Shritan Gopu had the highest ambitions as a freshman on the High School South boys tennis team.
The first three years didn’t finish the way he’d envisioned, but going unbeaten to win the Group 3 state championship this spring in his final season was worth the wait.
“I knew that we would be here, but I didn’t know that it was going to take this long,” Gopu said. “I’m definitely glad that it happened.”
Gopu’s development into a nearly unbeatable third singles player was a huge part of the Pirates’ success.
His improvements through the years were put to the test on the biggest stage when WW-P South lost their regular second singles’ Prahalad Dharma to injury after beating High School North, 4-1, for the Central Jersey Group 3 title to advance to the Group 3 state semifinals.
The Pirates had to move Gopu up to second singles and slide in Karthik Buddhjidnesh, a normal alternate, to the third singles spot.
It was no issue against Mainland in a 5-0 sweep in the semifinals with Kokulnath Ramasamy winning at first singles and Gopu and Buddhidnesh handling their promotions. Rohan Ramachandran and Shriyan Kumar won at first doubles and Rohit Datta and Rishabh Shekdar took their second doubles match to put the Pirates into the final.
Later that same day, Gopu and the Pirates got a far tougher challenge from a familiar foe — Millburn. The Millers had beaten the Pirates in the state final in each of the previous two years.
“Every single time we lost to them, we were even more motivated to beat them the next time,” Gopu said. “Last year we really wanted to beat them, but we couldn’t pull through.”
The Pirates were tested in every flight with three of the five flights going to third-set 10-point tiebreakers and another finishing in a tiebreaker in the second set.
Gopu was the first player to win a point for South when he defeated Jake Li. Gopu lost the first set, 6-2, but rallied to win the second set, 6-3 to force a tiebreaker. Unlike major tournament tennis, the high school season uses a 10-point tiebreaker in the third set to shorten the length of the match.
“I think the difference is definitely you don’t have as many points to play around with,” Gopu said. “You have to make the least number of mistakes, that’s the exact thing that’s important. For me in 10 pointers, what has always worked is getting the first couple of points straight and getting that rhythm, kind of breaking the opponent down.”
Gopu won the tiebreaker set, 10-6. The second doubles tandem of Shekdar and Datta won, 6-4, 7-6 (7-5) and Buddhidnesh won 6-3, 7-5 at third singles to earn their first state championship since 2018 and seal a 25-0 season.
“It was definitely unreal at first that we were basically the most decorated team in South history,” Gopu said. “We were all talking about it. We’ve never gone undefeated. We’ve never won the state championship and gone undefeated.”
“So all the other tournaments that we’ve also won this year, they’ve all piled up and helped us kind of gain that confidence going through,” he said.
Wins earlier in the year in the Moorestown Classic, the Bryan Bennett Memorial Tournament and the Blue Devil Invitational had helped reaffirm the expectations they had dreamed of going into the year.
“That big Bryan Bennett tournament, that was a big test right in the beginning of the season because we’re playing against some of the best teams in the state,” said Pirates coach Rich Arnold.
“This was an early test and our lineup was still getting formulated so that was one we got thrown to the wolves right away and they came through, and we were the number one seed. I said, oh, geez, now we’ve really got the pressure on us,” said the coach.
The Pirates were built to handle it with five seniors in their lineup. The experience was a big benefit that carried them through the season up and down the lineup. Kumar and Ramachandran, for instance, reached the state doubles final before falling to Ridgewood.
Gopu transformed himself into a nearly guaranteed point in the Pirates lineup. He lost just once on their way to the state championship. Gopu then lost following their state tournament a few days later to Li in a rematch in the state singles tournament second round, but when it counted most for South, Gopu got the job done.
“He stepped up at the right time,” Arnold said.
Gopu said he never doubted his ability or that of his teammates. The Pirates had enough firepower even without their normal lineup.
“At the end of the day, we know what we’re made of,” Gopu said. “And if you go in without confidence, you’re not going to play good. So you’re going in with that confidence and then you show them what you got. That was the entire thing. The lineup doesn’t bother us too much, mostly because we knew how deep our team was.
“We definitely trusted our third singles going in and trusted me too. After that first set against Millburn, it was a little shaky, but I managed to pull it off.”
Being able to do so in the biggest moment showed some of the development that Gopu needed to become such a vital part of the Pirates lineup. As a freshman, he was an alternate doubles player, not even in the varsity lineup.
“I definitely had a long, long journey up to here,” he said. “I definitely worked my butt off. I put in so much effort and I can’t really say it was anything else. It was mostly my coach, I guess, who pushed me to get to this level, working with him was a great time and then working with Coach Arnold and the assistant coach, Coach (Dan) Sierzega.”
Arnold said he was impressed with how much Gopu grew in his career. He figured a way to spend more quality time on his tennis training and he mixed in other athletic training to help his strength and stamina. He also listened to his coaches who wanted him to let up on some of his power to keep the ball in play.
“Shritan has made a rapid improvement from sophomore to junior to senior year,” Arnold said. “His freshman year, he was up right on the cusp of playing varsity, but he played JV. But somehow the people he was working with really got him much better in all aspects. And he improved dramatically going from JV to last year he had a great year too, and the year before too.”
But what will stand out the most is how his high school career ended. Next year, he will be studying toward becoming a computer engineer at the University of Washington.
He plans to try out for their men’s tennis team, though might also consider being their team manager or playing club tennis. He’ll be coming with a resume that includes helping the Pirates claim a championship to cap a season of big wins.
“It meant a lot,” Gopu said. “Obviously, ending with this good of a season isn’t really heard of very often so definitely being with the team every single match almost and getting every single win, each win was just a step to the last and the last one was definitely the most meaningful one because it was like a culmination of all of our efforts combined throughout all four years.”
(Wikimedia Commons image.),
