Karli and Tanya Timko don't look at themselves as trailblazers or trend-setters. "It's not like we're fighting for women's rights," Karli said.

No, these sisters see themselves as simply two tennis players who were looking for some competition. All the boys in WPIAL Class AA happened to get in the way.

The Timkos, who attend Chartiers-Houston High School, won the boys' doubles title yesterday at Lakevue Racquet Club in Valencia, and did it in dominating fashion, beating Thomas Jefferson's Tin Chu and Drew Gallatin, 6-2, 6-1, in the title match.

This is the first time a girls' doubles team has won a WPIAL boys' tournament, but three years ago Quaker Valley's Annie Houghton won the Class AA singles title. The reason the Timkos play boys' tennis is because the school dropped its girls' program last fall after not having enough players to field a team. The Timkos had won WPIAL and PIAA Class AA girls' doubles championships in the fall of 2007. But, when the girls' team folded, they turned toward the boys.

"We were kind of disappointed because we wanted to defend our title," Karli said.

"But we just got together and said we had to make the best of the situation."

And they ended up being the best.

But maybe this championship stuff should come as no surprise. After all, champions and standout athletes run through generations of the Timko family. Their aunt is Mary Lou Retton, the 1984 Olympics gold medalist gymnast. Their mother, Shari (Mary Lou's sister), was an All-American gymnast at West Virginia and is in the school's sports Hall of Fame.

The Timkos' father, Mike, was a quarterback at West Virginia who was beaten out for the starting job by Major Harris in 1987.

The Timkos' grandfather, Ronnie Retton, was the captain of West Virginia's 1959 NCAA runner-up basketball team that also featured Jerry West. And Karli and Tanya's older sister, Jaci, was a star softball player at Chartiers-Houston who won three WPIAL titles and is now having an excellent freshman season at Robert Morris.

Gallatin and Chu, though, didn't take the loss as a blow to their male ego.

"They're really good," Gallatin said. "Anyone who might make fun of us for losing to girls, they would lose, too."

Chu said, "They hit the ball as hard as any boy we've played."

Chu and Gallatin said the most impressive part of the Timkos is their consistency in shots and how well they play together. Karli contends they are the perfect doubles tandem, and not just because they are sisters. Karli is the energetic, outgoing one while Tanya is the calm player.

"I think it's big deal to win this because people told us we couldn't do it," Tanya said.

The Timkos will now turn to singles play on the Chartiers-Houston team for the WPIAL team playoffs Monday. They will play in the PIAA doubles tournament May 22-23 in Hershey.

Shankar Rajaput and Brad Portnoy of Fox Chapel won the Class AAA title with a 6-3, 6-3 win against North Allegheny's Matt Smith and Matt Kosovec.