MATCHLESS

Lake Forest High School student-athletes Lainey O’Neil and Isabelle Chong, separated by the length of a tennis racket, sit at a table in Lake Bluff on a spring day, recalling some of the activities they had dabbled in as kiddos.

Chong, shy and polite, swam and played the violin, flute, and piano, not all at the same time. O’Neil, ebullient and polite, danced and played soccer.

“I tried karate, too,” Chong, a 5-foot-8 junior, adds. “I got a yellow belt.”

“So did I!” O’Neil, a 5-8 senior, blurts, her eyes suddenly stuck in unblinking mode.

But both moved on from the martial art at a young age, along with their other outlets, and opted to focus instead on belting yellow objects.

Tennis balls, specifically.

Smart choice. O’Neil and Chong emerged as the most successful duo in Lake Forest High School girls tennis history, capturing consecutive Class 2A state doubles titles in 2021-2022. Only six other prep pairs had netted such back-to-back feats since the Illinois state series in girls tennis began in 1972.

O’Neil/Chong didn’t lose a match in the 2021 season. They lost once in the regular season in 2022, and then strung together six frighteningly easy victories at the state meet last fall, each match lasting slightly longer than a typical pre-match warm-up session does.

The scores, in order: 6-1, 6-0; 6-0, 6-1; 6-2, 6-0; 6-0, 6-1; 6-0, 6-1; and—in the final versus Naperville North’s Brooke Coffman/ Gabby Lee, 6-1, 6-2.

Not fair.

“Their dominance was remarkable,” says LFHS girls tennis coach Denise Murphy, who also coached the program’s only other state championship doubles team, Maddie Lipp/Christina Zordani, in 2012. “They played with such confidence, with such flow. Lainey started out as the hunter, the attacker at the net, with steady Isabelle setting her up from the baseline. Then, before their last season together, each decided to work on the ‘B-side’ of her game, determined to become a better all-around player.

“It got to the point,” Murphy adds, “where they were setting each other up for winners.”

Like just about every varsity hopeful in the state, O’Neil and Chong entered high school eyeing a slot as a singles player. In 2019, when O’Neil was a freshman and Chong was an eighthgrader, Lake Forest High School’s tennis squad featured reigning Class 2A state singles champion Kiley Rabjohns, who would win another state singles crown that fall. Her sister, then-freshman Autumn Rabjohns, would earn the nod at No. 2 singles and, two years later, finish runner-up in singles at the state meet.

O’Neil played No. 3 doubles on varsity but did not make Murphy’s state-series contingent in 2019.

“Lainey was clearly a high-level player, fully capable of succeeding in singles at state,” Murphy recalls. “I remember a conversation I had with her after her freshman season. She asked me, ‘What can I do?’ Lainey was already thinking about the next season, about doing whatever she could do to make our next team another strong one.”

The talented Chong arrived at LFHS in the fall of 2020. She, too, couldn’t supplant either of the Rabjohns sisters in singles. Murphy paired O’Neil with Chong in doubles one day and liked what she saw, immediately.

“You know what both of them told me?” Murphy says. “Each said, ‘Put me wherever you need me (in the lineup).’ They cared about the team, not themselves. I love that mindset.”

O’Neil/Chong won a sectional championship as first-year doubles partners but didn’t get to play a single point at the state tourney. Nobody in Illinois did, in fact, because of a racket-less foe: Covid-19.

They crafted their spectacular, undefeated season the following fall, culminating it with a scintillating 5-7, 6-4, 6-3 defeat of Hinsdale Central’s Sophia Kim/Katie Dollens in the state doubles final.

“I was in shock after we had won,” the University of Richmondbound O’Neil says.

“The match ended, and I’m thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, this is crazy!’” Chong says. “Honestly, I did not think we’d be able to pull it off.”

But Murphy had an inkling they would.

“It was touch and go at times, but they kept their cool in clutch moments—that’s why they won that match,” she says. “Huge, such a huge win, for them. I was so proud of how they competed and how they carried themselves.”

As reigning state doubles champs in 2022, O’Neil/Chong absorbed one regular-season setback to a Deerfield duo, shrugged it off, donned figurative blinders, and galloped emphatically to another state title.

“I was more nervous during our second state tournament, probably because of the high expectations,” O’Neil admits. “I felt pressure in every match.”

“I didn’t feel any pressure,” Chong counters.

“Opposites attract, right?” a smiling O’Neil deduces.

These opposites are equally grateful—for their parents (Dan and Kristin O’Neil; Simon and Sarah Chong), for their teammates, for each other, and for their coaches (Murphy, varsity assistant Corky Leighton, and volunteer assistants Jeff Daube and Susie Davis).

“My parents have always been super supportive, plus they let me quit soccer,” O’Neil says. “Our coaches … they’re truly good people. They weren’t just concerned about our growth as tennis players; they also helped us develop as good leaders, as good teammates.”

Murphy will never forget the brilliance O’Neil and Chong displayed during too many points to count, from the way they constructed them to the way they finished them—with authority most of the time, with deftness when the point called for it.

“I’ll also remember the way Lainey and Isabelle communicated during matches,” Murphy says. “Lainey was the talker, Isabelle the calm one. But sometimes the best form of communication took place in between points, and without words. They would use eye contact or a racket tap, or Lainey would slap her own leg to get motivated or turn to Isabelle, who was about to serve, and give her a quick fist pump before turning around to face their opponents.

“They,” the coach adds, “were great together.”

And they won together.

Often.