Boys’ Tennis: Team struggling with injuries

With its lineup heavily depleted by recent injuries to key players, the boys tennis team has stumbled in its yearly run through the regular season.

The team has lost to Los Altos and Monta Vista, respectively the No. 2 and No. 1 teams in the De Anza League. The team played Los Altos twice, losing 5-2 on March 30 and 4-3 on April 18, and lost once against Monta Vista 6-1 on March 31. The team finished the De Anza league season with an overall record of 9-3.

“It’s been a struggle for us these past few weeks because we lost five of the top 10 players in our lineup to injury for three of our toughest matches in the league,” head coach Tom Uyehara said.

Having lost these three matches, the team will end up finishing third in the league, which could potentially mean facing rival Menlo in the semifinals of CCS.

“I don’t like the situation we are in right now, but we didn’t really have any great options going into those matches without three of our four singles players,” Uyehara said.

No. 1 singles player Nikhil Jayashankar, No. 2 singles player Deepak Sabada and No. 3 singles player Kial Kaiser are all currently suffering from shoulder injuries, while No. 4 singles player Andrew Lo is out with shin splints.

“We tried our best to win these matches without them, but we just don’t have the amount of depth in our team that we did last year and so we can’t really afford to lose them,” Uyehara said.

The team won 4-3 against Los Gatos in a make-up match on April 18 despite having to default matches at the second, third and fourth singles positions due to injury.

“Right now, we’re just trying to squeak out wins,” Uyehara said. “But if we get our lineup back to full strength, we will definitely be one of the strongest contenders in CCS.”

The team finished the regular season on April 25 with a 7-0 win against Lynbrook.