Head Coach: Florin Marica
Last year’s record: 10-2
Recap: The team had a successful season, as Class of ‘24 alumni led the team in advancing to CCS finals and into NorCal Championship, where they lost to California High 5-2 in the semifinals.
Key Matchups: Menlo School, The Harker School
Star Players: Juniors Somei Ogata, Nikhil Srivatsa, sophomore Akiva Goldwasser and freshman Riki Toram.
Key losses to graduation: Samik Pattanayak, Johan Amirineni and Luke Stratakos
League: De Anza League
Prognosis:
Coming off last season’s success, players think they can win the upper division this year and potentially qualify for the NorCal Championship.
With the addition of three strong freshmen — No. 4 singles player Riki Toram, No. 2 doubles pair Achyut Karthikeyan and Hanyue Wang — the team will have a balanced roster of seven underclassmen and seven upperclassmen.
“I think [the underclassmens’s] strength is that they come to practice every day and put in the work,” said junior Somei Ogata, who plays No. 1 singles. “They just need to keep doing that, and we’ll do great.”
While Ogata thinks the freshmen have room for improvement, he has seen them smoothly transitioning onto the team and filling the slots of the graduated players.
For Toram, recent practice matches against upperclassmen have already shown him the steep learning curve he’s up against. His shorter reach leaves him with a disadvantage against opponents who are larger than he is.
As the league season nears, Toram said he needs to find ways to adapt to win matches. “I have to constantly challenge myself in finding ways to win points as [other players are] quicker, stronger and have more experience,” he said.
The team’s losses to graduation primarily affect the doubles group. Currently, the doubles players — No. 1 senior Alexander Lu and senior Theodore Oyang, No. 2 junior Andre Popa and freshman Achyut Karthikeyan and No. 3 sophomore Sina Mohtaj-Khorassani and sophomore Joshua Amirineni — are training their communication on the court and learning to coordinate their movements more quickly, which is especially important during high intensity points.
On the other hand, Ogata believes that singles — No. 1 junior Somei Ogata, No. 2 junior Nikhil Srivatsa, No. 3 sophomore Akiva Goldwasser, No. 4 freshmen Riki Toram — have greatly improved compared to last year, as individual players’ skills improved, making up for the weakened doubles.
Last year, the team lost to Homestead in CCS finals. However, coach Florin Marica has high hopes for the season and sees the team as meshing in the weeks ahead.
“Tennis is an individual sport, but playing for a team is different. It takes some time to get into this mindset of being a team,” Marica said.
