Allderdice tennis undefeated and on the rise

Allderdice tennis undefeated and on the rise

Friday, June 08, 2007

By Matt Hackney, Allderdice High School (City of Pittsburgh Schools)

Yet another successful season for Taylor Allderdice sports has ended, especially for our tennis team. The total number of consecutive years in which the Allderdice Tennis team has won the city championship has reached 36 with the closing of the 2007 season.

This year’s tennis squad was perfect in the team city championship, going 5-0: 3-0 for singles and 2-0 for doubles. Chris Morris and senior Evan Netzer completed the first pair, and Jake Rubenstein and Henry Netzer, both juniors, made the second duo. The singles champions were junior Arjun Iyengar and seniors Ryan Stept and Elan Mizrahi.

However, not only was the team perfect for cities, it also had an undefeated city league record during the regular season. Many people experienced in these matters, coaches and players alike, thought this particular team to be the best ever.

It remains to be seen if next year’s squad can be as successful. “If the incoming class is somewhat decent, we can be as good. But, it’ll be a stretch,” said junior Iyengar. “We’ll be a little worse, but not too much worse. We’ll still win cities next year.”

As a team, Allderdice unfortunately fell to Upper St. Clair 5-0 in the state’s qualifying match. To help ease the pain of defeat, Upper St. Clair ended as the runner-up team for the entire state of Pennsylvania.

For the individual championships, freshman Max Shmerin dominated the singles tournament, beating two of his own teammates, while Mizrahi and Stept took the doubles title. Shmerin is the first freshman to win the City League boys tennis individual championship in recent memory. He also qualified for the state championship, but lost in the first round despite playing very well during the match.

While the Allderdice team looks quite promising for the future with such talented young players as Shmerin, it will need more players of his caliber if it ever wants to actually compete on a state-championship level.

Also, with the loss of the senior leadership by Mizrahi, Ryan Stept, and Evan Netzer, this year’s juniors, Alex Abramson, Jake Rubenstein, Evan’s brother, Henry, and Iyengar will need to step it up and fill the leadership role. Another sibling with promise is Ryan Stept’s younger brother, Max, who is a freshman this year.

On the whole, there is nothing that can be complained about concerning this year’s performance. But then again, how many more city championships is Allderdice going to dominate before it presents an adequate force on the next level?