Boys' tennis bests Sherwood

The Blair boys varsity tennis team (1-2) prevailed over the Sherwood Warriors (0-2) in the season home opener. After two straight losses to divisional power houses Wooton and Whitman, the Blazers were able to beat a weaker Sherwood team 5-2, mainly because of strong singles play. The boys singles completed a sweep, winning all four matches.

Seniors and co-captains Rahul Bhale and Ishaan Parikh were able to finish their games handedly, and Parikh swept 6-0 in the final set. Both said that they able to control the game, and dictate what their opponent do. "I figured out his game and he kind of got frustrated, so I was able to play my game,” said Parikh. Bhale was confronted with an opponent that struck the ball very hard, so Bhale had to adapt his style of play. "He hit the ball hard and placed it well, and I made sure to hit the ball with spin,” said Bhale. "Because of the colder weather, my spin was more effective.”

The boys team struggled in doubles play, winning only one match out of three. Doubles pairing Eshan Tewari and Richard Gancayco lost in the third set on a tiebreaker. Tewari said that they lost because of simple technical errors in poor rallies, and a sense of overconfidence after winning the first set. "After winning the first set, we kind of got a little cocky, and might have gotten a little careless, and maybe underestimated them,” Tewari said. "The reason why they won most of the points was because we lost. Most of the errors were on us. It wasn't like they hit a winner every time.”

According to Tewari, the pair had a difficult time returning the ball and could not keep a steady rally to gather momentum. The game ended on a series of missed volleys committed by Gancayco. "Most of our points when we lost, we lost on the third ball, if we had kept a five, seven ball rally, we would have won a bit more points than them,” said Tewari. The pair, that lost the match on a string on missed volleys by

Head coach David Ngbea claims that the team has not had enough time to prepare for the season because of inclement weather. "I haven't had the chance even to evaluate who plays well with who, we never had time to fix anything, so we are stuck with what we have,” said Ngbea.

Ngbea says that the team must focus on net play and strategy in the weeks to come. "We need to do volley drills, we need to talk about strategy, and we need to talk about court position as well,” he said.