I’m not looking for easy matches. I want to see what I can do when I’m playing to the best of my abilities.”

Jimmy Chavez

Jimmy Chavez’s motivation to continue playing tennis can be best summarized in one sentence.

“One day, I’m going to be the greatest player in the world,” he said this past week, when he and other members of the Rochelle Hub tennis team took the court for a Friday afternoon practice.

Chavez recently showcased his talents during the Interstate 8 Conference tournament on Saturday, where he medaled in third place at No. 1 singles. A four-year member of the tennis team with his last two seasons coming at the varsity level, Chavez has no intentions of quitting the sport anytime soon. In fact, Chavez said he plans to attend Lake Forest College, where he hopes to compete for a spot on the men’s tennis team after graduating from high school.

“The first time I stepped foot on campus, I knew I’d be going there,” Chavez said. “The energy on campus and the looks of the campus were awesome. It’s not too far away from my family and I think I’m going to be a great fit there because I really clicked with the people there. They were so nice and it reminded me of home. I feel like it’s a place where I can really thrive.”

A multi-sport athlete throughout his time at Rochelle Township High School, Chavez competed with both the football and wrestling teams before eventually focusing on tennis as his primary sport as an upperclassman. While Chavez may not be the most physically imposing athlete on the court, his mental toughness and maturity have shined through for the Hubs, who won the Interstate 8 Conference title last season, marking their first conference title since 1949.

“I’m not looking for easy matches,” Chavez said. “I want to see what I can do when I’m playing to the best of my abilities… I can’t say I’ve grown a lot physically, but I’ve grown a lot mentally. Whenever I lost a tough tennis match as a kid, I would cry or start hitting myself, and that showed up a lot during my freshman year because I didn’t like losing. What I’ve learned is that losing is an opportunity to learn and to think about how I can get better the next time I play.”

Chavez has played both singles and doubles during his four years of tennis at RTHS, scoring over 20 varsity wins over the course of his junior and senior seasons. It makes sense that Chavez has gravitated toward playing tennis, as his father competed in Mexico many years ago and his two older sisters were high school tennis players. One of his older sisters, Jovanna, went on to spend four years with the women’s tennis team at Illinois College in Jacksonville.

“My family has always been a tennis family,” Chavez said. “I was in Little League during middle school and I fell in love with baseball. I thought I would play baseball in high school, but my parents asked me to try tennis for one year and I’ve fallen in love with it. Football and wrestling helped me work on my conditioning and I knew that if I could play the hardest sports at RTHS, then tennis would be a breeze. Leaving football and wrestling behind was sad, but I knew that if I wanted to become the best tennis player I could be, then that required making sacrifices.”

Chavez’s time with the high school program is nearing its conclusion, as he and the Hubs are currently gearing up for the IHSA 1A Rochelle Sectional later this week. Both an All-Conference and an Academic All-Conference honoree in the Interstate 8 last season, Chavez will be looking to finish his senior season strong before setting his sights on trying out at Lake Forest College, where he intends to study biochemistry in hopes of pursuing a career in the STEM field.

“The football coaches at RTHS always talked to us about getting 1 percent better every day,” Chavez said. “I think where my mentality has improved the most is that when I lose, I can get 2 percent better. When I won earlier in my career, I felt like I was on top of the world, but when I win now, I know that I still have to put in the work because there’s another player out there who can beat me. I need to get better everyday so I can continue to beat more players.”