Sisters are No. 1 seed for WPIAL "boys" doubles tennis tournament

  Mike White | Thursday, April 30, 12:40 p.m.

The WPIAL boys' tennis doubles championships are today at tomorrow. The No. 1 seed for the Class AA boys' tournament is a team of sisters.

That's right. Two girls are the No. 1 seed. Karli and Tanya Timko of Chartiers-Houston won a section title last week and received a first-round bye in the WPIAL tournament today. The tournament will go through the semifinals today, and the championship will be tomorrow afternoon at 2:30 at North Allegheny.

If the Timkos win, it won't be the first time a girl has won a WPIAL boys' tennis championship. Three years ago, Quaker Valley's Annie Houghton won the WPIAL Class AA singles title.

The Timko girls come from an extremely athletic family. Their mother, Shari, was an All-American gymnast at West Virginia and is in the WVU sports hall of fame. Their aunt is Mary Lou Retton. She is Shari's sister and the 1984 Olympics gold medalist in the gymnastics all-around competition. The Timkos' grandfather is Ronnie Retton, captian of West Virginia University's 1959 NCAA runner-up basketball team that also featured Jerry West.

The Timkos' father, Mike, was a quarterback at West Virginia in the mid 1980s. And the Timkos' older sister, Jaci, is a former softball standout at Char-Houston who is having a big freshman year on the Robert Morris softball team.

Check "Varsity Blog" later tonight and we'll give you an update on how the Timkos did on the first day of competition at the doubles tournament. Plus, we'll have some other notes.