Not too far into the future, the younger siblings of these girls, Maddie Hamm, Grace Milne and Mia Lewandowski, will be in charge of the running the Stonington Open benefit tennis tournament.

For now, Hamm, Milne and Lewandowski, headed into their senior year at Stonington High School, are still overseeing the event they started in the summer of 2020. Amid a COVID-19 shutdown, having missed their sophomore tennis season at Stonington in accordance with the pandemic, Hamm, Milne and Lewandowski united the community through tennis, with more than 160 participants.

This summer, the community wanted to participate once again. The tournament, being held Friday and Saturday at the high school and the Stonington Community Center, has 140 entries. Proceeds will benefit the Stonington girls’ tennis team, as well as Safe Futures, a social services organization based in New London.

“This is going to be an annual thing for years to come,” said Hamm, Stonington’s No. 1 singles player and the 2019 Eastern Connecticut Conference singles champion. “Mia and I have sisters who are going to be freshmen this year and we’re hoping to pass it down to them and their friends.

“They’re a lot like us, great friends. I’m hoping they have a friend group like Mia, Grace and I. I first met (Milne and Lewandowski) in tennis and that’s how we became friends.”

The Stonington Community Center donated court time for Saturday’s portion of the tournament so that the event could be consolidated into two days, with inclement weather forecast for Sunday.

“They donated about $2,000 worth of court time to us,” Lewandowski said of the community center. “Last year we used the (proceeds) to purchase uniforms, so no one on the tennis team had to pay for their uniforms. We want to continue to raise money for our tennis team as well as Safe Futures, keep fundraising for new causes and keep supporting our team.”

Hamm’s sister Marcella is an incoming freshman at Stonington, as well as Lewandowski’s twin sisters Misha and Marina.

“We’ve been slowly passing the torch to them,” Lewandowski said. “They’ve come to all our meetings. We’ll definitely be guiding them next year and in years to come.”

This summer has been a bit more hectic than the pandemic summer of a year ago. The Stonington trio is looking at and getting ready to apply to colleges, completing summer work for their advanced placement courses at school, working, playing tennis to prepare for their senior season, all while planning the Stonington Open tournament to try to replicate the successful event of a year ago.

“I don’t think any of us have time to sit down and relax for a single day,” Hamm said with a laugh, taking a quick breather mid-tournament Friday. “Actually (the tournament) is going really, really well. We’re all really happy right now.”

Milne and Lewandowski will be playing doubles together beginning Saturday, while Hamm is set to double up with East Lyme’s Mara Wolff.

Stonington girls’ tennis coach George Crouse was also getting ready to play Friday afternoon in what he termed the “old-age doubles” division. Crouse said he was thrilled to have this particular combination captaining his team for their senior season.

“Exceptional young ladies. They think of others,” Crouse said. “They want to help others. And they’re good tennis players.”

“We had a lot of reappearance (of participants) and it’s also great to see some new faces,” Milne said. “We’re looking forward to seeing all the past participants and present ones.”

v.fulkerson@theday.com