In New Jersey high school tennis, a team’s singles players can swing matches. There are three singles courts and only two doubles courts in varsity contests. So, if you sweep the singles courts, you win the match.
South Brunswick High School is a perennial girls’ tennis power in the Greater Middlesex Conference, but the Vikings are breaking in three new singles players this year, so the team is more of a question mark than it has been in recent years.
Coach John Lolli’s team won the GMC Red Division in 2016 and 2017 and the GMC tournament in 2016. To earn another trophy in 2018, the Vikings’ singles players will have to become varsity dynamos.
Freshman Divya Venkatarama, junior Gabriella Iordache and freshman Jenya Pandu are off to a pretty good start. All three players won their first two varsity matches, helping South Brunswick to 5-0 victories over Old Bridge High School on Sept. 4 and New Brunswick High School on Sept. 6.
Iordache and Pandu did, however, suffer their first losses against J.P. Stevens High School on Sept. 14, in a 4-1 team loss for the Vikings. Venkatarama was the only Vikings player to stay undefeated, beating J.P. Stevens’ top singles player Srinithi Kannan 6-4, 6-1.
“They are all very strong-minded players, and athletic,” Lolli said. “And our doubles is filled with experience from players who played last year. So I think we’ll make a strong showing.”
One of South Brunswick’s first doubles players is senior captain Christina Fernandes. She played singles last year, but fell back to doubles during challenge matches. Her year as a singles player made her a much better doubles player.
“Honestly I do like doubles more than singles because my first two years of high school I played doubles. Singles was a bit more pressure because you’re playing alone,” Fernandes said. “But it was a different experience that taught me a lot of new things. I get to use a lot of the stuff I learned in singles for doubles. Consistency, mainly. In doubles you have to be consistent cross-court. When playing singles, I had to be consistent with every ball.”
Fernandes has seen results from her improved play. The captain and her doubles partner, junior Michelle Foong, won their first two matches this year, though they did lose to J.P. Stevens’ first doubles team.
South Brunswick’s second doubles team consists of two juniors, Saniya Bagewadi and Shreya Polkampally. They are also off to a good start, winning their first two matches but losing the third to J.P. Stevens.
It’s an interesting lineup. Young singles players and veteran doubles players. But Lolli thinks these Vikings can maintain the program’s standard from the last two years.
“If we can play on a consistent basis, we have the talent to be extremely competitive,” he said.
The crucial freshmen singles players are working toward elite varsity play.
“It’s really fun and challenging because I have to play kids older than me who have done it before,” Pandu said. “I’m constantly finding myself at a starting disadvantage but then I come back.”
“High school tennis is really fun for me so far. I haven’t been feeling any pressure so far,” Venkatarama said. “I’ve just kind of been playing and it’s been working out. It wasn’t stressful.”