Boys’ tennis falls short of CCS championship

Hopes for a CCS title for the boys’ tennis team ended when the Falcons lost 6-1 on May 16 to five-time champion Menlo School.

“Losing to Menlo [is] more emotional since it was for the CCS championship, making it more difficult to remember that we carried a perfect record into CCS and all the way to the finals,” assistant coach John Chui said.

Although the loss was one sided, the majority of the team felt that the match would have been winnable if the the team had had the right lineup.

CCS rules allow teams to put players anywhere in the lineup, meaning that the No. 1 singles player can be put into No. 3 doubles. Because placements in the lineup are so flexible, setting up the players in the best positions is extremely important to win matches.

“We lost because we decided last minute to try and change our entire lineup for the match,” said senior co-captain Sanjay Kaliyur, one of the team’s No. 1 doubles players.

The team’s original plan was to put all its singles players, with the exception of No. 1 singles junior Neel Bedekar, into doubles to win all three of the doubles matches. Then place Bedekar at No. 4 singles against an opponent that he had beaten weeks ago, during the regular season.

However, the team changed its lineup last minute, putting Bedekar at No. 2 and pulled freshman Andre Xiao out of doubles and into the No. 4 singles spot. This resulted in doubles teams that had never played with each other.

“Switching the doubles up was a mistake because the teams had no chemistry with each other, making it very difficult to get the doubles win,” said sophomore No. 2 singles player Karthik Padmanabhan.

The team played CCS semifinals against Menlo-Atherton on May 14, managing to pull off a 5-2 win. At one point during the match the score was 2-2 with three matches to play. For a while, it seemed the Falcons were on the verge of losing, with Bedekar down 6-4, 5-2 and facing three match points.

However, Bedekar managed to come back and win the match, 4-6, 7-5 and 6-2, putting the team up 3-2. Later, Xiao, playing No. 2 singles, clinched the team’s win with a victory. Freshman No. 3 singles player Kailas Shekar then won his match to make the overall score 5-2.

“Although we beat them earlier in the season, it wasn’t as easy as we thought it was going to be, a lot of the matches were a lot closer and when it came down to 2-2, Kailas, Neel and Andre were mentally tough and managed to come through for us,” said Padmanabhan.

Despite being seeded No. 2 out of eight, the road to the CCS finals was not easy, as the team had to overcome a shortage of players in the quarterfinals due to AP testing.
Although the team missed five of its starting players including Bedekar, the Falcons still managed to pull off a 4-3 victory against Cupertino on May 12.

The team originally had 12 players, so freshman Matthew Kermin and sophomore Avinash Arjavalingam from JV were brought into the starting lineup.

“It was fun to get pulled up and have a challenge,” said Kermin. “To come through for the team was very exciting and a dream come true.”

All the singles players, with the exception of Xiao, were put into doubles hoping to sweep doubles and have Xiao win at No. 4 singles.

Marica then defaulted No. 1 singles, automatically giving Cupertino a free match and put Kermin into No. 2 and Arjavalingam No. 3 singles.

Cupertino also changed its lineup by putting the No. 1 and No. 2 singles players at No. 3 and No. 4 singles. In addition, the No. 3 and No. 4 singles players also got moved to No. 2 doubles.

“They thought they could surprise us with the change in lineup to come up with the win,” Kaliyur said. “However, we countered them well by playing well and winning some clutch matches.”

Despite the disappointing loss, the team has had a lot of success winning the De Anza League and the Fresno High School Tennis Classic where the Falcons established themselves as one of the best teams in California.

The success of the tennis team was not just limited the team, where Bedekar lost 6-3 6-2 to the eventual champion Joshua Pompan, of York School, in the semifinals of the CCS individual tournament.

In addition, the team played at NorCals on May 23-24 in Sacramento, but due to printing deadlines, the results can not be covered in the print issue of the Falcon.
According to Kaliyur, the team has a bright future and will not lose a step next season.

“Since I’m the only senior in the lineup that is graduating, we won’t lose a lot of depth, so we should have another good chance at winning CCS [next year],” Kaliyur said.