Photos by Steve Galluzzo
Tennis player Neel Joshi entered the City Section Individual singles tournament on a roll, having advanced to the semifinals of the Boys 16 Division at Ojai and sweeping his three sets in the City team finals.
On May 16, the Palisades High sophomore found himself matched against teammate Jex Frankel in the final and friendship was temporarily put on hold as they traded groundstrokes for 90 minutes before Joshi hit a scorching passing shot down the line to complete a 6-4, 6-4 win.
“Mentally I’ve been m a groove and I’ve improved my forehand and my serve this year,” said Joshi, who upset second-seeded Kristian Sharma from Granada Hills 6-3, 7-6 (4) in the semifinals the day before. “I was only broken once today. A perfect point is finishing at the net so that’s what I tried to do.”
Frankel, a senior committed to Wesleyan, was playing in his third consecutive singles final. He beat Rocco Melendez of Granada Hills 6-0, 6-0 as a sophomore in 2021 and lost to teammate Michael Kaplan 6-3, 6-1 last spring.
“Neel had my off balance all day,” said Frankel, the No. 1 seed in the 32-player draw. “It would’ve been nice to get another singles title but I’m passing the torch and the program will be strong next year too.”
The doubles final pitted top-seeded Todd Valkov and Aidan Adham of Palisades against No. 2 Christian Camarillo amd David Tinajero of Granada Hills. The Highlanders’ duo trailed 5-2 in the third set but rallied to tie it 6-6 and took a 6-0 lead in the ensuing tiebreaker. However, Palisades’ pair reeled off six straight points to pull even but lost 8-6, keeping the Dolphins from netting a fourth straight triple crown (team, singles and doubles titles in one year). Palisades’ Max May and Zach Cohen took third place.
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