While Serena and Venus Williams may be the most iconic tennis doubles team, freshman twins Aidan and Tyler Mahaffey are looking to bring their own on-court chemistry to Lafayette College.
The Mahaffeys inherited a strong tennis legacy from birth. Their mother, Abbie Mahaffey, entered the Hall of Fame at Millersville University for her massive contributions to four conference championships. Their father, Keith Mahaffey, played at the collegiate level for both James Madison University and at Millersville — where he met his future wife.
“When I was younger, they didn’t really want to push me into tennis,” Aidan Mahaffey said of his parents. “I played a lot of good sports, played soccer, basketball and some other sports, and I ended up picking up tennis on my own.”
Looking for a potential doubles partner, Aidan Mahaffey found one in his brother, who picked up tennis at the same time.
“Especially when you’re younger, less mature, it can be very challenging,” Tyler Mahaffey said of playing the same sport as his twin. “It can lead to a lot of conflict — which I think it still can — but I think it’s helped us in the long run because it kept us just super driven, focused and competitive over time.”
As part of that drive, the twins acclimated to the tournament experience at a young age, beginning competitive play at age 11.
“We played doubles together our whole junior career, pretty much exclusively besides maybe plus or minus a few tournaments,” Aidan Mahaffey said. “We had played each other a lot when we were 12 or 13 because we would play lower-level tournaments and play in the finals a lot.”
These final matches were not limited to lower-level tournaments. The two would get the chance to face off in their high school conference finals.
“We were definitely really competitive and cutthroat,” Aidan Mahaffey said. “It’s definitely more cooperative now, but it’s still competitive. It can get pretty intense at times.”
Still, the twins’ main takeaway from tournament play was not their singles battles against each other, but their doubles matches together.
“I think the whole journey of going from the lowest levels of tournaments to the highest levels of tournaments, high school or college, with a consistent partner really helped us in developing skills in doubles,” Tyler Mahaffey said.
The brothers eventually won three consecutive PIAA Class 3A state doubles championships, the most recent during their senior year in 2024.
In addition to the twins’ familial on-court connection, the two were coached by none other than their mother, the head coach of Palmyra Area High School tennis. Some of the most important tennis coaching from the Mahaffeys’ mother involved off-the-court matters, particularly in the collegiate recruiting process.
“I think it was much easier having parents who had been through it before,” Tyler Mahaffey said.
While the twins approached the recruiting process from individual mindsets, they both came to the same conclusion of coming to Lafayette.
The twins “playing together so long I think has helped them be able to adapt to the college style, as opposed to just high school or USTA tennis,” tennis head coach Ralph Van Ormer said. “I think their background really helped them come in right away and were able to make a difference.”
The Mahaffeys have had mismatched doubles partners in their fall season, but Van Ormer has not ruled out the possibility of returning to the twin combination.
Whether or not the Mahaffeys double up in-game action, the two will remain close together.
“I think it’s good to have somebody that you know so closely,” Tyler Mahaffey said.
“It’s just good when you’re coming into a totally new environment,” he said.
