Each of the area’s boys tennis teams got to venture outdoors with the warming temperatures, and found varying degrees of success, too.
Fayetteville-Manlius has not lost a match to any Section III opponent since 1998. Thus, it began the season with a 258-match win streak, and built upon it in last Tuesday’s season opener when it swept Syracuse East 7-0.
Riley Ma, playing first singles for the Hornets, shut out Richy Llanos 6-0, 6-0, while Taran Judge had a 6-0, 6-1 win over Aung Htoo. In third singles, Michael Miller beat Laxman Sanyasi 6-1, 6-0, and F-M swept the doubles matches in a similar manner.
The streak reached 260 when F-M shut out Auburn 7-0 on Thursday afternoon, launched by Ma defeating Scott Minnoe 6-0, 6-1 in singles play as Judge topped Connor Davia 6-0, 6-2 and Tom Miro, in third singles, beat William Clark 6-3, 6-0.
The doubles side had some tougher matches. In particular, Luke Qi and Jeremy Zhang had to go for a while before defeating Trevor Bohannon and LukeParker 7-5, 6-1, with Vince Grasso and Ravi Dhwan getting a 6-3, 6-2 win over Jack Farrington and Dan Clark. The teams of Richard Wang-Rohan Dhavan and Nolan Chiles-Aaron Castanza both had 6-0, 6-0 wins.
Jamesville-DeWitt, always a favorite for OHSL Freedom division and Section III honors and coming off an undefeated 2015 season, got underway last Tuesday afternoon by going to Oswego and dropping just one set during a 7-0 shutout of the Buccaneers.
Ethan DellaPosta had the closest singles match, but still handled Nick Hurlbutt 6-2, 6-1. Tyler Glowaki had a 6-0, 6-0 shutout of Tyler Youngman, while Peter Hatton defeated Philip Cummings 6-1, 6-1 and Robert Dotterer, in first singles, topped Hunter Mazuroski 6-1, 6-0.
Tyler Lux and David Benaroch played second doubles and lost the first set, 7-6, but rolled past Noah Wells and Alex Haessig in the next two sets by equal 6-1 margins. Ishan Gajra and Alex Tso beat Jacob Gerber and Patrick Dowdle 6-2, 6-4, with Somil Aggarwal and Harshal Nanavati rolled past Nick Holland and Abhiuit Tripathi 6-1, 6-0.
A day later, J-D rolled past Fulton by that same 7-0 margin, with Benaroch playing singles and topping Eric shear 6-3, 6-2. Lux beat Charles Hyland 6-3, 6-1 as Glowaki and DellaPosta earned the other singles points.
Dotterer and Hatton paired together to beat Anthony and Robert Salerno 6-2, 6-1 as part of a doubles sweep where the teams of Gasra-Tso and Aggarwal-Nanavati both won in straight sets.
In Friday’s rematch with Oswego, J-D won again in another 7-0 decision. Between them, Glowaki, Benaroch, Lux and Dhruv Thota lost just seven total games in eight sets of singles play, with the doubles teams of Dotterer-Hatton, Gajra-Nanavati and Thota-Zach Ripich just as strong on the doubles side.
Up against East Syracuse Minoa on Thursday afternoon, J-D made it three wins in as many days, topping the Spartans by yet another 7-0 margin. Glowaki, Benaroch and Dan Frank dropped just four games in six sets of singles play, while in doubles the teams of Gajra-Nanavati, Dotterer-Hatton and Zach Ripich-Dhruv Thota all won 6-0, 6-0 matches.
Many other teams got underway on Wednesday, too, including Christian Brothers Academy, who had to fight hard to get past Westhill 3-2.
In singles, Dean Vlassis beat Sabastian Ramirez 6-0, 6-1, with Jameson Keppeler shutting out Jackson Bradley 6-0, 6-0. In three sets, Tom Daviau and Zach Popp earned the clinching point, beating Colin Catone and Noah Rolince 7-6 (8-6), 4-6, 6-1.
CBA went from there to stopping Skaneateles 4-1 on Friday afternoon, getting all the points it needed from a singles sweep where Dean Vlassis beat Ethan Weldon 6-0, 6-1, Ben Vlassis stopped Daniel Judge 6-1, 6-3 and Keppeler handled Connor Driscoll 6-1, 6-1. Daviau and Popp had the other point, overcoming a slow start in doubles for a 2-6, 6-4, 6-4 decision over Connor Jones and Anthony Panasci.
East Syracuse Minoa managed just a single point in a 6-1 defeat to Cortland. Bryant Pham earned that point, defeating Ruvim Kostiv 6-3, 6-2, but the Purple Tigers claimed each of the other singles matches by 6-0, 6-0 margins. In the closest doubles match, Ben Houseman and John Kipping fell to Vadim Salashnyy and Luis Bruce 6-0, 6-4.
The Spartans also lost, 7-0, to Fulton on Friday, though John Kipping had a three-set singles match with the Red Raiders’ Bayley Raponi before taking a 6-2, 4-6, 6-0 defeat. Otherwise, Fulton won all of the matches in two sets.
In its season opener, Manlius-Pebble Hill lost, 5-0, to Pulaski, despite some close singles matches. Charlie Mann pushed in the opening set, but lost, 7-5, 6-3, to Matt Foederer, while Max Ward fell to Sarunyoo Thiemsri 6-4, 6-4. Keerthi Martyn had a 6-3, 6-0 defeat to Edward Sheats as both doubles matches were also lost in straight sets.
