Seasoned Players and New Talent Shine on Scarsdale Tennis Team

The season was off to a bright start for the Scarsdale Raiders Boys Tennis team who were 4-1 before their match against league rival Mamaroneck on April 18th. Though they are a young team that graduated nine seniors last year, new talent arrived from the freshman and sophomore classes to fill the spots on the team and Coach Jennifer Roane was calling it a "rebuilding year."

However, on Monday, when first singles player Luke Smith went out to warm up, he experienced pain in his shoulder and couldn't continue to play. He had played in a USTA match the previous weekend, and the shoulder did not feel right. Undefeated so far this season it was a big blow to Smith and the team that he was not able to compete in this important match. So, before the contest against Mamaroneck even began, Scarsdale had to forfeit first singles.

Mamaroneck then moved their first singles player Hope Crawford down to second singles where he met Scarsdale Junior Raf Schott. Hope and his brother Courage came to Mamaroneck from Ghana last year, and together won the Section 1 doubles titles and then took the state title as well. So Raf had a formidable opponent. Though he waged a tough fight, he lost the first set 0-6 to Courage but did manage to get three games off his opponent in the second set.

Senior Captain Zach Steinberg played a long match in third singles. He was also defeated 6-3, 6-2 and said his opponent was a great net player who surprised him by coming up to the net at least 60% of the time. Steinberg was also previously undefeated.

Things ultimately went better for the first doubles team of Harrison Peltz and Evan Josephs, both in their senior year. They started out badly, losing the first set without taking a single game but did not give up. In the second set they improved their communication, drove to the baseline and managed to keep their opponents away from the net. They took the second set 6-2 and then went into a super tiebreaker, winning 10-4 and taking the match.

Second doubles features a new team of sophomore Suhas Vennan and Junior Alan Chung. After losing the first set 6-1, they improved their consistency and mixed up their shots to come back in the second set, where they were initially down 5-1 but lost only 6-4. Suhas has a strong net game and the two work well on the court together.

The third doubles team includes the only freshman on the team, Gus Thompson. He is the youngest player on the team, but the tallest as well and has great wing span at the net. Gus and Junior Jonathan Schwartz pulled out a 6-3, 6-4 victory, by winning their serving games and driving to pass their opponents at the net. Fortunately their power along with their opponents' unforced errors added up to a win for the Raiders.

Though the team had already lost the match but the time the fourth doubles team fought it out, everyone stayed to watch seniors Jack Axelrod and Adam Kazan play out a long, long match. The two looked like they were truly enjoying the game –though it was a real cliffhanger. They won both sets narrowly, 7-5, 7-5, making the score for the match 3 for Scarsdale and 4 for Mamaroneck.

There's a long season ahead, with 14 regular matches followed by the playoffs. With 4-5 matches a week the team will have many opportunities to practice and win.