Team captain Rounak Nadiyadhara, returns a serve during one of the many practices. Photo by Parth Patel
After a long and sweaty season, the tennis team headed to county finals on May 19. The tennis team was excited to find success at such a difficult sport. According to the coaches, tennis is one of the hardest sports to play because it uses the ability to play and maneuver mentally and then perform physically on the court.
While tennis as a sport does not have the flash and support of some of the more popular sports, like football, basketball and baseball, it does require a great deal more patience, effort and training. This underrated sport requires a lot of talent to play such as speed, strength, agility, touch, tactics, and it is a strong mental game, requiring fast reactions, patience and power.
If there was any question about the dedication of the players on our team, know that the varsity tennis players typically spend about four to six hours a day on the court practicing technique and enhancing strokes, and getting better every day to be better than they were before.
There is competition between the players themselves. Everyone on the team competes to find out who is the best player.
The unquestionable champion is senior Rounak Nadiyadhara. We know he is the best because in tennis, to find out who gets to represent PHS on the varsity team, we play challenge matches against each other. The top seven players are the varsity team.
Clearly the first place went to Rounak. Second place singles ranking went to Dev Patel, and third is Neil Rana. Rounak defeated all the guys on the team. We are proud of him, and he defeats his opponents on other school teams as well. He is a masterful server and has a killer forehand. His opponents fear these skills and together we have defeated some really tough competition this year, like Passaic Tech, Lakeland, and Newark Eastside.
Besides the singles, PHS also competes in first and second doubles. They, too, have performed marvelously this year. The first doubles team is Rushil Gandhi and Yash Rana. Second doubles is Jignesh Rana and Parth Patel. Without the Passaic tennis doubles teams the PHS Indians would not have had any wins this year. Also, this year, the second doubles has been seated to play in counties as fourth place, giving them a high chance of becoming one of the finalists in counties.
The success of the doubles team is directly linked to the coaching of Coach Major. He said, “When you play doubles always remember, doubles is not a friendly game. Go out there and play aggressively, show those guys who we really are. We are aggressive Passaic Indians!”
These Indians were definitely aggressive this year because at the county finals they placed fourth. This is a great feat, and they are PHS proud.
“Our team is not great without the hard work of our great coaches,” said senior Dev Patel. PHS does have some great tennis coaches. Mr. Contaldi, history teacher, is also the wrestling coach. He is funny and talented, but most importantly, he is an extremely skilled tennis coach. The second coach is a volunteer, who drives forty-five minutes to keep PHS great. Former history teacher Mr. Major, still does 300 push-ups a day, even in his retirement.
The junior varsity team is the pipeline to replace graduating varsity players. Without a great JV team the varsity squad would erode and PHS Tennis would become a failure. Ruri Patel does a great job working with the JV guys. These coaches work every day from March through May in the cold and the sun, every year, to make the team better so that they can represent PHS with pride and hopefully bring home county championship trophies.
“Even though Coach Major and Coach Contaldi make us run a lot of laps, I wouldn’t ask for any other coaches because their bond with the team is great,” said senior Neil Rana.
By Parth Patel
