Derek Austin and Daniel Landa of St. Ignatius had to be feeling pretty confident heading into the doubles quarterfinals at the Central Coast Section tennis finals held last week at the Imperial Courts in Aptos.
After all, the SI pair had entered the tournament as the third-seeded team, and they opened with a 6-4, 7-6 win over Jackson Lingane and Alex Buckley of Crystal Springs.
As it turns out, though, the two Wildcats didn’t know that Lynbrook’s Satyojit Simhadsri and Matthew Ma had plans of spoiling their day.
The two Vikings, unseeded heading into the finals, pulled off the upset of the tournament with a 6-3, 7-6 victory over the two Cats to move into the May 20 semifinals.
For a while, it appeared that Simhadsri and Ma were going to continue their magic in their semi match against No. 1-seeded Gunther Matta and Vikram Chari Menlo School. Matta and Chari won 6-1 in the first set, but Simhadsri and Ma battled back to win the second 6-4 to force a third and deciding set. In a hard-fought battled, Matta and Chari managed a 6-4 win to take the match and earn the spot in the CCS finals against No. 2 seed Ajai Shekhera and Issa Yoshida of Westmont. The SI duo nailed a 7-5, 6-1 win over the two Warriors to clinch the CCS crown.
Still, it was Simhadsri and Ma who stole the show in the earlier rounds. After opening with a 6-0, 6-3 over unseeded Brandon Kim and Justin Kim of Leland, the Lynbrook twosome surprised Austin and Landa to get into the semi- final round.
Unseeded Chirag Narayanakere and Guatam Bulusu of Cupertino almost matched the showing of their Lynbrook counterparts. The Pioneer pair opened the tourney with a tough three-set win over unseeded Ian McGowan and Josh Leopold of Bellarmine, winning 6-0, 4-6, 7-6, to move into the quarterfinals against No. 4 seed Erik Ratta and Matt Tripaldi of St. Francis.
The Lancers won the first set in a 7-6 squeaker, but the Pioneer tied things up with a 6-3 win. But Narayanakere and Bulusu, playing in their sixth set of the day, lost 6-0 to fall out of the tournament.
Ratta and Tripaldi lost their next match to Westmont’s Shekhera and Yoshida, leaving the Lancers in a third-place tie with Lynbrook’s Simhadsri and Ma.
Unseeded Aditya Singh of Cupertino lost his first-round match 6-1, 6-1 to No. 1 seed Riley Scott of Robert Louis Stevenson in the singles competition. Scott went on to play Bellarmine’s Andrew Ton for the CCS title, but lost 2-6, 6-4, 6-2.
Gymnastics
Sophomore Tara Seto finished 12th in the all-around and freshman Violet Williams was 13th to lead the Cupertino girls to a team third at the CCS gymnastics championships held on May 20 in South San Francisco.
The Pioneers finished with 146.850 points, good for third behind St. Francis (152.725) and Lowell (151.175). Mountain View was a close fourth at 146.225.
Seto finished 14th on both the uneven bars (9.250) and the balance beam (9.450) on her way to 37.325 points in the all-around, and Williams tied for 11th in the vault (9.125) and was 12th on the uneven bars (9.325), helping her finish with 37.175 all-around points.
Juniors Poonam Varkhedi and Mavis Tsoi and senior Geni Jensen rounded out the top five for the Pioneers at the CCS finals.
Yuki Igarashi, Donaji Espitia, Barbara He, Monica Borba, Megumi Rueth, Julia Zaratan and Edie Ye were other members of the Cupertino squad.
