‘Tennis is about the progression.’ Lexington girls shine in state tournament
Following a difficult 6-1, 6-0 loss to Sacred Heart junior Bailey Scott in the girls singles final of Wednesday’s KHSAA Tennis State Tournament, Lexington Christian Academy’s Katie Lankford shook Scott’s hand, returned to the bench where her head coach, Kyle Macy, sat waiting and remained there, allowing the outcome to settle.
Lankford’s young tennis career may already feature a few heartbreaking losses — Wednesday’s included — but she, and everyone behind her, believes that the best is yet to come. As Macy put it, “tennis is about the progression,” meaning that a runner-up finish in the state final as a sophomore reveals more about Lankford’s growth and potential than it does about her limitations.
Now in her fourth season with the Eagles, Lankford has become one of the state’s best players in a short matter of time, and serves as perhaps the strongest example of the talented, up-and-coming girls tennis scene in Lexington that has developed while watching Central Kentucky’s best fall at the hand of a Louisville or Northern Kentucky opponent.
“Lexington tennis has been, for the most part, pretty strong top to bottom,” Macy said. “You go through some cycles, but overall, yeah, there’s some good competition throughout the city…we’re always trying to build the young talent and then mix it in with the older players. It is kind of a cycle…we’re excited about the future, but you know, you can’t relax, there’s always somebody out there working.”
Lankford — who received praise for her talent and preparation from Scott, who she’ll face again Thursday in a match for the team tournament — quickly made her name on the Kentucky tennis circuit when she was in middle school, making her high school tennis debut with the Eagles as a seventh grader.
Always in the conversation but typically not hoisting the trophy, Lankford lost consecutive 11th Region finals matches as an eighth grader and freshman, and finally broke through to victory this month with a Region Championship win against fellow Eagle and friend Alisa Shevtcova.
Now weeks later, Lankford found herself in Wednesday’s state finals, bucking the recent trend of state contenders hailing from outside typical tennis talent hotbeds for a second straight year; the 2025 11th Region and state girls singles champion, Scott County senior Sydney Zakic, became the first Central Kentuckian to reach the singles state finals since 2019.
Lankford said the noticeable spike of Lexington girls reaching far into the postseason reflects both the passion for tennis and the willingness to improve.
“Everybody here loves the sport,” Lankford said. “And they just want to be here and I think that it’s great. Yes, sometimes I get tired of playing the same people over and over, but I think it’s kind of cool to just see how everybody grows; I played someone last year, and then I come and see them this year again and they’re so much better. Everybody wants to be good, and everybody works hard, and it’s just great to see how we can put that in matches.”
Though Lankford’s high school season continues in the team state tournament Thursday and Friday — when she’ll face Scott for the third time this season — the week of May 25 was always going to be a long one for Kentucky’s strongest players, and it was made longer for Lankford inban electric semifinal match won 7-6 (7-5), 7-6 (7-5) against DuPont Manual junior Audrina Schaefer Wednesday morning.
“(Lankford) works so hard and you can see the results paying off,” Macy said. “I mean, today she just ran out of gas. That morning match was about two-and-a-half hours long, two tiebreakers. That (affects) not just your physical, but your mental, that intensity for that long. And she didn’t obviously show her best self today in the finals, but she gave everything she had. So we were proud of her.”
Lankford acknowledged the toll the semis took on her energy, but also said the challenge is part of why the sport means so much to her.
“I would’ve preferred to not have that long of a match this morning because it kind of drained me for this match,” Lankford said. “But that’s the reason I love tennis. You go out there and you compete, and even though you may not be smiling all the time, you’re always having fun because you’re doing something that you love.”
Nothing was going to deter Lankford from giving it her all in the finals match. Not the depleted energy, not the oppressive heat, nor the mid-match move into the Hilary J. Boone Indoor Center once the radar picked up possible thunderstorms.
However, the older and more experienced Scott, who confidently defeated Shevtcova (6-3, 6-1) in her own Wednesday morning semifinal, was prepared to play hard, as well.
“I had a tough match against her at the beginning of the season,” Scott said. “And I lost to her. It was close, but I lost, so it just meant a lot this match to come back and win.”
Lankford was expecting the opponents’ March 24 match to factor into the championship rematch, and spoke highly of Scott’s performance in the final while admitting the weight of the moment, and what she might have to work on going forward.
“She played a great match, she’s a good player,” Lankford said. “I played her earlier in the season and I beat her…but I also was the number-one seed (at state), so I had a lot of pressure on myself. I think coming into the match, I had played two-and-a-half hours today, I played yesterday. I think I was a little bit physically and mentally drained, which is just something that I can improve on for next year.”
Past high school offseasons have led Lankford to this moment, working tirelessly to finally get over the hump of the 11th Region championship and reach the state title match; this offseason, Lankford will take the lessons learned from the loss in hopes of continuing her trend of getting a bit further each season and becoming one of the brighter stars in the state.
Lexington Catholic falls in girls doubles final
Approximately one month ahead of the state tennis tournament, Lexington Catholic sophomore Stella Benedetti and freshman Callie Cranfill made the decision to pair up as one of the Knights’ girls doubles teams.
It wasn’t a decision they came to lightly, but it was one that their head coach, Mark Plymale, and his staff was hoping would be made.
“We were thinking about how we could make this work,” Plymale said. “And really, I wanted this from the start…I wanted them to play together, but I wasn’t going to force them into anything. I wanted them to come to that conclusion on their own.”
Wednesday’s girls doubles final may not have gone in Benedetti and Cranfill’s favor, as the duo fell 6-2, 6-0 to Sacred Heart’s Claire Rueff and Claire Christie, but their being the only Lexington pair to even reach the quarterfinals — let alone the state final — should tell you everything Plymale and his staff believe you should know about the young Knights.
“You’re going to see them a lot in the next few years,” Plymale said.
As a seventh grader in 2024, Cranfill reached the girls singles state quarterfinals. But her ability to return to the court for another shot at state was lost due to an ACL tear as an eighth grader. Through surgery, recovery and more than a calendar year away from the sport, Cranfill never lost sight of returning to UK and playing for a state title.
Though Benedetti and Cranfill have known one another since the former moved from Italy in elementary school, and they both train under former UK tennis coach Dennis Emery, the decision to try playing doubles together finally came after the Knights’ April 23 event at Sacred Heart — part of Plymale and his staff’s plan to prepare their players by scheduling against the best.
“I wasn’t quite where I wanted to be in singles this year,” Cranfill said. “So I decided I want to play doubles, we’d have a better chance to do well at state.”
“And I was happy!” Benedetti laughed.
The joy was warranted, as both underclassmen saw what could be possible after they decided to team up. Like Lankford in the girls singles match, Benedetti and Cranfill were Lexington’s sole representatives in the girls doubles quarterfinals.
While they did not achieve an elusive state championship, Benedetti and Cranfill — the latter of whom is still, even now, working to improve the strength and mobility in her knee — understand how much work it takes to get there, and will continue to set the tone as two of the Knights’ best.
“We have a really good young team,” Plymale said. “I’m super excited for Lexington Catholic’s girls’ side, their future. We don’t graduate anybody. We have all of our players back next season, and we’re adding on a couple middle schoolers who are going to be old enough to play for us. And I think that we’re going to be competing in this region for a long time.”
Other state tennis results
Boys singles: Kentucky Country Day’s Charles Lewis defeated Covington Catholic’s Blake Hussey 6-4, 6-4.
Boys doubles: St. Xavier finished first and second, with Aditya Shah and Logan Elliott beating teammates Derek Abrams and Jacob Ray 2-6, 7-6 (7-1), 1-0 (10-4).
The KHSAA Team Tennis State Tournament, which is presented by UK HealthCare, will be played at UK Thursday and Friday.
