On Tuesday March 21, the Richard Montgomery boys tennis team traveled to Poolesville High School for their first game of the season. Starting off strong, they took a decisive win over the Falcons, 7-0.

Despite being a clean sweep, the Falcons played exceptionally well, keeping the pressure on the Rockets at all times and forcing them to play their best tennis. The Rockets got off to a strong start in singles with all four singles players easily winning the first set.

However, second singles sophomore Matt Kleiman suddenly began to see his opponent play improve drastically. Poolesville’s second singles Samuel Zhou began to hit more consistently and win many more points. The rallies began to become more drawn out and the atmosphere intensified. Soon, the score in the second set had become tied 5-5.

With the pressure building up, Kleiman regained some of his confidence and started dominating most of their points. He finished his match with a score of 6-2 7-5.

Meanwhile, first singles sophomore Justin Song easily finished his match with a score of 6-0 6-1, and third and fourth singles, junior Oheneba Boateng and freshman Jason Yu won their matches 6-2 6-3 and 6-0 6-2, respectively.

The doubles matches, however, were much closer. Despite third doubles, sophomore Matt Kolodner and freshman Max Deng, winning their match 6-2 6-1, both first and second doubles had extremely difficult matches. The first doubles team of juniors Shoham Ghosh and Ethan Do started of their match slow, falling behind 5-2 in the first set. Despite being only one game away from a first set loss, Ghosh and Do refused to concede. They began to hit more consistently and stopped going for too many risky shots. With each game they won, they gained more and more confidence and the momentum began to change in their favor.

Although Poolesville had multiple set points, the Rockets first doubles squad remained positive and ended up winning 5 games in a row to win the first set 7-5. Afterwards, Ghosh and Do easily took the second set 6-2 for another win for the Rockets.

In contrast to the first doubles team, second doubles, juniors Ryan Choi and Jonathan Huang started off the match strong but struggled as it progressed into the second set. Choi and Huang effortlessly won the first set 6-2, but saw a comeback by their opponents in the second. Even though they fought hard, they lost a grueling second set 7-5. Now having split sets, they entered a tiebreaker to decide the match. Choi and Huang regrouped during the break and came back onto the court with the vigor and spirit they had displayed in the first set. Taking the lead early on in the tiebreaker, Choi and Huang finally won an exhausting match against Poolesville, 6-2 5-7 7-4.

Featured photo by Kevin Pan.