Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 7, 1994 TAG: 9404070305
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By RALPH BERRIER, JR. STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
Each other.
Whenever the brother-sister duo took the court, the matches were marred with faults. The other's fault.
Their styles of play mixed about as well as a can of Havoline10W-30 poured into a bottle of Quibell. Emily, a finesse player, needed the practice time to work on her shot placement. Robert, a power guy, wanted only to see if it was possible to vaporize a tennis ball with one swing of a racket.
"The points were really short," Emily Gibb said. "He'd hit a winner and that would be it."
Soft, refined elegance on one side of the net. Raw, explosive, brute strength on the other.
The pairing was like seeing Itzhak Perlman jamming with the Red Hot Chili Peppers or Barbra Streisand singing a duet with Snoop Doggy Dogg. Mother Teresa and Howard Stern had more in common than did the Gibbs.
The pair spent more time making a racket than swinging rackets.
"It would basically end up that we wouldn't play," said Robert. "We never finished a match. We always got so frustrated."
Once, the Gibbs tried to team up in mixed doubles for a West Virginia tournament. They never got a chance to finish the tournament because Robert was disqualified during singles play for telling a referee a little more than he wanted to hear about his officiating abilities.
The Gibbs had to default their doubles match.
"After that, I said, 'No more,'" Emily said. "'I don't want to default any more matches.'"
In spite of one another, the Gibbs have become the best players for two very good Blacksburg tennis teams. Emily, a 16-year old junior, moved back home after a couple of years of boarding school at Madeira in McLean and immediately assumed the No. 1 spot on an Indian girls' team that won the New River District championship last year.
Emily is sitting out a couple of weeks while recovering from minor injuries she suffered in a one-car accident on Harding Avenue last weekend. While trying to retrieve a thermos that had fallen to the floor, Gibb lost control of the vehicle, which ran of the road, hit a culvert and flipped. Gibb is experiencing a little tightness in her neck and back, but she will be ready to play by the time the NRD season begins in two weeks.
Robert, 15, is just a sophomore but he's also the best player on a Blacksburg boys' team that has its sights on a Group AA state championship. The Indians were Group AA runners-up last year, when Robert Gibb teamed up with Marek Pfeil to win the state doubles title.
Both Gibbs spent much of their childhoods in Pearisburg, where they learned much of their tennis skills from their father, Colin, a former player at the University of Richmond and the current president of the New River Valley Tennis Association. Emily and Robert have played competitive tennis since about age 10 and both have won several junior tennis championships, including Robert's impressive win in the 16-year old division of the Lynchburg City Open a couple years back when he was just 13.
"They've both really worked hard at this," said Colin Gibb. "They play tennis about three-quarters of the year, but we make sure they lay off for a month or two and do something else. I've seen a lot of good tennis players who just quit because they were tired of playing tennis all the time. It's important to keep a balance. Robert played some soccer and basketball and Emily ran some cross-country just to have something to do.
"I'd like to see them continue to play. I played in college and enjoyed it. I also know that they're not going to be professional tennis players. This is just something for them to have fun doing."
Emily and Robert are even able to have fun while practicing together these days. In fact, by adapting to each other's style, the two have added extra dimensions in their personal games.
"I'm pretty aggressive now," said Emily.
"Instead of trying to kill the ball, I have better control now," Robert said. "Now, we're both really consistent."
And Blacksburg's boys and girls are going to be consistently good for at least a couple more years.
by CNB