Tennis, everyone?

Nearly a dozen area tennis players are hitting the courts today in Albuquerque, with their eyes on possibly playing for a state championship Thursday.

Portales sends seven players to this week's doubles and singles championships to be held at the Jerry Cline Tennis Center and Albuquerque Academy, and its girls team will come in Friday in the eight team Class 1A-4A bracket.

The Ram girls enter as the No. 8 seed in the racket, and will face St. Pius 11 a.m. Friday at Sierra Vista. The winner will remain there and face No. 1 Robertson at 4:30 p.m. The Cardinals have a first-round bye.

"We were hoping for sixth, but we'll take it," Portales coach Ann-Marie Bucksath said.

Saturday matches move to Cline with the 8 a.m. semifinals and a 2 p.m. championship.

But before that, the singles and doubles brackets will take place with 20 slots in each.

The 1A-4A singles bracket features Taryn Wood facing Catie Lacie of Albuqerque Academy 4:30 p.m. Wednesdayat Albuquerque Academy. The winner will face fourth-seeded Roma Cordova of Belen.

Two girls doubles teams will open for Portales at 3 p.m., also at Academy. Kinsey Bilberry and Danielle Ruiz will face Belen's Madison Good and Sidney Shawver, and would face a 6 p.m. second-round match if they advance. Vanessa Lucero and Mikaela Garza will face Makenna Takeshida and Annika Conn of Mesilla Valley, and would be off until Thursday morning at 8:30.

That 8:30 a.m. Thursday match could be an all-Portales final.

"We'll have to get there first," Bucksath said. "Last year, we had to do it (in a singles match) with Zamorye (Cox) and Sara (Blaeser)."

Pancho Lopez and Zeke Aguirre are the only boys participants for Portales. They'll face Lazius Brown and Sam Nix from Silver.

Clovis has four players, all from the boys team, heading to Cline in singles and doubles competition.

In singles, David Heath will face Lorenzo Gomez of Sandia at 4:30 p.m.. The winner takes on the top seed, Eldorado's Georgio Samaha. Seth Romero will face Santa Teresa's Alex Kratohvil at 4:30 p.m. That winner will be off until 10 a.m. Thursday. The championship and third-place matches will be 5:30 p.m. Thursday.

Clovis coach Brad Heath was disappointed at the way the bracket fell out, as only four players were seeded and the remaining 16 were put in a blind draw. That meant that David Heath, who won the District 4-5A singles title, ended up seeded below Romero, the fourth-place singles player - leading one to ask if there was any point to the district tournament.

"The statistics show David would have been in the top four," Coach Heath said, "but he's not known to those coaches (on the seeding committee)."

In doubles play, Brandon Heath and Sumito Richeson will face John Ringer/Thomas Baca of Albuquerque High. Winner plays at 6 p.m. against the second seed, Zane Lowe and Elias Samaha of Eldorado. The title match and third place match are 3:30 p.m. Thursday.