Sports
Gimme 5: Childers, Marian Catholic Net First Conference Title
Julian Childers helps his team win first conference boys tennis title in school history. Now, he looks to do well in sectionals and make it back downstate.
Marian Catholic boys’ tennis player Julian Childers made a wise decision at a young age. After playing tennis for the first time when he was 5 years old, Childers quit when he was 8.
Luckily for Childers as well as the Marian Catholic boys tennis team, he picked up playing tennis again when he was 11. That decision has allowed him to become one of the top tennis players in school history as well as in the South Chicago Region.
This past weekend, Childers repeated as individual conference champion and also helped the Spartans win their first East Suburban Catholic Conference team title, narrowly beating out Benet Academy 51.5 to 51.3.
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Childers credits an intense off-season workout routine for helping him improve his endurance and strength. His serve averages between 115-120 mph, a lot higher than the average high school serve of 85 mph.
If given a choice to play in any one of the professional tennis majors, Childers said he would pick the U.S. Open for the opportunity to play in front of "home crowd" that would be rooting for an American teen hero in the making.
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Off the court, Childers likes to listen to hip-hop music, root on his favorite team, the Chicago Bulls, and eat Italian beef. He will consider his season a success if he finishes in the top-six at the IHSA state tournament.
The Spartans will close out the regular season with a match against at 4 p.m. today at Andrew. Then, it's on to sectional play this weekend at H-F.
