Menlo-Atherton boys' tennis has inside track to a 12th straight Bay title

While the winning streak was snapped in 2020, the Bears still had an 11-year run of winning the PAL Bay Division title still intact. There was no league champion in 2020 or 2021, but M-A is line for a 12th straight Bay Division title after beating previously unbeaten Carlmont 4-3 Wednesday afternoon in Atherton.

“I know how close Carlmont and M-A are in boys’ and girls’ tennis,” said M-A head coach Tom Sorenson. “I’m eager for the rematch.”

On paper, the match was close. The reality was, M-A (7-0 PAL Bay) won the first four matches off the court to win the team competition with three matches still being played.

In fact, all four Bears’ wins came during a roughly five- to seven-minute span, making the last 40 minutes of the day a formality.

Another reality? None of the matches were particularly close, with only No. 3 doubles going to a third set.

M-A won the first three singles spot and added the No. 1 doubles win for the team victory.

“I didn’t think the top three singles (matches) would be so one-sided,” Sorenson said. “It was over without any drama.”

Carlmont (5-1) won at No. 4 singles, as well as the No. 2 and 3 doubles — just as Sorenson predicted minutes after the match began.

M-A’s Daniyal Alvi got the winning going for the Bears at No. 2 singles, posting a 6-1, 6-2 victory. After winning the first set, Alvi jumped out to a quick 3-0 lead in the second. He won the third game, breaking at love. You knew it was Alvi’s day when he guessed right on a smash at the net, managed to chase it down and flip it into an empty back court to take the third-game win on his way to the straight set victory.

It wasn’t long after that Luke Jensen came off with a 6-1, 6-2 win at No. 1 singles. On match point, he spent the first half of the rally on the baseline. But when he stepped in to take a short return, Jensen came to the net when he used a couple of dazzling volleys to keep the point alive before Carlmont’s Daniel Arakaki dumped a return into the net.

At the conclusion of Jensen’s match, the Bears clinched the team win when the No. 1 doubles tandem of Ollie Novak and Mitchell Herbst posted a 6-2, 6-3 victory.

While high school tennis has a team component, it is still an individual event, so the Scots’ three remaining matches were opportunities to win, which they did.

Sorenson was impressed with Carlmont’s No. 4 singles player, Marcus Zhang, who won 6-3, 6-4. Featuring a one-handed backhand, Zhang has the game to be higher on the ladder, but is lacking some of the consistency necessary to compete there.

But Sorenson liked what he saw.

“He’s nearly as good as 2 and 3 singles,” Sorenson said. “He has a multi-faceted game.”

Carlmont’s No. 2 doubles team of Andrew Cruz and Ethan Htun also won in straight sets, 6-4, 6-4.

The only match that went to a third-set tiebreaker came at No. 3 doubles, where M-A’s Seb Jeantet and Jacob Conroy-Falk were making their second varsity appearance of the season as the Bears were missing half of both their No. 2 and No. 3 doubles team.

Jeantet and Conroy-Falk acquitted themselves well, taking the first set 6-4.

But the Carlmont duo of Jay Motamarry and Jake Levin rallied to take the win. They won the second set 6-4 and then held off the Bears in the super tiebreaker third set, 10-8.

Sorenson was so impressed by the performance of Jeantet and Conroy-Falk, he told them after the match that they would be in the mix for future starts.

“Their performance put all the cards back on the table as to who plays (in that No. 3 doubles spot),” Sorenson said.