Heartbreak and Heroics: Mustangs Boys Tennis Sectional Semifinals recap

 

First to fall was MH junior co-captain Adit Lahiri and MH junior Tawiah Sai at #1 doubles by a score of 4-6, 1-6.  Mountain House evened the score at 1 when super sophomore Sri Sai Charan "Cherry"  Kotaprolu won a close match at #3 singles over Davis' Andy Zhang 6-4, 6-4.  

 

Davis took the next point at #2 doubles when they defeated the 2 MH sophomores, Sid Saravanan and Sibi Sivasubramanian, by a score 6-4, 6-3.  The Blue Devils took a 3-1 lead when Peter Isaev overcame a 3-5 deficit in the first set to take down MH freshman Aryan Bhardwaj 7-5, 6-1 at #6 singles.  

 

Davis won their 4th point at #2 singles to extend their lead to 4-1 when Kieran Millstein beat MH freshman phenom Anish Pattanaik 6-4, 6-2.  It was the first loss of the year for Pattanaik who had won his first 20 high school matches.

 

The other MH freshman phenom, Atesh Mopur, took down the higher UTR Davis #1, Nason Wessel, in a battle of heavy hitters, by a score of 7-6, 6-1.  Mopur remains undefeated for the season (17-0) and will be one of top seeds in the singles sectional title next week.

 

The match of the day was at #4 singles where MH freshman Nishant Rao battled Davis' veteran George Vougioukas.  Rao hit some big shots and won a tight first set 7-5 but Vougioukas fought back and took the second set 6-3.  Vougioukas forced multiple errors from Rao and took an early 9-6 lead in the 3rd set tiebreaker but Rao dug deep and evened the match at 9-9 with some amazing shots.  The duo continued to trade big shots and crucial errors over the next 20 minutes until Vougioukas finally forced a Rao mistake to win by a score of 22-20. The win gave Davis 5 points and the overall win and a ticket to the Division 1 Championship next Thursday.

 

MH Sophomore Kenny Nguyen had a 5-4 lead in the first set at #5 singles but Davis' Alton Zhong came back and won the first set in a tiebreaker and used the momentum to win the second set 6-2.

 

Another highlight of the day for the Mustangs was at #3 doubles where senior Anirudh Baskar and sophomore Arsh Nival faced a tough Davis pair of Yamamoto and Lee.  The first set was a seesaw match that ended with MH winning 7-6, 7-4 in the tiebreaker.  Some big shots by Nival and Baskar gave the MH duo a 5-0 lead in the second set before Davis put 2 games on the board.  Nival closed on the match with a big shot to give MH its 3rd point.

 

The loss ends the season for most of the Mustangs but the top 4 players, Mopur, Pattanaik, Kotaprolu and Rao will be traveling to Roseville on May 18-19 to participate in the individual sectionals.