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Nassar takes Pride in winning
Meleah Nassar had never picked up a tennis racket before high school. Now in her senior year at Heritage High School, she is among the more successful players in the Dulles District.
"I'm a really sore loser," she said without a hint of shame.
She hasn't been sore very often. As a junior, she went unbeaten in singles during the regular season, then teamed with Bini Kronenberg for the district doubles title. That year, the Pride achieved their first Dulles tennis championship.
Replacing the graduated Kronenberg this year as Heritage's No. 1 player, she won the district's singles title and was half of the Pride's runner-up doubles duo.
In the team tournament, she notched victories in both singles and doubles (with Annie Replogle) as her school captured another district championship.
Tennis is what Meleah Nassar does. It's what she likes, and it's who she is. It's her current hobby and, perhaps, her future business. Her credo is "Go big or go home."
"I'm kinda all or nothing with things,” she said. “Every match that I play, I give my full-out effort."
When asked about her other interests, it's only a matter of a few words before her thoughts return to tennis.
"I'm pretty chill, I guess," she begins. "Go to school, hang out with my friends. I mean, I play tennis all the time." Her voice raises an octave on the word “all.”
Her initial interest in the sport was piqued in a mundane manner: Surfing channels one day as a teenager, she happened upon a match and was taken in by the game's intrinsic one-on-one quality.
"It seemed really intense and competitive," she noted.
Intensity and competitiveness are attractive qualities to Nassar, who counts Marat Safin among professionals that she admires because "he plays with so much passion. And when he's on, to me he's by far the best player."
She views Justine Henin similarly.
"I saw her down a set and down 4-0, and she came back and won. It was a really exciting match."
Nassar entered her freshman year at Heritage and decided to try her hand at the sport. Success was not immediate, but her desire to become successful was. She began playing the game almost compulsively.
"I played a lot in a very short period of time," she recalled.
Aside from participating in the development of the Heritage Pride program, Nassar began training at River Creek Country Club, where her coach told her she was improving very quickly. He believed that with her natural athleticism and court-intelligence, she had true potential if she kept training.
"He encouraged me to pursue it further," she said.
Since then, she has trained at numerous facilities around the region, even once traveling to Georgia to partake in a high-level training session there. Occasionally, she reports, she takes a break from tennis for a week or two to preserve her mental edge, but the joy of competing and succeeding is never far away.
"If I'm playing well and winning, that's when I'm having the most fun," she said.
Her least favorite part of the game is "losing. Playing bad and losing," she said, conveying obvious distaste for the l-word.
Her Heritage teammates, who are preparing for their second straight Region II tournament appearance, evidently share more than Nassar's competitive drive. The Pride girls' tennis players are frequently together off the court, going to dinner and crashing at each other's houses.
"I love our team," Nassar said. “We have zero issues. Everyone is supportive of everyone, and we all get along really well.”
Second-year coach Carmel Keilty, who has guided the Pride to their two Dulles titles, has been an asset for Nassar's development.
"She's very positive and a great motivator, especially when things aren't going great," said Nassar of Keilty. "She helps things go smoothly, helps with my confidence."
Keilty is not the only coach with whom Nassar has been in communication. Despite taking up the sport only a few years ago, her high school success has created legitimate aspirations of performing at the next level. West Virginia University coach Marc Walters and Nassar have traded e-mails regarding the possibility of her playing in Morgantown after graduation.
"That would be exciting," she said.
She is thinking of majoring in business, though that is yet to be decided. However, she is definitely not undecided about tennis: She cannot imagine herself separate from the game she loves, and may become a tennis coach once she is no longer a player.
"I want to incorporate tennis in my life somehow," she said.
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