KYLE SMEDLEY
FOR THE HERALD BULLETIN
FAIRMOUNT – The No. 1 and No. 3 singles tennis courts at Madison-Grant are only separated from one another by a fence. If that fence was taken down, the two players on the sides closest to it may bump into one another when attempting to return a long volley from their opponent.
As the Argylls’ No. 1 singles star, Luke Gilman, and their No. 3 singles newcomer, Luke Nelson, battled their Tipton Blue Devil opponents Wednesday, they took a moment to face each other with only the fence in between them.
“I’m going to finish before you,” Nelson, a sophomore, said to his senior teammate.
He was wrong, but both Lukes won their respective matches in straight sets. Gilman took down Tipton junior Evan Coe 6-1, 6-0, while Nelson defeated
fellow sophomore Kurt Gremel 6-1, 6-1 as M-G gutted out a 3-2 team victory.
While Gilman has been a dominant member of Madison- Grant boys tennis’ varsity squad since his freshman season, this was only Nelson’s second varsity contest.
The Argylls’ No. 3 singles player last season did not lose a single match.
“He’s got big shoes to fill, and I feel like he can fill ‘em,” Gilman said. “Who knows? Maybe next year he’ll be playing where I’m playing.”
Argylls coach Tony Pitt thinks so, too.
“They’re eager to be out here and push each other,” Pitt said. “We make practice competitive. Everything we do, there’s a purpose.”
Nelson, just like all of Madison-Grant’s junior varsity players, was baptized by fire during his freshman year. Unlike many programs across all sports, Pitt combines varsity and junior varsity practices together so the less experienced players in the program can fine tune their skills against the best the varsity has to offer.
That’s exactly how Nelson earned his No. 3 singles role this season after making up half of the junior varsity Argylls’ No. 1 doubles team in 2023. But Nelson has known of his hunger for Madison-Grant’s top spot since he first stepped foot on his home school’s tennis courts as a fifth-grader alongside his mother, Mandy.
“We started playing together and saw that we were pretty good as a team for a year, so I wanted to come play and help out the team,” Nelson said.
Once Nelson moved up to sixth grade, he and Gilman immediately formed a bond. The older Luke was an eighth grader, and he finished his final junior high season undefeated, making for a smooth transition at the high school level.
Even during Gilman’s dominant first two years of high school — the second of which he led the Argylls to a sectional championship and won THB Sports Boys Tennis Athlete of the Year — he kept in touch with Nelson. Their mentor-mentee relationship was strengthened even more once Nelson became a freshman, all while Gilman earned his second consecutive Athlete of the Year award.
“He’d take me under his wing. We practiced together, and we’d stay after practice,” Nelson said.
That extra work paid off for Nelson and Gilman, and it paid off for the entire Madison- Grant squad in 2023, capped off by a Madison County championship. However, the Argylls entered 2024 with some uncertainty.
Nelson filled the role of No. 3 singles, but other key roles such as No. 2 singles and both doubles squads needed to be replaced. Senior Ben Pax, who came into the 2024 season with varsity experience, stepped into the No. 2 singles spot and beat Tipton’s Owen Spidel in straight sets (6-2, 6-1) Wednesday evening.
As for the doubles squads, Tipton reigned supreme with a sweep (7-5, 6-3) in No. 1 competition and a victory in the tiebreaker round (4-6, 6-3, 10-6) for the No. 2 duos.
The fact remains Gilman is the anchor of the Argylls’ boys tennis program.
“It just becomes second nature,” Gilman said. “You don’t have to think about what you’re doing or where you’re hitting. It’s just natural. … It’s like a puzzle. I know where to hit it, how to hit it, when to hit it.”
Pitt admitted Gilman is the best athlete on Madison-Grant’s roster. He even said when it comes to on-court expertise, Gilman’s ground strokes are the best.
Yet Pitt said Gilman’s prowess and ability to move on from momentary frustration when recovering from a mistake in game is by far his greatest strength.
“That’s probably the biggest mark of a great player, is if you walk by without watching the points and not be able to tell if the person won the last point or not because they’re just conducting themselves in a high manner,” Pitt said. “He’s just so mentally tough.”
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