Syosset girls tennis defeats Garden City for Nassau large school championship
Manami Wakazono of Syosset, right, and teammate Sanam Mehta react as they close in on victory in first doubles during the Nassau girls tennis large schools team championship against Garden City at Hofstra on Tuesday, Oct. 31, 2023. Credit: James Escher
Garden City wrote a fascinating Cinderella story during this girls tennis season. Syosset penned its final chapter on Tuesday.
Top-seeded and undefeated Syosset flexed its depth and chemistry to halt the scintillating run of the upstart seventh-seeded Trojans with 4-3 win in the Nassau County large school championship match at Hofstra.
Syosset (17-0) is scheduled to meet Suffolk titlist Half Hollow Hills East (16-1) in Wednesday’s 3 p.m. Long Island championship at Hofstra for a spot in Friday’s state semifinals at the USTA National Tennis Center.
The path to victory for Syosset was going to be capturing all four doubles contests. The path to victory from Garden City — its formula in the quarterfinals and semifinals — was to ride its star power to three singles wins and a first doubles triumph. And where those paths met stood Manami Wakazono and Sanam Mehta of Syosset.
Wakazono, a senior, and Mehta, a junior, showed poise under great pressure by warding off a late charge to post a 6-3, 6-4 triumph over ninth-grader Angelina Bravo and eighth-grader Chelsea Ching of the Trojans at first doubles in what was unquestionably the match that all eyes were on.
After winning the first set, they built a 5-2 lead only to watch Bravo — half the Nassau County individual doubles titlist — and Ching take the next two games. Mehta finally served out for the set, punctuated by a Wakazono overhead slam.
“There was so much pressure on us today and Garden City had all these good players,” Wakazono said. “I know good Angelina is from [last weekend’s] ‘states’ and when they made it close I tried not to let it get in my head.”
“There was pressure but we also knew what we had,” Mehta said. “We have chemistry and we play a game that [accentuates] each other’s strengths.”
First doubles was not Syosset’s only rough patch en route to the title. A wrinkle developed early in the second doubles match when Garden City’s Ellie Morgan and Sylvia Diaz took the first set from Syosset’s Julia Isham and Diya Varma.
Isham, a sophomore, and Varma, an eighth-grader, got up after the stumble. They rolled the rest of the way to a 4-6, 6-1, 6-1 win that finally clinched Syosset’s victory.
“After that first set, we were like ‘we are not losing this,’” Varma said. “When everything is at stake, you don’t want to lose. I can lose alone, but this is a team and everyone is depending on each other.”
“We lost that set but we knew we had to pull through,” Isham said. “It was time to mess things up."
Taylor Weinstock and Selena Wang and Ava Weinstock and Manasi Pradhan won doubles matches in straight sets for Syosset. For Garden City (17-1), state singles champion Nina Wiese, Sofia Kedrin and Kalya Castellano — the other half of the county doubles champion — all won singles matches in straight sets.
The Trojans took on a team-of-destiny look as they came out of less-prestigious Conference II and stunned a pair of Conference I favorites to reach the final. They looked even more formidable with county individual titles from Wiese in singles and Bravo and Castellano in doubles. But Syosset found something to use in that.
“I told my players ‘we’re the underdog — everyone is on the Garden City train’ and tried to use reverse psychology and make it work for us,” Syosset coach Shain Fisher said. “They deserve all their accolades but with all the hype around one team, I’m taking [pressure] off. ‘Hey, we’re not supposed to win.’ I hope it worked . . . to our advantage.”
“No one saw us coming and we had fun doing what we did,” Castellano said. “I couldn’t have hoped for a better senior season.”
Roger Rubin returned to Newsday in 2018 to write about high schools, colleges and baseball following 20 years at the Daily News. A Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2011, he has covered 13 MLB postseasons and 14 NCAA Final Fours.
