By: Rich Fisher
Considering that 75 percent of the South Brunswick High tennis losses were to East Brunswick this year, Tuesday’s 4-1 loss to the Bears in the NJSIAA Central Jersey Group IV tournament should come as no surprise.
But the Vikings were able to take a positive from that match, as first singles player Rohan Patkar defeated Ross Kohn, 6-2, 7-6. It was Patkar’s first win over Kohn in three tries this year, and could serve as a confidence booster when the junior begins play in the NJSIAA singles tournament on June 4.
"Ro was very excited, his goal was to beat Ross Kohn," coach Nancy McDonald said. "He had a good day, and he had been sick all weekend. I didn’t know what I would get from him. He didn’t even play a match since Thursday."
The loss to EB left the Vikings at 14-4 entering Wednesday’s match with St. Joe’s. Three of those losses came to the Bears and the other was to Mercer County power West Windsor-Plainsboro South.
Regardless of the St. Joe’s outcome, the Vikes will finish in second place in the Greater Middlesex Conference’s Red Division at either 11-3 or 12-2.
Despite EB getting in the way all the time the Bears won the Red Division, beat out runnerup SBHS in the GMC tournament and eliminated South from the states it is still a tremendous year for a team with just two seniors.
Last Friday, the Vikings defeated perennial nemesis J.P. Stevens in straight sets, as Patkar, Arjun Sapra and Najeeb Hussain won at singles and Steven Yu-Abe Alexander and Brian Binder-Shuang Yang won at doubles.
"We had won in straight sets everywhere but second doubles, that went three sets," McDonald said. "That was really a first for us to beat J.P. twice in a season. That kind of gives you an idea of the growth of our team from top to bottom."
Last Thursday, South Brunswick won 5-0 over Franklin in the first round of the state tournament.
"They weren’t a bad team, but we’re just that next level above," McDonald said. "They’re in Somerset County, and they don’t play an extremely strong schedule. Their singles players were very good, but when it comes to consistency, our singles players were head over heels better."
Prior to the EB match, South played a make-up with Sayreville on Monday, and McDonald had a chance to give some other players a chance. Vignesh Chandramouli won at third singles, while Binder-Yang won at first doubles and Alexander-Sandy Tumma prevailed at second in a 3-2 victory.
All that remains on the schedule is the state individual tournaments, with Patkar playing Montclair-Kimberly’s Patrick Cedowski at noon at Mercer County Park in West Windsor, and Yu-Alexander meeting a team from Kingsway at 4 p.m. at Veterans Park in Hamilton.
"I don’t know much about either of them," McDonald said. "I’ll have to do some investigating."

