AURORA -- Elite high school tennis players can take many different paths.
 

A growing number choose to leave their respective prep programs, enroll in high-level academies in other states and play as much as possible.
 

Others — such as Alec Rodriguez-Fields — strive to get the best of both worlds. The No. 1 singles star and defending Class 5A individual state champion could have chosen the first path, but instead decided to return to Regis Jesuit for his junior year as the desire to lead his team to an elusive state championship burns.
 

“I was thinking about not playing this year, but we all want this so bad, especially the seniors on the team,” Rodriguez-Fields said. “I’ve gone two years back-to-back where we’ve lost to (Cherry) Creek in the final and it’s like we’re this close. We really need it this year. We’re all putting in the hours to make it happen because we want it so bad.”
 

Rodriguez-Fields has made more than his fair share happen since he joined coach Laura Jones’ Regis Jesuit program two seasons ago.
 

As a freshman, he made it to the No. 2 singles state championship match before he suffered his only loss of the season, a straight sets defeat to Valor Christian’s Jace Nakamura. Rodriguez-Fields moved up a spot in the lineup as a sophomore, defeated Nakamura in the semifinals and brought home the coveted No. 1 singles crown, which he secured by roaring back from a set deficit to down previously undefeated Braylon Desquitado of Pine Creek 3-6, 6-2, 6-4.
 

But despite just four losses in two seasons — two to former undefeated Kent Denver star Nathan Gold, one to Nakamura and one to Cherry Creek’s Charlie Stern — Rodriguez-Fields won’t be satisfied until he can help lead his team to a championship.
 

The Raiders have finished second to rival Cherry Creek in each of the last two 5A team dual state title matches with a 4-1 loss in 2023 (Rodriguez-Fields’ earned Regis Jesuit’s only win) and an agonizing 4-3 defeat in 2024 in which Rodriguez-Fields lost to Stern.

The boys tennis season is underway, with the postseason for team competition set to start in early October and wrap up with the Oct. 21 state championships. Individual postseason play begins Oct. 11 and culminates at the Oct. 16 through 18 state tournaments.
 

“We still have a chance to win state (as a team),” Jones said. “We don’t have the bodies we thought we’d have, but we’re always contenders.”
 

Despite significant losses, Regis Jesuit — ranked No. 2 in 5A in the preseason Colorado High School Activities Association coaches’ poll — will remain formidable in singles play with two seniors moving up from doubles to fill out the No. 2 and 3 spots behind Rodriguez-Fields, who should be even better this season.
 

As he has done for several years, Rodriguez-Fields spent nearly the whole summer in Boca Raton, Fla., at the Evert Tennis Academy — founded by former women’s professional tennis star Chris Evert and her brother — where he gets full immersion in the game.
 

“I’ve been going down there since I was like 10, so I know the coaches pretty well and they work me really hard,” he said. “I wake up really early and hit for like six hours a day. It’s just a lot of training and I get a lot better.”
 

Rodriguez-Fields estimates he has added 10 miles per hour to his serve, while Jones and the Regis Jesuit staff continue to work with him on other facets of his game.
 

Jones can see the differences going into the new season, in which Rodriguez-Fields will attempt to become the first 5A boys tennis player to repeat as No. 1 singles individual state champion since former Regis Jesuit star Morgan Schilling in 2019 and 2020.
 

“Alec’s bigger and stronger, so obviously that comes into play,” she said. “He’s still tall and thin and lanky, which I think bodes well for tennis. He’s a bit smarter and more aggressive in his point play and not playing back by the fence as much. Kids that are raised super young in tennis, they tend to wait for balls to get low and it’s against their grain to take balls early and stand in the green and not back in the red.
 

“I’ve seen him be a little bit more aggressive this year and it’s something we continue to work on.”
 

Rodriguez-Fields — who as a junior has just started to have contact with college programs — is looking forward to a season in which he should get to go against players such as Nakamura (who also went to the Evert Academy), Desquitado, Grandview senior Justin Son and others.
 

“Honestly, I haven’t really been looking at who is playing, but there are always some players that are difficult,” Rodriguez-Fields said. “I just want to play my best and show everybody what I’ve got.”