Update after press time:
Melrose falls to Wakefield 3-2 (April 11)
Melrose falls to Reading 3-2 (April 10)
Published April 11, 2025
By JENNIFER GENTILE
MELROSE—The Melrose High boy’s tennis team has kicked off their season with competitive tennis against some strong league and non-league teams. This Friday they will host Wakefield, as they look to pick up a key Freedom League win.
Melrose began its season on March 28 and fell to opponent Mystic Valley Charter, 1-4. Work was done by Daniel Teittinen at 1st singles, who lost 6-0, 6-0 to Jay Raj; Joseph Brady at 2nd singles, who lost 6-3, 6-2 to Wes Cunningham and Andy Wang at 3rd singles, who lost 6-1, 6-0 to Ethan Co. Melrose saw victory behind Gautik Singh and Alec Truesdale at 1st doubles, who won 6-4, 5-7, 6-4 against Ryan Co and Eli DeTore. In second doubles, Melrose’s Grady Kamosa and Colin Cote lost 6-3, 0-6, 10-8 to Nathan Tessema and Miguel McCurdy.
“Mystic Valley has a very strong singles line-up and they outplayed us in all three matches,” says Melrose head coach Sam Stallings. “I was happy with both of our doubles pairings. One of them came out with a close win, one came out with a close loss…sometimes that’s just the way it goes.”
He pointed to the solid work of Gautik Singh and Alec Truesdale. “They were clutch when they needed to be and were able to serve out the match at 5-4 in the third set, winning four straight points on Alec’s serve. Grady and Colin fought hard and won the second set 6-0. I felt if they got to play out the third set, they would’ve won. Unfortunately, the match was already in hand for MV and they lost a close tiebreaker for the third set.”
Just days later on April 2, Melrose had some stiff competition in the form of Belmont and fell 0-5 to the Marauders. One highlight was in 3rd singles, when Melrose’s Anatoly Heimowitz debuted. “He stepped up for us and played in one of his first varsity matches and gave us a good effort,” says the coach. Melrose also saw work from Andy Wang who played 2nd doubles with Colin Cote. “Belmont was stronger than us at every position. Definitely one of the stronger teams in our league, they had some solid freshmen at varsity,” notes Stalling.
And last Thursday, Melrose traveled to Cambridge Rindge and Latin for a match against the 2-0 Falcons. While they lost, they enjoyed seeing Reedam Pokharel in third singles and an earned victory by Joseph Brady in second singles, 6-3, 7-5. Melrose was competitive in both doubles’ teams. “Gautik and Alec had leads at 1st doubles in both sets, but unfortunately were not able to hold onto them,” says Stallings. “And Joseph had a tough opponent but played in complete control the entire match…I was very impressed. Easily the best match I’ve seen Joseph play, and our goal is for him to play at that baseline level for us going forward.”
Overall, Melrose has enjoyed moments of promise in their early season but would like to see some collective success. “I’m happy with the guys that we have playing Varsity,” he says. “Our 0-3 record right now is the result of playing some strong opponents and also being a bit off in terms of team performance. We’re not quite where we want to be. We need guys at all five matches to play well to succeed as a team. I think we’ve learned from our losses. We’ll have some good tests in the next week or so when we play teams like Reading, Wakefield, and Burlington. I’m excited to see how the boys compete against these teams…if we show a complete team effort, we can get on the winning side of things.”
Check out Melrose in action this Friday afternoon at 4:15 p.m. as they host Wakefield at Lyons Court in Melrose,