Goodfellow Airman wins NATO tennis competition

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Randall Moose
  • 17th Training Wing Public Affairs
A Goodfellow Airman and her team won 1st place for the Headquarters Air Command Tennis Championship 2016 Sardegna in Cagliari, Italy Sept. 19 to 28.

“I started playing tennis while I lived in California, just for fun,” said 1st Lt. Anastasia Hueffner, 17th Force Support Squadron sustainment deputy flight director. “I fell in love with it at a young age and then I moved to Florida, where tennis is very widely played.”

Florida is home to many great tennis players, said Hueffner.

“When I was ten, my dad started to put me in tournaments,” said Hueffner. “I played my very first tournament and lost every match, and he said, ‘You don’t have to continue to play if you don’t want to,’ and look where I am now. It didn’t stop me.”

The Air Force Academy selected its six best tennis players for the U.S. team.

“The team consisted of all my classmates from the academy,” said Hueffner. “My team, we knew each other, we knew what we were doing.”

The U.S. Air Force team played against four NATO teams; the Netherlands, Poland, Germany and the United Kingdom.

“The competition was good,” said Hueffner. “We were there, and we didn’t lose a match. It wasn’t about the winning. It’s just being out there playing, building relationships and seeing how our Air Force compares to other ones.”