Tennis team looks to bounce back after rocky start

April 3, 2023 — by Neal Malhotra and Skyler Mao
Photo by Neal Malhotra
Junior Johan Amirineni warms up before practice with other juniors.
The Falcons are off to a 3-3 record but sustain optimism for the rest of their season, especially with junior Shrey Jain recently coming back from injury.

While dealing with a rainy start to their season, the boys’ tennis team is slowly settling into a groove and ended March at a 3-3 overall record. The Falcons started with a 4-3 loss against Los Altos on March 2, but managed to pull in two more wins: 4-3 against Homestead on March 7 and 5-2 against Mountain View on March 9.

After these early wins, the team sustained two more losses — a 7-0 thumping at to a talented Cupertino team on March 16 and 5-2 loss to Gunn on March 20. 

On March 21, they grabbed a 4-3 win against Los Altos, which raised their spirits for the second half of the season. 

The Falcons are a younger squad, with the only senior being captain Julian Berkowitz-Sklar. The new freshman additions to the varsity roster, Somei Ogata and Nikhil Srivatsa, play two of the four coveted singles spots and are leading performers on the team. 

No. 1 singles player Ogata had a 2-4 record at the end of March. As the top player in the team, he has been playing against seasoned opponents such as No. 3 ranked U-16 player in the March 16 match against Cupertino. 

Srivatsa, playing in the No. 2 singles slot, held a record of 4-2 as the month ended, in part due to his solid ground strokes keeping opponents under constant pressure. 

Outside of these two, the Falcons have been injury-riddled: Junior Shrey Jain experienced a non-tennis related foot injury in the middle of February and Berkowitz-Sklar is contending with a lingering basketball injury.

Jain returned on March 24 against Los Altos, playing singles No. 4, but lost a tough match.

“Even though he lost, his presence brought some fire into the team,” junior doubles No. 1 player Samik Pattanayak said. “We were all expecting his return and he will add some more depth to the roster.”

Despite losing some matches, coach Florin Marica’s team is far from dejected. With weather conditions likely improving in April, they hope to practice more in order to jump back from a rough start.

During their Monday to Thursday practices, Marica, has pitted players against each other in order to improve their abilities and determine seeding for their matches.

In May, they hoped to be among the teams seeded for the playoffs.

“We haven’t missed CCS in a while,” Pattanayak said. “Our main rival right now is Cupertino, and we need to be more focused with our training and listen to [Marica] to win at CCS.”

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