Co-reported by Karen Ma, Emma Lam and Priya Reddy.
After the usual huddles and motivational talks, chatters of encouragement amongst both team’s players arose as each player split off onto a court to begin his match. With the knowledge that their opponents Carmel HS had a lower record than them the Matadors walked onto the tennis courts on April 20 confident and ready to win.
The Matadors emerging victorious with a 6-1 win came as no surprise to the team.
Varsity No. 1 singles player senior Amit Batta defeated his opponent 6-3, 6-0 in one of the tougher matches against CHS. According to him, his agile movement but lack of focus in the beginning of the match were what caused his solid yet unsatisfactory win.
“[My opponent] played really well,” Batta said. “I started to focus a little more towards the end of the sets, and I ended up pulling out the win.”
Despite his win, he is still focused on improving the consistency of his serve.
“[My serves] were kind of up and down the whole match,” Batta said. “They were just kind of inconsistent, but when I need to win, I serve well, I pull through.”
After a big serve, senior Amit Batta swiftly puts the forehand away. He states that if he can execute more of those serves, he’ll have easier chances of winning his matches.
Sophomore Michael Wan also noticed that in his match, although he won 6-1 both sets, he had some trouble when it came to focusing.
“[I] kind of became too relaxed in the second set, so I was kind of goofing around in the first couple games,” Wan said. “But I got myself together and I played good again.”
After adjusting his mentality, Wan explained that being in control of the rallies helped him eventually close the match.
“I was just in charge of all the points,” Wan said, “so that way, I felt confident in my game and I knew I could beat him, because I got him to do what I wanted him to do.”
Wan returns a serve from the opponent, leading the set 4-1 and eventually ending the set.
Though doubles varsity two sophomore Kishan Aryasomayajula thought his serves could have been better, he and his partner, junior Neil Palleti, used their strengths to play together and win with a score of 6-1 both sets.
“He set me up well with his serves,” Aryasomayajula said. “I set him up well with my groundstrokes.”
Sophomore Kishan Aryasomayajula hits an ace in his doubles match against CHS. However, he hopes to improve his serve in the future by putting more spin to the ball.
With the end of league matches, coach Bruce Becker holds high hopes for his two singles players — junior Aditya Prahbakar and sophomore David Zhang — and two doubles pairs — undefeated pair of sophomores Ryan Loke and Michael Wu, and another consisting of Wan and sophomore Lenny Lin — competing in SCVAL due to the consistent solid performance from the team.
The team will be playing SCVAL at Gunn HS Tuesday, April 26 and Wednesday, April 27.
