After over two hours of playing on April 5, the Paly versus Homestead boys’ tennis match came down to one game. It was between
Paly freshmen Dan Schwartz and a senior from Homestead, at No. 4
singles.

Schwartz defeated his opponent in their previous meeting, but this was a new game. Schwartz won the first game 6-3, but lost the second 1-6. Midway through their third set, they were the only players still on the court. Eventually, it was Homestead who prevailed, winning the third set 6-1.

Paly boys’ tennis lost to Homestead with the same overall score they
had against Homestead earlier in the season, 3-4. After this loss,
Paly’s record weakened to 3-7.

"I thought we played well, but just could not win the third setters,"
head coach Andy Harader said. "That is just a matter of experience."

The Paly tennis team was finally able to play after a week of
continuous rain. They were originally to play rival Gunn, but played a rescheduled match against Homestead instead.

At the No. 1 singles position for Paly was sophomore Kushal Tantry.
His opponent was Homestead’s Chris Ho, ranked 8th in NorCal in the 16’s and under age group.

The first game was Tantry’s service game, which he lost by double
faulting the last point. After three games, the score was 1-2 for
Tantry. However, he lost the next four. Tantry lost 1-6 the first set. During the second set, Tantry was down 1-5 before he had a run.
Despite being bothered by a sore ankle, Tantry managed to rally his
way back to 4-5. However, it was not enough to win. Tantry lost the
second set 5-7.

No. 2 singles player, Andy Spangler, lost against Homestead’s Sam Ling 0-6, 0-6, while Sam Wong, at No. 3 singles, defeated his opponent easily with a score of 6-1, 6-1. Paly won two of the three doubles matches. No. 1 doubles won 6-1, 7-5, while No. 3 doubles had a default win after leading 4-3, when Homstead’s player injured his ankle.

With only five schedule games remaining in the season, Harader thinks
that the rest of the season will be tough.

"We face the top teams in our league," Harader said. "They are also
some of the top teams in NorCal."

Paly’s next home match is against Los Gatos at 3:30 p.m. on April 6.