Captain Rohan Gupta tosses the ball up, sending a killer serve over the net to his opponent. His opponent fails to return the ball, and Gupta cheers as he has just won the point.

This spring, the Men’s Tennis team has had a slow start to the season with a record of 12-0, according to Head Coach Larry Faulkner. Faulkner says he has never seen bad weather causing so many meets to be canceled in his 43 years of coaching men’s tennis at GBS.

“My least favorite memory is the weather,” Faulkner said. “It is certainly a record in terms of loss of meets and tournaments and kids having the opportunity to play and compete.”

Fortunately, the rain held out and allowed the boys to finish and win the Titan Invite for the first time since Gupta has been playing tennis at GBS, according to Gupta.

“[The highlight of the season so far] has been winning the Titan invite,” Gupta said. [It was] fun to win it as a team this year and actually finish it for the first time in my four years because it always gets rained out.”

Because the men have not been able to compete in many meets and tournaments, they have been focusing on improving their skills at practice, according to Faulkner. He says that he is not looking for them to improve drastically in one day, but wants to enhance their game over the course of the season.

“If you get one percent better everyday, then after 30 days you get a big improvement,” Faulkner said. “You’re not looking for huge jumps in improvement, but consistency in play and small amounts of improvements in pieces of the game. If you can do that, you get better by the end of the season.”

As captains, Gupta says  he and Jacob Adas also encourage their team to put in their best effort each practice.

“We try to push everyone, we try to make sure that everyone is trying their hardest,” Gupta said. “We try to get better everyday, and as long as no one is slacking off it’s easy to be a captain because it’s just having fun as a team.”

Adas says he has high hopes for the team once they enter playoffs. Finishing top 10 in state last season, Adas has no doubt they will be able to finish this season just as strong.

Agreeing with Adas, Faulkner believes the team will place high in state again this season. Even though the makeup of their team this year is very different Faulkner says this team is unique in their own way.

“Each team is unique, and this is certainly an excellent team.” Faulkner said. “There is a lot of inexperience and of teaching going on, and yet they are very talented.”