Tennis was all around the Domingo household, but Sarah, the only daughter, didn’t take an interest.
Then younger brother Trent got his racquet and hit the courts.
“I think I was small for my age. I used to go watch my (older) brother (Warren) practice. Then Trent was 8 and he started playing. I was 10 and I got into it after that,” Sarah Domingo said on Sunday, a day after capturing her fourth consecutive Oahu Interscholastic Association individual championship.
She defeated Larissa Teramura of Kalaheo 6-1, 5-7, 6-2 in the mid-day final on the scorching hot courts of Patsy T. Mink Central Oahu Regional Park.
“I don’t think it’ll be happening again for a while. To get four is very rare,” Pearl City coach Kyle Miyashiro said. “Her tenacity. Her mind-set. She’s focused and knows what she wants. And she’s very coachable. She’s definitely an overachiever. She’s well prepared. She works hard with the team.”
Domingo’s father, Jerry, shared his tennis bug with all three of his children. It also gave mom (Patricia) some quiet time every day.
“Coach (Miyashiro) is a really good coach, really knowledgeable,” he said. “When she was younger, she didn’t like practicing that much, but she liked the competition.”
The Pearl City senior still has reservations about her potential.
“I made it to the (state) quarterfinals last year,” Domingo said. “I’m hoping to at least make it to the semifinals.”
Plans to be a student at UH
At 5 feet, 1 inches tall, she plans to attend the University of Hawaii as a student and put her tennis career on the back burner. It’s not that she can’t compete. It’s because Domingo, at an early age, has always had a great feel for her specific niche. As good as she is on the tennis court, she might be even better with fabric and design. Domingo is a fashionista at heart, putting needle and thread to work, creating her own world of outfits that are mind-boggling for anyone this young. Domingo created her own prom dress, an immaculate fuchsia-and-white combination that looks like a $400 dress in an upscale shop.
“I’m not surprised,” said Leialoha Batungbacal, a friend who has known Domingo since seventh grade at Highlands Intermediate. “She’s good at it, so if she puts her mind to it, she can be successful.”
The state championships are more than two weeks away. That’s a relief for Domingo, who is focused on the annual fashion show on her campus on Saturday.
“Last year, she made clothes for the show and asked me to be one of her models,” Batungbacal said. “That’s when I really got to see the clothes she made. My favorite one was this pair of shorts, and she let me keep it after the show.”
There are no limits in the fashion world. It is, naturally, extremely competitive. Domingo has overachieved on the tennis court, and it applies to her effort in the classroom. She has a 4.055 grade-point average. Her passion for fashion has formed her world view, as has her love for languages. She has traveled to Florida, South Carolina and California for tennis, but France, Japan and New York are bucket-list destinations. She is currently taking French 4 at school, and has taken fashion design classes at Pearl City.
“I like studying foreign languages, and I’ve taught myself Japanese. I’m still trying to learn, but I can understand it, and I can kind of speak it. I can’t write it,” she said. “I’ve been to New York. My great-grandma lived there. I want to go back.”
Grandmother’s influence
It was her grandmother, Evelyn McKeon, who first had an influence on Domingo’s sewing.
“She used to sew on a Singer. She made clothes for people. She made a dress one time for me,” Domingo recalled. “I used her old machine until I got my own.”
That’s where she is clearly of another branch on the family tree. Domingo doesn’t like using patterns. She goes by her instincts, her feel, her vision. It is uncanny, custom design at its best.
“I buy the material and just make it from scratch. I just kind of cut randomly and try it on, and I make alterations from there,” she said. “My grandma thinks I should use a pattern, but I like to think of my own designs, too, not just what the pattern is.”
Between school and tennis, there’s not enough time to do all the projects she wants.
“I work on them only a little bit at a time during the only free time I have, but I can do it pretty fast. It’s kind of like therapy,” said Domingo, who plans to major in fashion design at UH. “I’ll probably focus on athletic wear. I know what tennis players need. A lot of it is pretty expensive, so I want to find a way to make it more affordable.”
Jerry Domingo, who began coaching Sarah and her brothers years ago on the sunny Tamura Tennis Courts in Waianae, hopes she won’t stop playing.
“Manoa has a lot of good foreign players, but she should make the best of it and try out for the team,” he said. “Usually, she’s the smallest player on the court. She’s like a Michael Chang type of player. She’s smart like him.”
Dad hasn’t worn a Sarah Domingo design. Yet.
“I’ve never asked her to make me something to wear. If I have torn jacket or something, she doesn’t really want to fix it. She wants to create,” Jerry Domingo said. “But she fixes it, though. She’s the best daughter I could ever have.”
SARAH DOMINGO
School:Pearl City Sports: Tennis, four-time OIA champion Class: Senior
Q&A / Favorites
>> Hobby outside of sports: Arts/crafts and sewing “I’m going to study fashion in college. I’m going to UH-Manoa. I’ll probably focus on athletic wear. Tennis is easier because I know what tennis players need. A lot of it is pretty expensive, so I want to find a way to make it more affordable.”
>> Movie: “Mulan” “It’s funny and there’s a strong female lead. She’ll do anything for her family.”
>> TV show: “Terrace House” “It’s on Netflix. It’s a Japanese reality show where six strangers live together. I like seeing different places they go in Japan. I like learning about Japan. I like the drama of it, too.”
Teacher (elementary through high school): Madame Smith, my French teacher
“She’s really funny. She makes us work hard in class and we learn so much more than French. Life lessons and stuff.”
>> GPA: 4.055 “It would be higher if I had a lot of extra time. I’d probably take all of the AP classes and every early college class there was. I’m only in two (AP classes) right now. I kind of regret not taking more AP classes.
>> Work ethic: “We would do a lot of rallying, not too many drills. I didn’t really look forward to practice, but I never wanted to take a break. Part of the reason that I got better was I had my brothers (Warren, Trent) to play with.”
