Raj Shah (Colonia) beat Johnathan Martinez (New Brunswick) with a score of 8:2 during the preliminary singles game at the GMC.
Shah was seeded 10th out of first singles players, and played against Johnathan Martinez of New Brunswick, who seeded 23rd., Shah’s win led him on to play Anjor Tripathi of Piscataway, who was seeded 7th of 1st singles players. At the time of this game, Shah had a record of 4:4, and had lost his past three games consecutively. Martinez held a 4:3 record, and had won his past few games.
On the day of the match, Shah and Martinez played at court 7, and after ten minutes of practicing, were ready to start their game. There was an initial delay, however, as a scorecard was not provided to them, and Martinez was sent to retrieve one.
Once the match started, the abilities of both players seemed fairly equal. The score tied at 1:1, and they reached deuce both times. During the first two games, a significant number of double faults were observed. One from Shah, and two from Martinez – who went on to double fault again later on in the game. Most likely, this was from the stress of competing on such a high level at the GMC, and it was clear that this stress faded as the game continued. The most common problem for both players at the beginning of the game was overshooting the court.
The game stated very close, but it appeared that Shah had more of an advantage as the game progressed. The only time Shah had seemed to have been at a disadvantage was during Martinez’s second and final point. In the span of one minute, Martinez had already brought the score to love-40 with a series of quick, accurate hits. Shah had succeeded in raising the score to deuce, but ultimately lost the point.
However, from that point on, Shah dramatically improved and won each point until the end of the game. As the score for Shah was increasing, Martinez was becoming equally disheartened. One notable instance of this was when Martinez had forgotten the score while serving, and had to have Shah remind him of the score. As even more of an indication, Martinez had gotten the score backwards while serving, leading Shah to correct him again.
Local spectators commented that while Shah was a great player, he doesn’t move around the court as much as he should — missing shots that would be in his range if he ran. Additionally, Martinez was given criticism as well for losing focus and interest halfway through the match.
“Raj has progressively gotten better and better every single match,” says CHS boys tennis instructor, Richard Kondrk, “The more experience he gets in singles, the better he gets.”
