Despite facing tough competition at CCS, badminton girls’ doubles pair advances to States

The Falcons played their last league match against Monta Vista on senior night, May 2.

With three consecutive losses to Wilcox, Lynbrook and Milpitas in the week before finals, the Falcons pulled through with impressive results at larger games towards the end of the season.

The crack of a racket echoed through the air as the badminton team faced off against other regional schools at the CCS tournament on May 13.

While the team didn’t emerge as champions, the doubles team of sisters junior Sannidhi Boppana and sophomore Samanvi Boppana had a strong postseason run.

The pair placed second in girls’ doubles at CCS, qualifying them to the NorCal championship on May 20. At NorCal, Samanvi and Sannidhi placed third.

“I’m really happy with how me and my sister ranked,” Samanvi said. “We really wanted to work on rotations since we don’t play together outside of school. It was a close fight but we performed really well and I’m proud of our score.”

The team ended with a record of 5-7 in the highly competitive De Anza League. Prior to attending CCS, they lost three out of four matches — losing 14-14 in a tiebreaker against Wilcox on April 24, 26-4 against Lynbrook on April 26 and 23-7 against Milpitas on April 27 — but pulled a 22-8 win against Monta Vista on May 2.

As Sannidhi reflects on the season, she attributes the majority of the team’s losses to a lack of reliability among players.

“Many of the team members have been inconsistent, both in performance and attendance,” she said. “It made it difficult for the team to pinpoint who will play which matches.”

At the end of the season, head coach Thomas Ching chose the top two players from each category — girls’ and boys’ singles and doubles, as well as mixed — to attend league finals. This year, star players seniors Jason Liu, Tony Guo, Evan Oaklander and Sannidhi and Samanvi attended leagues, and all advanced to CCS after placing in the top four in their events. The first round was on May 5 and the second round was on May 6, with CCS following a week later on May 13.

With Guo, Liu and Oaklander graduating, the team is looking for strong players like junior Avik Belenje and freshman Ishir Gupta to carry the torch next year.

“Throughout the season, we had a lot of close individual games that led to a collective team win, and I’m really proud of how hard everyone fought this season,” Guo said.