The Boys’ Varsity Tennis Team took on Bedford on a sunny spring afternoon on Friday, May 4, at Robinson Elementary School. The Grey Ghosts easily cruised to a win over the Buccaneers, winning all five of the matches that were played.

In several of the matches, WA found themselves down early in the first set. These deficits did not seem to cause an issue for the Ghosts, who battled back to win the first set in every match.

“They’re good fighters out there. In tennis it doesn’t matter if you’re down in the beginning, you can always make a good comeback,” Head Coach Peter Paltsios said.

Though the first set was very close in every match, the second set varied in competitiveness. WA’s top singles player and senior, Saudip Manna, cruised to an easy second set win, as his opponent could not even win a game against him in the final set. Following Manna, Westford’s duo of seniors, Matthew Vlach and Shray Gurtata, easily won their second set to help WA grab two early wins.

The next match also resulted in a win for the Ghosts, though it was closer than the previous two. Sophomore Oliver Davey won his singles match after digging himself out of early holes in both sets. At one point he won 15 out of 19 points to erase a deficit and win the set.

“Once he got on a run, he just kept going. […] It was nice for Oliver, I’m happy for Oliver,” Paltsios said of Davey’s comeback.

The other doubles pair for WA was also losing early in both sets before getting things back on track and winning their match. The duo of junior Kartik Prakash and sophomore Thomas Welham helped get Westford another win.

“I knew that we could win, and we were just playing bad, so if we just started playing better then we’d be fine,” Welham said.

In the first set, Bedford was up five games to two, but Prakash and Welham battled back to win the set. Again in the second set, WA was down four to three but ended up winning six to four.

“We weren’t playing our best, but when we started not playing terrible, we came back and won,” Welham said.

The final match of the day was the only one to make it past the minimum two sets. Junior Eric Han lost a down-to-the-wire second set, which extended the match. After going back and forth with the Bedford player, Han eventually won to give Westford a sweep against Bedford.

Players on both sides in each match expressed frustration at one point or another. Whether it was after a bad shot on their part or a questionable call by their opponent, players were visibly annoyed during the match, and had to work to manage their emotions while staying focused.

“It’s an emotional sport. […] Probably the only thing we do as a coach is to keep the kids under control. We’re more of a babysitting service,” Paltsios said.

Paltsios was very pleased with his team’s performance, and he hopes to continue to build off it while moving deeper into the season.

“It was a good victory. Bedford was a lot tougher than we thought they were going to be, but it was a good overall victory,” Paltsios said.

The team has its next match on Monday, May 7, against Boston Latin away from home.