The boys varsity tennis team beat the Milton Wildcats 4-1 during their home opener on Monday, April 1, at the Waldstein Park tennis courts, extending their regular season win streak to 82 games. The event included three singles matches and two doubles matches.
Junior and captain Deven Devaiah played the first singles match, winning his first set 6-3. After a short break Devaiah lost his second set 3-6 and his third 7-10 on a tiebreaker. According to Devaiah, he played well despite losing his match and identified areas for improvement.
“It was a close match. I think I played well. There were certain points in the match where I could have raised my level, but overall I played well,” Devaiah said. “The first set and midway through the second set were definitely some highs where I was being aggressive, and I was coming to the net.”
The second singles spot was taken by senior and captain Dhevin Nahata, who won his match in two sets. Nahata did not have a close match as he won his sets 6-2 and 6-1. Nahata said throughout the match he was trying to focus on improving the weak points in his game.
“It was just to kick it high in the back end on the serve and come up to the net to finish strong on some points,” Nahata said.
Freshman Winston Chan took the third and final singles spot and won his match in two 6-0 sets.
While head coach Mike Mowatt noticed that Devaiah and Nahata both had areas for improvement, he was proud given that this was the first match of the season.
“Our footwork was iffy here and there, and shot selection needs some work. It was the first match. We weren’t able to do any scrimmages either,” Mowatt said. “We’ve just done practices and then done a match. So, I’m happy with the way they played and talking to them afterwards, they knew that they had to work on some things too.”
The doubles matches were played by juniors Ravin Bhatia and Kiran Bhatia along with senior and captain Kevin Asir and senior Cooper Lawrence. Each pair dominated their respective matches, both winning in two 6-0 sets.
According to Mowatt, given the weakness of many Wildcat players, the doubles pairs used their matches to incorporate practiced skills and improve their athleticism.
“Milton’s a top-loaded team, so the rest of their starters were not a challenge. They have two strong players, so we’ve been trying to work on being aggressive and moving a lot, so they’ve been practicing on that during practice and they did that in the match,” Mowatt said. “We want to be more athletic this year and more active. My first doubles generally win from the baseline and don’t make mistakes. They wait for the other team to make mistakes. So, we want to be a little bit more aggressive this year.”
