Sugar Bowl

My-Anh Holmes, a four-time state tennis champion from The Willow School, was selected as the Allstate Sugar Bowl’s Outstanding Female Athlete from the New Orleans area for 2024-25. Holmes (first name pronounced Me-Ahn) dominated her competition in the LHSAA Division II state tennis championship bracket. The senior dropped just three games in five matches as she blazed her way to her fourth straight state championship. Holmes posted 6-0, 6-0 wins in the first three rounds of the state tournament before dropping a game to Ben Franklin’s Mallory Kymes in the semifinals. Her championship match came against a familiar opponent – her younger sister My-Linh, also of Willow. In a rematch of last year’s state final, the elder Holmes prevailed, 6-2, 6-0 (last year’s result was 6-1, 6-0).
 
“My-Anh is exactly the type of player every coach dreams of leading their team,” said Willow coach Gian Balsamo. “She is coachable and helpful to her teammates. She plays with great tenacity and her tactical intelligence on a tennis court is outstanding. I am very honored to have been a part of her journey through her four years of high school at The Willow School and I will miss her greatly.”
 
Last year, Holmes dropped a total of three games en route to the state title. In her 2023 championship run, she lost just one game and as a freshman in 2022, she lost just two games – in four years of state title appearances, she has posted a game record of 228-9 in 19 matches. Holmes, who is listed by the U.S. Tennis Association as the top-ranked 18-and-under girls tennis player in Louisiana (and top 50 in the country), has signed to continue her career at UC Santa Barbara in the fall.