The Deerfield boys junior varsity tennis team (0-1) started the season with a tough 6-1 loss on the road at the Cardigan Mountain School on April 9th. The cold and rainy weather forced the match indoors and also resulted in only 7 matches counting towards the final count instead of the usual 9.
The doubles matches were all close, with the #2 team of Ashish Sharma ’24 and Andy Chen ’25 pulling out a close, 8-6 win and Nikhil Lebaka ’24 and Preyas Sinha ’24 losing a tight match at #3, 6-8. It all came down to the #1 doubles team of Jack Willett ’23 and Finn Knight ’25, who were tied at 5 all with both teams watching. Cardigan swept the final 3 games to win 8-5 and give the home team a 2-1 lead heading into the singles matches.
With the match hanging in the balance, Deerfield got off to a tough start with the singles matches. At #4, Theo Lewis ’24 lost in straight sets, 0-6, 1-6 and then at #3, Knight also lost in straight sets 1-6, 3-6 to seal the win for Cardigan. At #2, Alex Ayres ’24 took the match into a 3rd set tiebreaker, but eventually fell 5-7. Willett played a tough match at #1 and had several great winners and serves, but lost as well. Eddy Rena ’24 played well in an exhibition match, winning 6-0, 6-0.
The boys JV tennis team will be back in action on April 16th, with a home match against Taft at 3:30 pm.