Alexander Soroko is an ASU Cronkite School of Journalism student assigned to cover Agua Fria High School for AZPreps365.com.

While many see tennis as a sport that doesn’t get much viewership, the Agua Fria girls tennis is defying those odds with a noticeable increase this season by creating Fun Fridays.

The Owls are led by first-year coach Kelsie Doran who has made it evident that her plans are not only to get the girls better at the sport but it's also to introduce new people to the sport of tennis.

Doran said in order to get people to start coming out to the games the team decided to create an Instagram page as well as host a practice on Fridays called Fun Fridays. On these Fridays anybody can come out and practice and play with the tennis team to better understand what the game of tennis is like.

“We have Fun Fridays where people who are not on the team can come and practice with us,” Doran said. “So hopefully getting the word out there and showing like, hey, the tennis team is here.”

The Instagram page is currently run by senior Aseelah Salahuddin.  On this page Salahuddin posts whenever they have a home game and the time that it will be at as well as encourages other players to invite at least one of their friends. On top of this the team will also going to the classrooms and write the games down inside classrooms on the boards in order to help get the word out about games.

“Our Instagram page really helps us bring in the crowd,” Salahuddin said.

The tennis team also has some members that are in journalism classes that actively help try to promote the team. One such member is Zoe Perez, a junior on the JV team who has made multiple articles about the team's success as well as articles to help promote others to join the team.

“Promoting in journalism and on the Owl feed our school page has been really helpful and a lot of people have shown up more.” Perez said.

Promotion doesn't end with the girls. Doran also actively in her class advertises the tennis team as well as having open courts before the season starts where anyone can go and play.  Doran believes that with all of these methods to promote the team the girls are going to be successful in bringing more light to the sport of tennis. They also plan on helping the boys team get more viewership. In the future there is a possibility of creating a joint Instagram account to promote both teams and shed light on the whole sport of tennis.

“I feel like tennis is an overlooked sport at our school like obviously it's not a bigger sport like football or soccer, but we want people to still come out and support and see how tennis works,” Salahuddin said. “Some people have never even watched a tennis match and people actually think it's cool like they'll sit, and they'll be engaged within what we're doing here.”