There are times when Gabby Dellacono is running on the treadmill at the Westerly YMCA and just stares at the time elapsed on the machine — “like, when is this going to end?” she said.

It has made her physically stronger.

There are times when Dellacono is arguing with private coach Jerry Albrikes, her exiting the court one way and him exiting in the opposite direction. “She walked off and I walked off,” Albrikes said.

It has made her mentally tougher.

And so this is the Dellacono we see:

A Stonington High School junior, she is the CIAC State Open singles champion in girls’ tennis, winning the final on the main court of the Connecticut Tennis Center with an inordinate amount polish, wearing a red Nike dress as she topped sixth-seeded Alyssa DiMaio of Staples by a 6-1, 6-1 margin.

Dellacono made a verbal commitment to attend Division I Brown University and play tennis.

She was named The Day’s 2018 All-Area Girls’ Tennis Player of the Year, the third time she’s captured the honor, following her third straight Eastern Connecticut Conference tournament singles title.

She is ranked eighth in New England in the USTA Girls’ 18 Singles division, taking top-seeded Lana Mavor of Yarmouth, Maine, to a third set before falling in last weekend’s USTA New England Super Six Sectional in New Haven. Dellacono finished fifth.

“Before I started working out a lot, I would get tired,” Dellacono said of her time spent in the gym this season. “If I have 30 balls in a rally, long rallies with my opponent, I don’t get as tired as I used to. Definitely with playing that three-and-a-half-hour match (against Mavor), I wouldn’t be able to keep that energy up. Sometimes, I go (to the gym) with my friends. Sometimes, I’ll just run, do, like, planks or do ab work or squats, arms and stuff like that.”

“Lately, she’s playing a full match,” said Albrikes, the managing partner at Mystic Indoor Sports and a recent inductee into the USTA New England Tennis Hall of Fame. “We talk about, ‘Don’t leave.’ Like, ‘there goes Gabby, she left and makes five errors in a row.’ Her mental has gotten so much better. She’s always had physical skills and weapons and power, but she’s had lapses. If she doesn’t have lapses, I don’t know how you beat her.”

Albrikes, in the past, taught at the highly touted Bolletieri tennis academy in Florida, where he oversaw junior players such as Jelena Jankovic and Maria Sharapova — he also coached Jankovic for a handful of tournaments on the WTA Tour.

Formerly the head pro at Mystic Indoor Tennis (2000-10), Albrikes then headed south, where he coached at the LTP Tennis and Swim Club in Mount Pleasant, S.C., before returning to the Mystic club late last year.

“I think she has some serious, professional-type weapons,” Albrikes said of Dellacono. “She has a serve and a forehand that are very high level. I’ve worked with a lot of high-level players in the past. I tell her, ‘They’re doing this and you’re not doing this yet.' She keeps trying to prove me wrong, which is good. … She’s bought in in the last two months. In the last month with the improvement, the attitude and the composure on the court, her potential’s unlimited.”

Albrikes labeled Dellocono’s performance at the recent USTA sectional “amazing.”

“It was kind of like her State Open final,” Albrikes said. “She just played the No. 1 and the No. 5 girl in New England, beat the No. 5 girl and lost to the No. 1 girl 6-4 in the third. It was neck and neck. It was a great performance. … Her weapons are amazing.”

The 5-foot-9 Dellacono, a State Open finalist last year, became the first Stonington tennis player, boys or girls, to win an Open title when she topped DiMaio. The Bears finished 18-2 overall, with a loss to Weston in the Class S state championship match. Dellacono won the ECC title over teammate Charlotte Johnstone, 6-0, 6-1.

Stonington coach George Crouse called Dellacono’s State Open victory “surgically powerful.”

“She was just hitting where the girl wasn’t,” Crouse said. “She was in the athletic zone where every ball was hers and hers to win. She was getting down and hitting through the ball.”

Dellacono, who thanked Albrikes — she calls him a “tremendous help” — Crouse and her parents, Frank and Laurel, following the State Open final, will next play at the USTA National Clay Court Championships for her age group, to be held July 15-22 in South Carolina. She knows, despite her improvements, she needs to keep working to improve her game.

And she's certainly willing.

“Staying focused throughout the whole match,” Dellacono said of her goals. “Stay focused and finish it off.”

v.fulkerson@theday.com

The Day's 2018 All-Area Girls' Tennis Team

Player

of

the

Year - Gabby Dellacono (Stonington)

Singles

Samantha Cote (Fitch)

Keelin Hurtt (Old Lyme)

Charlotte Johnstone (Stonington)

Anna Slopak (NFA)

Sophie Wang (Waterford)

Doubles

Margot Goodman-Ainsley Johnstone (Stonington)

Phoebe Townsend-Brielle Fratoni-Jaskiewicz (Stonington)

Erin Peterec-Neha Ande (East Lyme)